NJ Education Report

Charter School Update: The Star-Ledger, in an article today, refers to “the Christie administration’s increasingly firm stance against low-performing charters.” In that context,

the trustees of the Paul Robeson Charter School in Trenton have agreed to resign their posts and turn over the low-performing school to Scholar Academies, a non-profit based in Philadelphia.  Scholar Academies, reports the Star-Ledger, runs other successful charters and will also open the Trenton Scholars Charter School in September.

The DOE has announced that it will shut down Schomburg Charter School in Jersey City, which has been “beset in recent years by budget woes, declining enrollment, and dismal academic performance.”

The Press of Atlantic City reports that the DOE has also decided to not renew the charter for PleasanTech Charter School, which will close at the end of June. PleasanTech officials are appealing the decision. “Some parents have said they do not want to place their child in the regular public schools and are looking at other charter schools in the area. But those schools are not likely to have enough room for all of the more than 500 PleasanTech children.”

NJ Spotlight reports on the status of competing Senate and Assembly tenure reform bills after education committee meetings in both houses were postponed on Monday. Senator Teresa Ruiz, architect of the more aggressive bill, says that her committee will meet this week and that tenure reform is “going to happen this year, at least in my committee it will.” Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, proponent of the weaker bill, said that he hopes for consensus between the two bills.

The Courier-Post has a follow-up to the case of the special education teacher who called one of his students a “’tard” and told him that he will “kick your ass from here to kingdom come.” While Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin said that “dismissal would be too severe a penalty,” the Bankbridge Regional School in Deptford is appealing its case to Ed. Comm. Chris Cerf.  See NJLB coverage here.

See NJ Spotlight for the dearth of superintendents in NJ’s poor urban districts: searches are on in Camden,  Jersey City, and Trenton (who just chose a superintendent, to Mayor Tony Mack’s chagrin).  In addition, “Paterson superintendent Donnie Evans is working under a one-year contract with the state, while Perth Amboy superintendent Janine Caffrey is in open warfare with her board.”

Wayne Public Schools will start charging community groups for use of athletic fields to raise some cash. The Record gives the decision a thumbs-up.