Crowd Turns Out To Comment on Charter School Expansion Plan

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RED BANK – The Red Bank Charter School has offered to slightly amend its expansion plan, but the deep and contentious divide that exists in the community was still apparent as community members again weighed in.
The Charter School provided a public forum Tuesday evening at its new S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) lab at 135 Monmouth St., where a couple of hundred people poured in, filling the room to capacity. Many offered their views on the plan currently before the commissioner of education to expand the school’s facility and enroll 200 additional students over three years, doubling its current student population.
Before the public began offering their opinions, Roger Foss, vice president of the charter school’s Board of Trustees, told the crowd the school has made an amendment to its initial proposal. Reading from a prepared statement, Foss said the charter school would like to reduce the number of students it adds in the first of the planned three-year growth. Now the school wants to add 60 new students in the school’s pre-K program and first grade.
In the following year the enrollment would increase by 80 students in the pre-K, third and fourth grades; in year three the school would grow by 80 students in the pre-K, sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
School officials initially sought to increase the school’s numbers by 120 in the first year, 40 in year two and another 40 in year three.
School officials sent this amendment to the Commissioner of Education David Hespe on Friday, Jan. 29 and the school has yet to receive a response, said Kevin King, parent of three charter school students who was serving as a volunteer school spokesman on Tuesday evening.

Meredith Pennotti, Principal/Administrator of Red Bank Charter School. Photo: John Burton
Meredith Pennotti, Principal/Administrator of Red Bank Charter School. Photo: John Burton

Foss, reading from the statement, said the changes in the expansion plan “were in the best interest of the children of Red Bank.
“We believe this change is necessary to make the adjustment more manageable while providing public school choice for Red Bank students and families given that the school is consistently at maximum enrollment with a persistent wait list.”
Foss did acknowledge, “We have heard the concerns regarding the growth of Red Bank School enrollment.”
And Foss and other school officials, who didn’t engage with the public, certainly heard from the audience, with many staunchly supporting the school and hoping for its future and others continuing to express their opposition to this plan.
Charter school representatives declined to participate in a Jan. 22 forum conducted at the district middle school. King said Tuesday’s forum at the school provided an opportunity for the public to offer its views, as well as to announce the change in the school’s plan.
Mayor Pasquale Menna convened a commission to study the expansion plan and to draft a report and the Jan. 22 gathering was intended to provide fodder for the report and information for the state Department of Education. That report, made public last week, strongly opposed the plan, believing it would greatly exacerbate what is already “the most segregated school district in New Jersey”; and would have a “devastating” impact on taxpayers and on the public school’s programs and staffing to pay for the expansion, which would be almost all paid for by the local school budget.
In the wake of that report the Greater Red Bank National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) agreed with the report’s assessment, sending a letter to the commissioner of education.
And on Tuesday evening, the Rev. Zaniel Young, who chairs the West Side Ministerium, a coalition of African American clergy, said his organization shares the NAACP’s concerns about the alleged damaging effects the expansion would have on the community. Young’s organization opposed the expansion plan.
“This stark difference,” Young said, pointing to the disparity in the student populations of both schools, with the charter school being majority white, “is extremely troubling.”
In response to reporters’ questions King addressed the segregation issue saying, “I will tell you the demographics of the charter school mirrors the population of the town.”
Many expressed their reservations, fears and anger over the plan to expand the charter school, accusing school officials of being “divisive,” “arrogant” and especially “dismissive” of public school students and faculty. And others continued to say they weren’t anti-charter school but felt the plan was unnecessary and would have lasting detrimental effects on the community. One woman said her son had been ostracized by his former charter school classmates who refused to play with him after she transferred her son to the middle school. That, she maintained, comes from the school administration and culture. She called for the resignation of the nine-member board of trustees and principal Meredith Pennotti.
“I feel the use of ‘choice’ is a disparaging term,” said Rumson-Fair Haven High School teacher and borough resident Kate Okeson, referring to what is usually said in support of charter schools. “Our town is wonderful.”
Red Bank Borough Councilman Edward Zipprich said he supports both the public schools and the charter and their families’ decisions. But, “When I hear people saying Red Bank is the most segregated school district in New Jersey,” he said, “that hurts me.” And he, too, opposes the plan because of the financial costs.
Stephen Hecht, in addition to expressing his opposition to the plan, was upset that school officials would not respond directly to people’s comments and questions.
“You are public employees. Have you no decency?” Hecht fired off to the officials. When he received no answer he replied “I guess you have no decency.”
Cristie Ritz-King, a school trustee and Kevin’s wife, moved to the borough and loved it for its small size and diversity. These were the same attributes that attracted her to the charter school. “It just felt right,” she said.
“How wonderful that I had that choice,” she said. She was supporting the expansion “for all those moms who would say ‘I’m glad we had that choice.’”
Other parents said in Spanish, which was translated, of the difference the school made for their children. “When my child came to the charter school she changed completely,” for the better, one dad said by way of a translator.
Jessica Hansen, a 12-year teacher at the school, told the crowd children perform well and embrace the school’s ethos of community involvement and service as well as the academic. But, that message may be lost on some because, “Living the charter way is something that can only be understood by those who live it every day.”
Many asked school officials to withdraw their application to the commissioner of education in Trenton. King said that has not been considered.
Commissioner of Education David Hespe is expected to make his decision sometime later this month.