Tuxedo's charter school proposal impresses, worries nearby district

On Board Online • November 24, 2014

By Cathy Woodruff
Senior Writer

In search of a way forward amid enrollment declines and a growing financial squeeze, a small Orange County school district is seeking state approval to turn its high school into a charter school emphasizing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

"I think it's innovative and creative, and I compliment my board for being courageous enough to say 'Let's try this,'" said Carol Lomascolo, superintendent of the Tuxedo school district, located in a lakeside community near Harriman State Park, a few miles from New York's border with New Jersey.

By using the charter school model, Tuxedo hopes to draw many new students from outside the district to an enhanced STEM curriculum offered in a small-school environment.

But leaders in a neighboring district, Greenwood Lake, worry that the innovative charter conversion plan also could deal a huge financial hit to their school community - and perhaps others.

Greenwood Lake, a K-8 district, has long sent its high school-age students to Tuxedo under a contractual relationship that has endured for over three decades. More than three-quarters of the approximately 300 students now attending Tuxedo's George F. Baker High School are from Greenwood Lake.

Under a state formula used to calculate a home district's payment for each student attending a charter school, Greenwood Lake leaders estimate that their district's annual cost for sending students to Tuxedo easily could soar by $1 million next year if the high school is converted to a charter school.

Greenwood Lake Superintendent Christine Ackerman describes the financial consequences for her district and its K-8 programs as potentially devastating. She and members of the district's Board of Education are urging state education officials to reject the charter conversion request, and they are asking other lower-Hudson Valley school districts to join the opposition.

Despite their differences on the issue, however, Greenwood Lake officials respect Tuxedo's effort to deal with a tough situation, Ackerman said.

"I completely understand why Tuxedo is doing this," she told On Board. "If I were in their position, I would probably be trying to do the same thing. This is not about us versus Tuxedo. It's about the impact and what's going to happen to our school district if this conversion charter is approved by the Board of Regents. It's about the implications of a conversion charter school taking resources from other districts in the area."

In New York, charter conversions, so far, have been used only in large cities as part of turnaround strategies to enable extensive changes to staff and programming in struggling schools.

"We have not seen districts initiate conversions to charter schools, except in Buffalo and New York City, where the students attending the charter school presumably would reside within the boundaries of the same large urban district," said NYSSBA General Counsel Jay Worona. "We will watch this proposal closely to see how it plays out."

Tuxedo school leaders began studying options for sustaining their high school about two years ago. At that time, Greenwood Lake's latest five-year contract was nearing an end, and two other districts had expressed interest in accepting some of Greenwood's high school-age students - along with the associated tuition payments. Greenwood Lake leaders decided to contract with all three districts - Chester, Warwick Valley and Tuxedo.

This year, most Greenwood Lake high school students still attend school in Tuxedo, but Greenwood Lake's decision to forge new cross-district relationships has stirred concerns in Tuxedo about future enrollment and tuition revenue. Tuxedo's options for cultivating new revenue are limited by factors including the state property tax cap and a state aid stream that stays relatively thin because the district is classified as wealthy, Lomascolo noted.

Tuxedo hired Public Consulting Group (PCG) to study the district's circumstances and asked for some "sustainable, fiscally sustainable, viable solutions - with or without Greenwood Lake - for our high school," Lomascolo said. The STEM Academy and the charter school conversion emerged, together, as the most promising of PCG's suggestions.

"It was never our intention to hurt Greenwood Lake," Lomascolo said.

Parents in surrounding districts, including some who now home-school their children, are showing brisk interest in the plan, Lomascolo said. Tuxedo's maximum high school enrollment is about 450 students, underscoring the established small-school atmosphere.

Parents do not pay tuition to send their children to charter schools. Instead, home districts are charged on a per-student rate. Under the current contract, Greenwood Lake pays Tuxedo $12,240 per high school student. Under the charter school scenario, the likely rate for Greenwood Lake would be $18,311.

Tuxedo's Lomascolo said that charter rate could shrink as a result of waivers or special contracts, however, and Tuxedo's application suggests that Greenwood Lake could eventually qualify for state "transition aid."

"From a Greenwood Lake standpoint, I don't believe we will financially impact them the way they are projecting," Lomascolo said.

Tuxedo's conversion charter application also estimates per-student tuition charges for other districts, including Monroe-Woodbury ($13,089), North Rockland ($17,121), East Ramapo ($16,555), Ramapo ($16,919), and Warwick ($12,198).

In many ways, Tuxedo's conversion charter school would retain characteristics of the current public high school. Unions representing staff and their contracts would remain in place, as would the school board and the current faculty and staff. The main academic difference would be the ability to hire expert instructors without teaching certifications in fields such as computer programming or engineering, Lomascolo said.

Other ideas for collaboration among the Lower Hudson schools, such as a merger of districts or a regional high school, have not gained traction because of anticipated financial, legal or logistical barriers, said Greenwood Lake Board President Ronald Sommer.

"Our taxes would go through the roof" in a two-district merger, Sommer said. "If you can get past the tax issues, the next issues are local control and identity. If you could answer the concerns at that level, the regional high school would be something worth analyzing."

Ackerman warns that, if approved, Tuxedo's conversion could inspire copycats. "Any district that has financial problems could just convert to a charter school and take money from other districts to run their programs, if the Education Department approves this," she said.

"I don't know that this is what the intent of charter schools was," she added. "My impression was that it was a way to help get students out of schools that weren't academically successful, not a way to seek out financial stability and deal with enrollment problems."