State Wants to Close Riverhead Charter School

By John Hildebrand, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Dec. 8–State officials have called for shutting down the Riverhead Charter School next summer — a blow not only for the school’s 290 students, but also for the sponsoring Edison Schools corporation that has become synonymous with efforts to privatize U.S. education.

Supporters are launching a last-ditch effort to save the regional school, located in Calverton, and have scheduled a meeting Tuesday with Roger Tilles, who is Long Island’s representative to the state Board of Regents. A decision on a possible reprieve for the school could be reached when the Regents, who set statewide educational policy, hold their monthly meeting in Albany later next week.

In a blistering assessment of the school, State Education Department staffers cite rapid turnover in management, falling test scores and shaky finances, including a $4-million debt to the Edison corporation. The assessment accompanies a recommendation that the Regents not renew the school’s charter when it expires in June.

The school’s leaders concede mistakes were made in the past, but add that the school deserves a second chance. Local leaders say they’re moving to cut their contract ties with the for-profit Edison company, which provides staff training and curriculum materials and holds a lien on the school’s property.

“I’m devastated!” said Kate Liddle of Riverhead, chairwoman of the school’s governing board and mother of four children enrolled there. Liddle, who took her post in May, added that the school has been especially beneficial for two of her children who have disabilities.

Laurie Behrhof, a teacher there the past five years, described herself as “heartbroken” over the prospect of the school closing.

“I wouldn’t work anyplace else,” she added.

Riverhead Charter School opened in 2001, in a 73-year-old vacant schoolhouse. The school draws students in grades K-6 from more than a dozen school districts across eastern Long Island. More than 60 percent of the students are either black or Hispanic, and most are from families of modest incomes.

Like other charter academies, the Riverhead school gets taxpayer funding based on its enrollment.

State education officials note that the school has fallen far short of its enrollment target of 450 students. Those staffers add that, while the school meets minimum state academic standards, its test scores tend to fall off in the later grades, with only 44 percent of sixth-graders passing a state English test last year.

Lavonia Scaggs, of Shirley, who pulled her son out of the Riverhead school four years ago, scoffed at the suggestion that the school deserved extended time to correct weaknesses. Scaggs is part of a parent group that is suing the school for failing to meet the legal needs of students, including many with disabilities — a failure confirmed by the state in 2004.

“They’ve had five years — how much more time are the kids going to go through this?” Scaggs said.

Long Island has three charter schools. The others are located in Roosevelt and Wainscott.

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