On Eve of Charter School Vote, Cranston Officials are Unified in Opposition

With the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education poised to vote tomorrow on a proposed mayoral academy charter school in Providence, Cranston school officials are keeping their fingers crossed the plan is shot down.

Along with most of the Cranston School Committee's membership calling for the proposal to be denied, nine State House representatives of communities that would be served by the school are urging the Regents to reject the application.

In a Jan. 18 letter to Board of Regents Charmian George D. Caruolo, the representatives said that Warwick, Cranston and North Providence should be excluded from any mayoral academy charter because their respective school districts are meeting education standards and the academy would siphon money away from public schools at the worst possible time.

“Given the Assembly’s recent legislation that moves the state into a Fair Funding Formula, it seems ironic that this Mayoral Academy appears at the state’s doorstep now,” the legislators wrote. “Funding a Mayoral Academy based on per pupil expenditure will adversely affect the participating communicates in terms of budgetary holes that the Fair Funding Formula was designed to alleviate.”

The Cranston legislators signing the letter were Rep. Charlene M. Lima (D-Dist. 14), Rep. Peter G. Palumbo (D-Dist. 16) Rep. Arthur B. Handy (D-Dist. 18) and Rep. Robert B. Jacquard (D-Dist. 17).

The proposed charter school operator is Achievement First, which operates charter schools in Connecticut and New York and submitted a failed request to build a charter school in Cranston last year. That proposal met stiff opposition from the Cranston community despite its backing by Cranston Mayor Allan W. Fung.

The legislators argue that the mayoral academy would be funded by the public school districts at a cost of about $15,000 per student. Each student that goes to the charter school would result in a hit to the public school budget.

"The per-pupil expenditure is calculated by dividing a district’s entire budget by the number of students, but since the high cost of educating special-needs students is factored into that number and those students would be less likely to attend the mayoral academy, the districts would be disproportionately affected financially," a General Assembly release stated.

The charter school plan is not without its supporters. Along with Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, some members of the Providence City Council and School Committee support the plan along with the Superintendent. The proposal has also been endorsed by the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Kids Count and Rhode Island Mayoral Academies.

Also backing the plan is state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist.

Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested that a majority of Providence School Committee and City Council members supported the proposal.