Eviction Proceedings Started For Second Time; Will Regis Academy Lose Facility?

Camden Diocese Spokesman Peter Feuerherd has confirmed that on March 14, 2012 eviction proceedings were filed against Solid Rock Worship Center over the Holy Rosary Church complex, future home of the Regis Academy Charter School.  And this is not the first time.  An eviction lawsuit was settled in June of 2011 after Solid Rock failed to pay rent several months in a row.  This time around Mr. Feuerherd confirmed that Solid Rock is in arrears $20,000.


Adding fuel to the fire, I received an OPRA request today confirming that Regis Academy has yet to make the required corrections to the enrollment data that was submitted to the Office of Charter Schools on February 15th.  Lead Person Christian Barnes failed to provide the Office of Charter Schools with a district by district breakdown and instead just lumped all of the enrollment together.


Regis Academy has received not one, but THREE reminders from the Office of Charter Schools to submit the district by district breakdown.  Emails were sent on February 23rd and 28th and also on March 9th.  According to the NJDOE, as of today, the requested data has not been provided. Check it out:

No Enrollment Data From Regis


Between the eviction proceedings and the seeming refusal of Regis Academy to provide the district by district enrollment data as requested, it would seem that Amir Khan and Regis Academy are in a world of trouble.  


And it sure seems like Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf rolled the dice on the wrong charter application.  I can't help but think about how poorly the reviewers rated the application, yet somehow Cerf decided to give Regis Academy the green light.


And you wonder why I crack up when the NJDOE says things like this in a press release:

Under the Christie Administration, the Department has strengthened charter operations by:


Following a careful and stringent three-stage review and approval process for new charter school applicants to evaluate the quality of the proposed educational program, the capacity of the founding team to implement that program, and the need for the proposed school in the community. 


Except this really isn't funny at all and has very real consequences for the districts involved.

Cherry Hill has been forced to put aside almost $1,900,000 for this travesty.  And as reported in the Courier Post, as of February 15th, only five Cherry Hill students had submitted applications to attend Regis Academy.  


That comes to $380,444.67 per student.


Well, that seems fair.  

NJDOE Conducts A Careful And Stringent Approval Process? Now THAT Is Funny!

I had a bit of an outburst when I read this in today's NJDOE press release:


Under the Christie Administration, the Department has strengthened charter operations by:


Following a careful and stringent three-stage review and approval process for new charter school applicants to evaluate the quality of the proposed educational program, the capacity of the founding team to implement that program, and the need for the proposed school in the community. 


How then do they explain that Acting Commissioner Cerf, in the first round of applications he oversaw from start to finish, approved Regis Academy Charter School?  The same charter school that has managed to enroll only 37 students since Cerf approved it in September, while a petition urging the Governor and the Acting Commissioner to deny Regis it's final charter has gathered more than 2,000 signatures in 2 weeks.  Not to mention that the legislators representing Cherry Hill and Voorhees have come out against Regis and questions abound as to the real reasons for Regis' approval, especially when Regis' application wasn't well rated by reviewers. (Thanks Jazzman!)


Way to conduct a careful and stringent approval process that gauges the "need for the proposed school in the community" guys!


LOL

Regis Academy Districts… Ummm... Un-Expanded?

The Courier Post ran an article today stating that the NJDOE has denied Regis Academy Charter School's request to expand to districts other than Cherry Hill, Lawnside, Somerdale and Voorhees.  As I detailed in my last post, in a January 26th letter Amir Khan asked Deputy Commissioner Andy Smarick for permission to expand to other districts and gave estimated enrollment projections for the original four sending districts, as well as four more.  


Susan Bastnagle, Public Information Officer for the Cherry Hill Public Schools, confirmed in the article that just this week the NJDOE sent Cherry Hill a revised enrollment projection based on the numbers Khan proposed in the January 26th letter I received via OPRA.  

Bastnagel added that the district is still unsure of how to budget, because it received two more Regis enrollment projections from the DOE this week in addition to the original one of 169. This week’s numbers are 186, based on the district’s own enrollment data for the grades that would be operational at Regis this fall, and the 50 suggested by Khan. 

She said Cherry Hill Superintendent Maureen Reusche has asked the DOE which number it plans to use to determine the district’s payments to Regis, which are to begin July 15.

“We await the DOE’s guidance,” Bastnagel said.  (emphasis mine)

Really?  This is how the NJDOE functions?  The week before district budgets are due Cherry Hill gets not one but two enrollment projections and the NJDOE can't tell them which to use?  Based on the $1.9M for the original projection of 169 students, the NJDOE is telling Cherry Hill to budget somewhere between $562,100 for 50 kids or $2.1M for 186 kids.


Well, that's helpful. 

I have also confirmed with the Superintendent of Lawnside, Dr. Ronn Johnson, that Lawnside also received a revised enrollment projection based on Amir Khan's January 26th letter.  This ups Lawnside's total from $54,858 for 4 students to $262,112 for 20 students.  In 2010-2011 Lawnside had 283 students.  If Khan manages to enroll the 20 students he projects, that's 7% of Lawnside's student population and over 3% of their total budget based on the 2011-2012 projected budget numbers available on the districts website.

This makes it all the more ridiculous when Amir Khan is quoted in the Courier Post saying things like this:

Khan said he would like to open the school to students from other districts to help make the situation more palatable for Cherry Hill and Voorhees.

“It would ease the financial burden on them,” he said.

Especially when just two short months ago, in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled 

Even in Cherry Hill, schools fall short he said this:

The relatively affluent suburban school districts of Cherry Hill and Voorhees have nevertheless argued that because their students perform just fine on state tests, a charter school would be an unnecessary burden on their budgets. 

and this:

If 169 students decide to attend Regis next year, it will cost the Cherry Hill district a mere 1 percent of its budget. (emphasis mine)

Huh, doesn't sound like he is really too concerned about "easing the financial burden" on Cherry Hill schools, now does it?  In fact, it sounds like he feels entitled to that money somehow, and how dare those "affluent suburban school districts" fight back!  

And upping the ante for Lawnside sure isn't considerate of the financial burden on that small district.  

So why is Amir Khan asking the NJDOE to pull kids from other districts?  Could it have more to do with this?

The Cherry Hill district has learned, through an Open Public Records Act request, that just five of the applicants were from Cherry Hill as of Feb. 15.

FIVE!  Cherry Hill is being asked to budget perhaps as much as $2.1M for the 2012-2013 school year when in five months Regis Academy has received applications from FIVE students. 

Based on my original OPRA request I also received an email from the Office of Charter Schools to Amir Khan letting him know that the enrollment data he provided was not properly prepared and submitted.  The NJDOE requires a district by district breakdown of the enrollment, but Lead Person Christian Barnes only provided all ten districts on one spread sheet.  Here is the email:

Office of Charter Schools Email to Khan
I checked with the OPRA custodian yesterday and she said that to date they have not received a response from Regis Academy.


I guess we'll just have to take Amir Khan's word for it when he tells the Courier Post:

Khan said that as of Thursday, there were 65 applications in — just over 50 percent of them from the original four districts.

And don't miss this gem:

Our recruitment numbers are on track. In fact, we’re ahead of the game.


WHAT?!? 


Need I remind Amir Khan of the recruitment timeline in his own application?  Please see pages 126 and 127:
Regis Enrollement Timeline

So between a press release on October 10th and the initial enrollment submission on February 15th, Regis Academy was supposed to conduct Information Sessions throughout the region, post admission information, make applications available, and conduct three enrollment periods with lotteries if needed.  


What happened?  How did all those months of work only turn up 37 kids, and most of all, how does this demonstrate that Regis Academy is "on track?"  Sounds more like they have crashed into the bleachers...


Notice that after February 15th Regis is supposed to move on to hiring staff, notifying districts of transportation needs and adopting and submitting their budget to the NJDOE by the end of this month.  How in the world can they do this based on the enrollment of 37 students? 


Even if Amir Khan is being truthful when he states in the Courier Post that he now has "65 applications in — just over 50 percent of them from the original four districts," that still puts him back to about 37 students!


Also notice that June 1st is the final day for late enrollments.  If Regis needs 90% enrollment from it's four host districts to get it's final charter, that means they will need to enroll another 188 kids between now and June 1st.    


Now here is the $64,000 question.  If the NJDOE denied Amir Khan's request to expand Regis' sending districts, why did the NJDOE send out revised enrollment estimates based on Amir Khan's projections in his January 26th letter?  


Cherry Hill confirmed in the Courier Post article that they received the revised bill for 50 students, and the Lawnside Superintendent confirmed to me in an email that he received the revised estimate of 20 students on Tuesday!  


Now that they have gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar, the NJDOE is saying, "No, no, no, they can't make any amendments to their application!"  But notice how in the letter to Smarick this is EXACTLY what Amir Khan asks to do:


With the expanded definition of a contiguous District in Region of Residence being explored, I am submitting this letter of request asking you to explore the possibilities of the Regis Academy Charter School being able to amend its application to expand our District in Region of Residence. (emphasis mine)


Isn't it funny how my OPRA request didn't turn up a response to Amir Khan's letter from Deputy Commissioner Smarick or any other NJDOE employee?  So let's review what has transpired between January 26th and now and see if the NJDOE has been living up to their claim that an application can't be amended.   

At the public information session on February 16th Amir Khan told those in attendance that Regis was given permission to expand it's districts.  He even bragged that now he could take kids from Hoboken if he wanted!  


The letter from the Office of Charter Schools on February 23rd says NOTHING about limiting the districts, just that a district by district breakdown is needed.  


The districts of Cherry Hill and Lawnside confirmed that just this week they received revised bills based on the numbers in Amir Khan's letter.  


Kind of flies in the face of the NJDOE's claim that they denied Amir Khan's request and that an application can't be amended, doesn't it? 


I suppose this is just par for the course.  Acting Commissioner Cerf's NJDOE does whatever they want, whenever they want, to whatever district they want, the laws and regulations that govern charter schools be damned!  All the while coddling and cajoling unproven charter operators.


Until they get caught.  


Which is why I won't be going away any time soon...

Regis Academy Hires Closed Charter VP, NJDOE Opens Enrollment Beyond Four Districts

Last night the Regis Academy held an information session that was attended by approximately 32 prospective parents.  Some Cherry Hill residents that have been vocal opponents of the charter school also attended the meeting.  One that is known to Amir Khan was pulled aside before the meeting and told that if she caused any trouble the cops would be called.  Another was asked if she was from the press.


Amir Khan is the president of the Regis Academy Board of Trustees.  Is this how he intends to run his Board of Trustee Meetings?  With threats of police action for anyone that is not a supporter or has questions about how the Regis Academy is spending public tax dollars?


Leading the meeting was Christian Barnes who was introduced as the Lead Person for Regis Academy.  Mr. Barnes was the Vice Principal of the Trenton Community Charter School.  He was fired only months before the charter was closed for good for poor performance.

Trenton Community Charter was founded in 1997. In March the DOE placed the school on 90-day probation, saying it had repeatedly failed to meet federal testing standards and needed to implement a turnaround plan.

According to state data, only 38 percent of the school’s elementary students passed the state language test in 2008, and the figure fell to 15 percent the following year.

Nearly half passed the math exam in 2008, but in 2009 the figure fell to 35 percent.

In the application The Regis Academy budget includes a paid position School Leader/Curriculum Director during the start up phase, and then a Vice Principle for Curriculum and Instruction once the charter is up and running.  Sounds like Mr. Barnes got himself a new Vice Principal position despite the closure of his last charter.

Vice Principal?


In addition, attendees at last night's meeting reported that Amir Khan informed the audience that "just yesterday" the NJ Department of Education told him that Regis Academy does not have to restrict their enrollment to the four sending districts they were approved for; Voorhees, Somerdale, Lawnside and Cherry Hill.  They can now accept kids from anywhere in the state. 


Here's what the charter school regulations have to say about what might have happened "just yesterday" to bring about this change.


(k) Prior to the granting of the charter, the Commissioner shall assess the student composition of a charter school and the segregative effect that the loss of the students may have on its district of residence. The assessment shall be based on the enrollment from the initial recruitment period pursuant to N.J.A.C. 6A:11-4.4(a) and (b). The charter school shall submit data for the assessment: 

1. In a format prescribed by the Commissioner; and

2. No later than 4:15 P.M. on February 15. (emphasis mine)


In the Regis Application February 15 is listed as the date their "initial enrollment count" is due to the NJDOE.
Timeline for Enrollment
  

Let's recap, shall we?


Regis had to submit their "enrollment from the initial recruitment period" or "initial enrollment count" to the NJDOE on February 15.  On February 16 they held a public information session and told the audience "just yesterday" the NJDOE opened their enrollment to kids from anywhere in the state.  


Anybody else thinking that the initial enrollment count wasn't looking too good?

Here's the question I have for Carlos Perez and the NJDOE.  What happened to parents "voting with their feet?"  If Amir Khan is having trouble filling 250 seats, 50 each in K-4, with students from the four towns he applied for, why has the NJDOE already opened admissions to other districts? 

In the end, parents vote with their feet. A charter school that fills up with students is one that was wanted by the community. If parents didn’t want more options, then a charter school wouldn’t survive. 

There is more than enough evidence that the Regis Academy is not wanted or needed by the community, and that it has not been proven to be "high-quality and innovative."  Yet somehow it "survives."

While the founders of Regis may be "determined" to see their charter open, NJDOE spokesman Justin Barra said something that the opponents of the Regis Academy need to be paying close attention to.  

“We will review their progress toward opening, as we do every approved charter school, in the summer before officially approving opening in September 2012,” Barra said.


The approval of Regis' charter DOES NOT mean that it will open in September.  In fact check out the Charter School Fact Sheet.  Five other charter applications were approved but never granted their final charter.  Regis must submit their final paperwork on June 30 to receive their final charter on July 15.  


If there is anything I have learned from my experiences battling Tikun Olam, it is that the opponents of the Regis Academy are going to need to remain vigilant, because the NJDOE's Office of Charter Schools gives unproven charter operators every advantage over communities and districts.  


Regis appears to be a partnership of an unproven charter school operator and a failed charter school operator, and they STILL seem to have the advantage over the district schools and parents.   


Unbelievable.

A Tale of Two Residences (And Offices)

OK, so no confirmation hearing for Chris Cerf on Thursday.  Like Jersey Jazzman, I am a little disappointed.  I was getting geared up to testify about the glaring lack of transparency in the NJDOE under Acting Commissioner Cerf, but I guess it will have to wait.  I'm sure it will just give me more ammunition if he ever does get a hearing because I'm not going away, and Cerf isn't going to start playing by the rules.


Jersey Jazzman already recapped how Cerf got tripped up, and how Sweeney ultimately pulled the plug:


State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3), West Deptford, shut down the Thursday hearing for Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf based largely on discomfort about Cerf’s declared residency status, a source said. 


In the same article that revealed Cerf had "two homes," Christie was playing hard ball:   


“We have no concern whatsoever about his residency being an issue during consideration of this extremely qualified individual for commissioner of the Department of Education,” said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak. “We are finally moving forward in spite of the baseless, obstructionist conduct by Sen. Rice in particular — and I’m being very kind in my selection of adjectives in describing Rice’s handling of this nominee.”


Rice’s use of senatorial courtesy is an abuse of the system, the administration believes.


“It’s because they use it for political leverage to try to get something else,” Christie said of the reasons why Rice and Codey have used the practice on the governor’s Essex County nominees.


And the governor is willing to play hardball.

”I know that they’re used to the old game of rolling governors on stuff all the time,” Christie said of the Essex senators. “They’re messing with the wrong guy on this one.” (emphasis mine)


So, what do Christie and Cerf have to say now that the cat's out of the bag?


Christie’s office declined to comment.

Cerf deferred questions about his nominations and residency to his spokesman at the Department of Education, Justin Barra, who did not return calls and emails seeking comment.

Where'd all that bravado and bluster go, guys?

While the hubbub over Cerf's residence may be a mundane example of the kind of deception and bullying Cerf and Christie are capable of to get what they want, it also exemplifies all that is wrong with the way they conduct themselves.  Here's what Senator Rice wants before Cerf goes before the Judiciary Committee:

Rice, D-Essex, blocked Cerf’s nomination as education commissioner for 13 months, demanding he testify before the Joint Committee on the Public Schools, which Rice co-chairs.

Rice's request sounds totally straightforward and reasonable, so why won't Cerf do it?  I'm sure he doesn't want to answer the tough questions Rice is likely to have for him, which would probably be very similar to Jersey Jazzman's.  Here's what Rice had to say about the cancelled hearing.

Rice said the comments about Cerf’s residence were further proof of an “integrity problem” with the acting commissioner.

“I never thought he moved in the first place,” Rice said.


And here's what Cerf had to say about his two homes:


"The facts are that I own a home in Montclair and that I reside there many nights a week. I have also rented a home … in the southern part of the state and I spent several nights a week there. I use it to shorten my commute," Cerf said.

But in Peter Meyer's love-fest profile, in which Cerf was depicted as a grizzled outdoorsman and education reformer that can weather any challenge set before him, an interesting tidbit was revealed. 


The drive from Trenton to Newark was the third part of an interview that began in downtown Newark several days earlier, in a large, bare office that looks out over Jersey’s troubled largest city. Cerf uses it as a transit station, a temporary office while on his way to or from meetings in the state’s more populated eastern counties, his home in a northern suburb, or across the Hudson in New York City. I had caught up with him for part two of our interview in his official Trenton office, 50 miles to the south and west, where the state’s education department is headquartered and where he has lively paintings drawn by schoolchildren on the walls.


This is a great twofer.  Simultaneously confirming both that Cerf's home is, was and most likely always will be, in a northern suburb, namely Montclair, and also that in addition to his "official" Trenton office he also has an office in Newark.  I am not exactly a Trenton insider, and even I have heard that there is a Newark satellite office that Cerf uses when he doesn't need to be in Trenton.  So why is the state paying for a satellite office in Newark if Cerf has "shortened his commute" to Trenton by renting a home in Montgomery Township?  Perhaps that wasn't the real reason for the "move?"


Days after Michael Winerip submitted questions to NJDOE spokesman Justin Barra for his column revealing the mess we all know as Tikun Olam, we were finally granted a meeting to discuss what we knew.  We were told that Cerf couldn't meet with us, because after all, he is "The Decider."  Instead we met with Deputy Commissioner Andy Smarick, Chief of Staff David Hespe and Interim Charter School Office Director Amy Ruck, and Barra joined us via conference call from the Newark office.  


How much you wanna bet Cerf was in that Newark office listening in on the conference call?


ADDING:


Maybe Christie should have stayed quiet on this one...


Christie, who acknowledged during the news conference that Cerf’s family is maintaining its Montclair residence, said Cerf’s changing of his driver’s license and voter registration should be proof enough for lawmakers.


Except that...


As of 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, no one named Christopher Cerf was registered to vote in Somerset County, according to Diane Miller, a confidential aide in the Somerset County Clerk’s Office. The county’s election board updates its database every day.

It's anyone's guess whether Cerf is resting his head in Montgomery or Montclair tonight, but wherever he is I bet he's not sleeping too well...

Arne, can you hear me?

So many things to love about Mike Winerip's column in today's New York Times.  What it really boils down to is a cautionary tale.  


A cautionary tale of an unaccountable applicant, Sharon Akman:


Ms. Akman has repeatedly refused to talk to reporters. She did not respond to a dozen e-mails and voice mail messages left at the real estate office where she works, Century 21 J. J. Laufer in Highland Park. When I called the personal cellphone number she listed on the state application, a woman answered. “Who’s calling?” she asked, and when I explained that I was a reporter, she said, “I’ll tell them you called, thank you,” and hung up.


A cautionary tale of an unaccountable Acting Commissioner of Education, Chris Cerf:


An applicant with a $600,000 pledge in her pocket may be seen in a new light by state officials. In mid-October, Ms. Akman wrote to the state’s acting education commissioner, Christopher D. Cerf, requesting assistance in winning approval for her fourth application. “We were just granted a substantial federal charter school grant,” she wrote him, and would “love to have a meeting to better strategize and prepare for our reapplication.”

How Mr. Cerf responded is not known. E-mails between Ms. Akman and Mr. Cerf’s office were released after a request under the state’s Open Public Records Act. While Ms. Akman’s string of e-mails was made public, responses from Mr. Cerf’s office were redacted.

And a cautionary tale of an unaccountable Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan:

How could federal oversight be so lax?

Part of the answer is that charter schools are a top priority for the Obama administration, making federal officials predisposed to support them.

And part of the answer, as Justin Hamilton, an Education Department spokesman, explained in an e-mail, is that federal officials see their oversight role as limited. The department hires private consultants to rate the quality of a charter applicant, but those consultants “cannot use information not included in the grant application,” he said.

In other words, if Ms. Akman writes that Assemblyman Peter J. Barnes III supports the charter, the federal consultants are not permitted to interview Mr. Barnes, who would have been happy to tell them that he does not.

This prohibition against using outside information is intended to ensure that no special measures are taken to either favor or hinder an applicant, although what it really invites is fiction writing.

And that is EXACTLY what the Tikun Olam applications, both the state application for a charter and the federal application for a grant, are.  Fiction.  

Justin Hamilton goes on the say that "if the Education Department “becomes aware of material factual misrepresentations,” it could terminate the grant."

But they already know!  We have provided the Office of Innovation and Improvement's Charter School Program with more information than we provided Mike Winerip.  Not only that, we have had numerous phone conversations with the Director of the Charter School Program, Stefan Huh, and LaShawndra Thornton, the Non-State Education Agency Grants Intern Manager, who actually signed off on the grant.  In addition, numerous members of our community have emailed and called alerting the office to the misrepresentations.  

They have also been contacted by Congressman Pallone and Senator Lautenberg's offices but have not stated anything more substantial than that they are "aware there are issues with this particular grant award and are looking into it."  

Perhaps a NY Times expose will be enough to make lead applicant Sharon Akman pull her application?

If not, perhaps it will be enough to make Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf deny the application? 

If not, perhaps it will be enough to make Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pull the grant?  

I'm not holding my breath.  I think we probably still have a lot of work to do.

Open, Honest, and Productive: NJDOE style

I just can't let Justin Barra's statement to Gannett Statehouse reporter Michael Symons regarding my meeting with Acting Commissioner Cerf go unanswered.  

Department of Education spokesman Justin Barra said acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf met in August with Cimarusti and others from Highland Park, who were opposed to the proposed Tikun Olam Hebrew Language Charter High School, which has been denied three times but has reapplied.

“In addition to evaluating the quality of the proposed program, we also take into account feedback both from districts and the general public. We take seriously all public comment that we receive in the review process,” Barra said. “We welcome an open, honest, and productive dialogue about proposed charter applications.”

While I did meet with the Acting Commissioner, Barra's characterization of the meeting is entirely disingenuous.  I met with him, Carly Bolger, soon-to-be-ex Director of the Charter School Office, and Chief of Staff and former Commissioner David Hespe in August.  Also in attendance were other concerned parents from East Brunswick, Princeton and South Brunswick who feel shut out of the process, as well as one other parent from Highland Park.  

This meeting was NOT about Tikun Olam, the charter school I am opposing.  It was in response to two women, Liz Lempert from Princeton and Lisa Rodgers-Grieco of South Brunswick, attempting to hand deliver a petition to Acting Commissioner Cerf.  Alan Guenther, the director of communications accepted the petition, not Cerf.  The petition asked the Acting Commissioner not to approve an additional planning year to the Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS) in Princeton.  The Acting Commissioner did not listen to the voices of those 1200 residents and granted PIACS their second planning year.  

Liz and Lisa continued to follow up and request a meeting, which was granted only after much persistence on the part of these women.  They asked representatives from Highland Park and East Brunswick to also attend as our districts have been very outspoken on this issue.  The meeting was cancelled by the Acting Commissioner when PIACS sued the affected districts stating that they were using public funds to object to their charter.      

The meeting was rescheduled only after much persistence and multiple assurances that discussion of PIACS would be off the table.  There was little to no discussion about individual charters at this meeting, instead it was about broad overarching issues related to the lack of community involvement in the charter application process.  At one point when I attempted to discuss specifics of the Tikun Olam charter application Ms. Bolger became agitated and threatened to end the meeting.

What we are asking for is an equal say in the application process.  While we fight for legislation that would give voters a say, we are demanding that the DOE have open discussions about pending charters with districts and communities.  

From January 3-13 to DOE will conduct interviews with applicants, but there are no such meetings for the effected districts or communities to discuss specific charters.  That is what we are asking for, and that is what the NJDOE is refusing to provide.  

"an open, honest, and productive dialogue about proposed charter applications"??  Really Mr. Barra?

Then why do I need all of these elected officials in suits backing me up to try to get my voice heard?  And why didn't ANYONE from the NJDOE come to the meeting despite numerous requests?  

  

The Acting Commissioner is approving charters against the wishes of communities and is not meeting with those communities to discuss the applications or the approvals; ONLY the applicants.  Just look at East Brunswick and Cherry Hill for examples.  For them to say they take community or district input into account would be laughable if it weren't so destructive and misleading.