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Mostly Cloudy Charter school pushes its plans
Meeting set for April 30 at LHS
The campaign to open a charter school in the Lawrence School District has resumed, as a group headed by Atlantic Beach Estates resident Burton Sacks has spoken to community members about the proposed school.
A previous application submitted by the Sacks-led group for the New American Leadership Charter School Academy was withdrawn in November when it was not recommended by the State Education Department to the Board of Regents for a decision.
The application was resubmitted to the Education Department’s Charter School Office in March, and the school district will hold a public meeting to address the proposal on April 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Lawrence High School. As was the case at a meeting held in September focusing on the first application, charter school representatives will be allowed to speak, as will district residents, according to Lawrence Superintendent Gary Schall.
“Using what we’ve learned and our understanding of quality education, we are developing a school with a rigorous and enriched instructional program embedded within a supportive learning environment,” said Ron Woo, who works for New York University and is listed as a trustee of the proposed charter school.
Sacks, the deputy chief operating officer of the City University of New York, would be the school’s chairman. Other trustees include Judith Bergtraum, CUNY’s interim vice chancellor of facilities planning, construction and management; Margaret Foley, a senior U.S. program officer for the federal probation office in Brooklyn, who lives in Atlantic Beach Estates; and Ellen Robbins, an Atlantic Beach resident who was a special education teacher for 25 years. Evelyn Gargano, also of Atlantic Beach Estates, a former financial derivatives trader, will be a trustee and the school’s board-designated constituent representative, according to the application.
Atlantic Beach resident Victoria Simao vehemently opposed the first application, and helped created an opposition website. A charter school would take money away from the district, Simao said.
“I told them I don’t like the way it’s funded,” she said. “[The school district] is on very strong footing. With the state funding they would get, it would take too much away from the public school.”
