A Brunswick Stew At N.J. Charter School

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/brunswick_stew_nj_charter_school?nocache=1#comment-5879

In its first year, E. Brunswick’s Hatikvah Academy drawing a diverse, and non-Jewish, crowd; Schechter schools feeling heat from widening movement.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Julie Wiener

Associate Editor

Neither Floretta Caldwell nor her husband is Jewish, but this year at their daughter Dionna’s request they celebrated Chanukah.
And a few weeks ago on the way to her piano lesson, the little girl started chatting away in Hebrew. “I said, ‘Dionna, I have no idea what you just said,’” her mother laughed.

Dionna, who is African American and will also celebrate Christmas and Kwanza this month, is a first grader at Hatikvah International Academy Charter School in East Brunswick, N.J. The school, which opened this fall and has 96 students in kindergarten through second grade, is one of two Hebrew charter schools in the New York area and six in the entire country. They are part of a nascent but ambitious movement of publicly funded (and privately supplemented), tuition-free schools that, while forbidden from promoting religious practice, teach Hebrew language and Jewish/Israeli culture.

At both Hatikvah and Brooklyn’s Hebrew Language Academy, which opened in August 2009, that approach is attracting a highly diverse, and not just Jewish, group of students. Nonetheless, nearby Jewish day schools, particularly ones affiliated with the Conservative movement’s struggling Solomon Schechter network, are beginning to feel the impact of the Hebrew charters.

In the past month alone, six families reportedly transferred from the Schechter of Raritan Valley to Hatikvah, according to one Hatikvah parent who asked not to be identified. Schechter officials did not return calls requesting confirmation by press time.

In the current issue of CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism, Elaine Cohen, executive of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, describes Hebrew charter schools as “a very real concern” and notes that, “There’s no doubt that they are striving to attract day school families, particularly Israelis, new Americans and children of parents who are not affiliated with synagogues. Those charter schools are in direct competition with day schools...”

Hatikvah and HLA are the first charter schools to open with assistance from the year-old Hebrew Language Charter School Center, funded by a group of prominent Jewish philanthropists who include Michael Steinhardt and Harold Grinspoon. The center, which last week hired Aaron Listhaus, the chief academic officer of the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Charter Schools, as its executive director, makes no mention of Jewish day schools, or targeted Jewish populations, on its website or in any of its published materials.

Its mission does, however, include supporting a “network of excellent schools that serve diverse populations of students.”

At Brooklyn’s HLA, in an urban district that encompasses poor, middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods, 37 percent of the students are African-American, many of Caribbean descent, and 68 percent qualify for free or reduced school lunches. Of the children assumed to be Jewish, many are the children of Russians and Israelis.

Hatikvah, in suburban Middlesex County, has less class diversity, but a mix of ethnic
backgrounds: 40 percent of the student body is non-white, mostly South Asian. While the school is not allowed to ask about religious background, one parent interviewed estimated that roughly one-third to one-half of Hatikvah’s students are Jewish, many of them the children of Israelis.
Why would diverse populations want to attend a school where more than an hour each day is devoted to Hebrew?

Caldwell said she thought it would be useful for her daughter to study any foreign language and was also drawn to the school’s low student-teacher ratio, International Baccalaureate program and full-day kindergarten; East Brunswick’s public schools offer only half-day kindergarten.
Akshata Dhodapkar, a Hatikvah parent who is originally from Mumbai, said she would have preferred her son study Hindi or Mandarin, “just because that’s the way the world seems to be going,” but is “not going to quibble: I think any language learning is excellent.”
Dhodapkar said Hatikvah combines the academic rigor of Indian education with a “more interesting way of teaching it.”

While initially worried Hatikvah would teach Judaism or make her son, a second grader, “feel different” for being Hindu, she now reassures other Indian families that it’s “not a religious school” and not “just for Jews.”

“Having these kinds of schools is important because the kids are forced to interact and get to know each other,” Dhodapkar said. “It’s breaking down barriers.”

The school’s diversity was, in fact, a big draw for many parents, including the Jewish ones.
“If I’d thought it would be only Jewish kids here, I wouldn’t have done it,” said Stacy Feldman, explaining her decision to enroll her second-grade daughter in Hatikvah. Now on Hatikvah’s board, Feldman said she had at one point considered the Jewish day school “just down the road” from her home, but realized she preferred having her daughter exposed to a wider range of kids.

Another Jewish mom, Sheira Director-Nowack, said that because her daughter, a kindergartener, is adopted from Asia, she was uncomfortable with the “lack of diversity” in most Jewish day schools.

“She’s got to be around people who look like her, where she’s not the only Jewish kid and not the only Asian kid,” Director-Nowack explained.

Hebrew Charter vs. Day School?
While many Jewish parents at Hatikvah insist that, had they not opted for a Hebrew charter school, they would have opted for a public school, many in the Jewish day school world worry the tuition-free schools could drive them out of business.

And nowhere is that concern greater than in the Solomon Schechter network, where enrollment declined by 4.8 percent in the past year, according to a recent census conducted by the Avi Chai Foundation. (In the same period, Orthodox day school enrollment increased and community day school enrollment held steady.) That decline follows a decade of contraction, in which a number of Schechter schools closed and others changed their affiliation from Schechter to nondenominational. According to Marvin Schick, an Avi Chai consultant who conducted this year’s census and several previous day school studies, Schechter enrollment in the United States declined by almost 25 percent between 1998-2008, shrinking from 17,563 students to 13,222.

Hatikvah is less than three miles away from the Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley, while Brooklyn’s HLA is just a mile away from another Schechter school, the East Midwood Hebrew Day School.

So far Hatikvah has had a “really kind of minimal” impact on the nearby Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley, according to that school’s head, Rabbi Stuart Saposh, who was interviewed before the Jewish Week learned about the recent transfers.

Rabbi Saposh declined to say whether enrollment at the 105-student, k-8 school has dropped this year, but noted that, while considerably larger a decade ago, the day school has been “about that size for a number of years.”

“I can’t say we haven’t lost any students to Hatikvah, but it’s a handful of kids,” he said, declining to offer specifics.

Hatikvah, too, declined to answer how many of its students had transferred in from Jewish day schools, a spokesman saying they “don’t track that data.”

Rabbi Saposh emphasized that comparing Schechter, where tuition ranges from $14,000 to $17,000, to a Hebrew charter school or any public school is “apples and oranges.”

“We have a Jewish atmosphere, a Jewish ambiance,” he said. “We beat to the rhythm of the Jewish lifestyle, Jewish calendar. Obviously we have Hebrew language, but also Bible studies and rabbinics. We daven [pray] every morning.”

Eugene Miller, executive director of the 200-student East Midwood Hebrew Day School — just a mile away from the year-old HLA — said his enrollment is up by 21 students, but the charter has nonetheless had an impact, particularly because “these are not the seven fat years,” a reference to the biblical story of Joseph, “but lean years economically.”

Asked whether East Midwood, where tuition ranges from $9,000 for kindergarten to $13,000 for eighth grade, has lost students to HLA, Miller said, “The numbers that I know about are very small. But people who make the decision to go there and not here, unless they discuss that with me, I won’t know.”

In her recent article critiquing the charter schools, the Schechter Association’s Elaine Cohen expressed concern that the optional after-school religious programs being created for charter school students (several with funding and support from the Hebrew Charter School Center) “are led mostly by Chabad educators, whose perspectives on Jewish life are at variance with ours.”
Members of Chabad, the chasidic sect known for its outreach to liberal and unaffiliated Jews, run Chai Central, the optional after-school Jewish studies program for Hatikvah students, along with a program for Florida’s Ben-Gamla schools. In Brooklyn, the optional after-school Jewish studies program is at the Kings Bay Y and not affiliated with any denomination.

According to Cohen’s article, the Solomon Schechter Day School Association explored the possibility of “becoming a provider of afterschool religious education in areas where we would not be competing against ourselves,” but concluded “that it would be demoralizing, counterproductive, and against the best interests of the existing institutions to offer such programs in communities where there already is a Schechter or community school.”
Not all Conservative Jewish leaders see charter schools as a threat, however. Alongside Cohen’s CJ article ran two other pieces, one by a Hebrew teacher at HLA and another by Rabbi Paul Plotkin of Margate, Fla., arguing that “charter schools can reinvigorate” the Conservative movement, particularly if synagogues rent space to the charter schools and offer optional after-school programs to their students.

Mah Yesh Po?
On a morning last month, Hatikvah, which rents space from a Presbyterian church, was bustling with activity.

In a kindergarten class, a teacher talked in Hebrew about the weather.
“Is there sun? Is there rain? Clouds?” she asked in Hebrew, as the children sat on the rug, clamoring for turns to come up to the front of the room and answer her questions.
Holding up a stuffed dog, she discussed the toy’s clothing: the colors, buttons and other features. Then she invited the children to come up and discuss their clothes.
“I have levan [white] right here,” called out one boy in a mix of Hebrew and English as he pointed to his shirt.

Since it was the birthday of a girl named Yessenia, the teacher wished her a happy birthday in Hebrew and the children spontaneously began singing “Yom Holedet Sameach.”
After the impromptu birthday celebration, the teacher began singing “Yesh Po Mashehu,” (Here Is Something) and brought out a velvet-covered box with tiny objects inside, inviting the children to come up individually to answer, “Mah yesh po,” what’s here?

“Is it inside the box? Under the box? On the box?” the teacher asked in Hebrew, encouraging the children to practice their newly acquired vocabulary.

That morning, while their students were in art class, the two second-grade teachers — Sara Schwartz and Laurie Kisner — eagerly came into the main office area to report to Principal Naomi Drewitz about the progress of an Indian student. The girl had started at Hatikvah just two weeks earlier, speaking not a word of Hebrew; that day, she raised her hand and spoke a full sentence in Hebrew.

Next week: After-school Judaic programs designed for Hebrew charter students.

Read more:

• New York

• New York

Copyright 2010 The Jewish Week

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To defend a country you need an army, but to defend an identify you need schools

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

History itself has a history. What events seem to signify at the time is not how they are seen in the full perspective of hindsight. Take Hannukah, the festival we are in the midst of celebrating today.  Open the First and Second Books of Maccabees and you find yourself reading a story of military courage. Since the days of Alexander the Great, Israel had been under the rule of the Greeks, first under the Ptolemies based in Egypt, then a century later under the Seleucids who ruled from Syria. One Seleucid leader, Antiochus IV, decided to force the pace of the hellenisation of the Jews, publicly banning the practices of Judaism. In its place he installed a statue of Zeus in the precincts of the Temple and had swine sacrificed to it. To the Jews it was the “abomination of desolation.” Led by an elderly priest Mattityahu and his sons, a group of Jews known as the Maccabees rose in revolt. They won a victory, reconquered Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple and relit its candelabrum, the menorah. That remains the most visible symbol of the festival to this day. We light it in our homes for eight nights, adding an extra candle for each night. That is how history seemed at the time: a story of armies, battles, and physical heroism. But the Books of Maccabees never found their way into the Hebrew Bible. That is not how Jews came to remember the past. The reason is that the victory was relatively short-lived. Jews won their confrontation with the Greeks, but they lost it with the Romans. A century later Pompey invaded Israel, which then came under Roman rule. When this too became oppressive, Jews twice rose in revolt, in the first and second centuries. Both were national disasters. After the first, the Temple was destroyed. After the second, Jerusalem was laid waste. Taken together, these were the worst Jewish catastrophe until the Holocaust. But the Talmud tells a fascinating story. In the first century, shortly before the destruction of the Temple, a rabbi called Joshua ben Gamla organised the creation of a national network of schools, providing for the education of children throughout the country. It was the first system of universal education in history. The Talmud says that were it not for him “the Torah would have been forgotten in Israel.” There would have been no Judaism, no identity, and no Jews. Joshua ben Gamla understood that the real battle Jews faced was not military at all. It was cultural and spiritual. Did they care enough about their faith to hand it on to their children? Did they believe that despite the great achievements of the Greeks in art, architecture, literature and philosophy, Jews still had a contribution to make to the world that was distinctively their own? A new Jewish identity began to emerge, based not armies but on texts and teachers and houses of study. Jews became a people whose citadels were schools, whose heroes were teachers and whose passion was education and the life of the mind. And they survived. That was the remarkable thing. The transformation of meaning over time is echoed in the very name of Hannukah itself. It means “dedication,” what the Maccabees did to the Temple after it had been cleansed. But the same word, in the form Hinnukh, also came to mean “education,” the dedication or consecration of the young as guardians of a sacred identity. The lights of Hannukah came to symbolise the holiness of the Jewish home. The West today is fighting some difficult military battles. But there is also, as there was for Jews twenty-two centuries ago, a cultural and spiritual battle to be fought: not to impose our values on others, but to teach them to our children. Do we still have a clear sense of who we are as a nation?  Do we have shared values?  Do we still believe in the sanctity of the family?  Do our lives have spiritual depth and moral beauty? Do we see ourselves as guardians of a tradition that we hand on with pride to our children? The future of the West may turn on our answers to those questions. To defend a country you need an army. But to defend an identity you need schools. http://www.chiefrabbi.org/ReadArtical.aspx?id=1715

Aaron Listhaus to head Hebrew charter school incubator

Aaron Listhaus to head Hebrew charter school incubator

December 14, 2010

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Aaron Listhaus, the chief academic officer for New York City’s Office of Charter Schools, will take over as the head of the Hebrew Charter School Center.

Listhaus, who has spent a year-and-a half helping to oversee nearly 70 authorized charter schools in New York City, will assume his new post in January. 

The Hebrew Charter School Center is a nonprofit organization created by the Areivim Philanthropic Group in 2009 to help advance the Hebrew language charter school movement. Based in New York, the center works with planning teams and existing charter schools across the United States to build capacity for designing new Hebrew language charter schools, provide resources for established schools, train teachers, create a network of Hebrew language charter schools, and help communities start the schools.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Hebrew Charter School Center team and have an opportunity to be at the forefront of this exciting new movement that is bringing innovative, high-quality, dual-language public schools of choice to children across the country,” Listhaus said. “It brings together my personal experience of learning Hebrew as a young child, my teaching experience in a dual-language setting and my work in school design and support to the development and promotion of a network of Hebrew Language Charter Schools across the country. I can’t wait to get started.”

In New York, Listhaus was responsible for the academic programs of the charter schools.

December 8, 2010

Hebrew charters — a welcome addition

BY RABBI LAURENCE SCHEINDLIN

Hearing the panicked responses from day school advocates around the country to the notion of Hebrew charter schools puts me in mind of watching a zoning board hearing where, in their zeal to stop virtually any new project before it starts, neighbors stop up their ears lest they hear of potential benefits.
I am a day school advocate. But more than that, like other day school advocates, I am a Jewish education advocate. I suggest we avoid the trap of institutional protectionism, and instead watch out for opportunities to achieve our larger goal: a revival of Jewish education in the United States.
Non-Orthodox day schools have a glorious, if short, history. While only a handful of schools enrolled a small pioneer population in the 1950s, by the year 2000 well over 35,000 students attended nearly 160 Schechter (Conservative), Pardes (Reform) and Ravsak (community) schools in the United States. Studies have documented the success of these schools’ graduates in college and their continued commitment to living a Jewish life. These students spent 30 to 40 percent of their time in school learning Hebrew and Jewish studies. They absorbed Bible and rabbinical tradition. They engaged in prayer, sang Jewish songs and acquired synagogue skills, not to mention Hebrew language and a commitment to tikkun olam and to Israel. Of the Jewish educational options available to young people, including camps, religious schools and Birthright, day school graduates are the best-equipped and most likely to live Jewish lives as adults.
It is, indeed, a shame that not every Jewish child can or will receive a Jewish day school education. The majority will not. Because that is categorically true, we should both seek and welcome creative ideas that could bring Jewish education to the otherwise Jewishly unschooled.
The objections to Hebrew charters fall into four categories: competition with day schools for students; competition with day schools for funds; church-state issues; and the lack of Jewish content in Hebrew charter schools.
There are plenty of Jewish kids out there to compete for, as the Jewish population who would never consider day schools must outweigh those who would by several orders of magnitude. At the most, many of these kids would attend afternoon religious school once or twice a week for a few years. Many will attend nothing. Yes, poorly placed Hebrew charter schools could draw a few students from existing Jewish day schools, and yes, it is therefore Jewishly unscrupulous, indeed immoral, for Hebrew charters to open within proximity of existing day schools, as has happened in Miami. But putting those few instances aside, why would it be bad if children who would have learned little or no Hebrew became Hebrew-speakers instead?
Competition for funds is, on the surface, a serious concern. But, with his open hostility to Judaism as a religion, we cannot expect Michael Steinhardt, the mastermind and funder of the Hebrew Charter School Center, to go beyond the day school projects he already supports by providing significant new funding for day schools, nearly all of which view themselves as carrying at least partly a religious mission. To be sure, Hebrew charter schools will initiate fundraising that could compete with day schools at a time of compelling financial need, and therefore coordination and cooperation will be called for, but competition among worthy organizations for funding is a constant in the nonprofit world.
Hebrew charter schools will have no choice but to steer clear of religious instruction in order to pass muster in the courts, so the church-state question is a self-answering problem. On the other hand, let us be honest and admit that what many champions of charter schools really want is to enhance Jewish identity by using public funds. One does wonder if at some point the courts or Congress will pull the plug.
Which brings us to the most important objection. Is learning Hebrew and Hebrew culture enough? Most parents who send their kids to day or religious schools want their children introduced to religious education, to the synagogue and to Jewish values, all of which would, for constitutional reasons, need to be separated from charter schools as meticulously as milk from meat. But perhaps that opens new possibilities. After all, religious schools try, in at best four hours a week, to give kids a smattering of Hebrew, Bible, prayer and all the rest. Hebrew is always the stumbling block because language learning takes lots of time.  Imagine the potential if children started afternoon religious school in third or fourth grade already knowing more Hebrew than a typical bar/bat mitzvah child?  Think of the rich educational possibilities for what the religious school could then accomplish in those four precious hours.
Will Hebrew charter schools work? It is way too soon to tell. We do know that charter schools do not outperform typical public schools, as has been evidenced by recent studies. We know that starting up a school and maintaining it is a monumental undertaking fraught with danger.
But we need as many options as possible to attract the vast pool of Jewishly undereducated kids. Hebrew charter schools may offer a worthwhile, though only partial, answer to the question of how to draw more children into Jewish education.
Jewish day schools, with their surprisingly wide array of religious orientations, high levels of available financial aid and traditions of educational excellence, will continue to be the ticket for parents who want their children to grow up within their community, to learn the value of caring for other Jews, to develop ease with Jewish religious life, to develop spiritually and to have all of that integrated with a high standard of general academic learning.
But if Hebrew charters attract a different segment of the population, one that might otherwise give their kids a next-to-nothing Jewish education, it seems to me that, on balance, the experiment can only be for the good.
Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin is headmaster at Sinai Akiba Academy, a K-8 Jewish day school in Los Angeles.


http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/hebrew_charters_a_welcome_addition_20101208/

Controversial Hebrew-immersion charter school in Bergen County may finally open

WOODLAND PARK — A controversial plan to open a Hebrew-immersion charter school in Bergen County might have its best chance at state approval this year as the Christie administration looks to expand school choice throughout the state.

The application for Shalom Academy — thrice rejected by the state and opposed by local school administrators — is also buoyed by the opening this year of a similar school in East Brunswick, which already has a waiting list for the next school year.

"If it's a quality application, it's got a better shot than ever now," said Derrell Bradford, executive director of E3, a statewide school-choice advocacy group.

"In the past, charters were viewed as a nuisance and granted grudgingly," said Bradford, who is helping the state review charter applications. "Without a doubt, the governor and the current Department of Education is more open and receptive to charter schools than any administration we've had previously."

In all, there are 50 applications in the latest bid for charters, a bumper crop for a movement that has been slow to grow since the state started granting charters in 1996. About 26,000 students attend 73 charters in the state, a small fraction of the 1.4 million public school students

But the number is expected to grow substantially under Gov. Christie, whose administration has made school choice a priority in its school reform efforts.

Most charters are in cities with persistently failing schools, but there is a growing interest in the suburbs. The Shalom Academy proposes to serve students in Englewood and Teaneck, two towns that each already hosts a charter.

The public school districts in both towns oppose Shalom, saying it would drain too many resources from the local school budget and not appeal to a broad range of public school students.

"Are you really going to attract the diversity that is Teaneck when you have such a narrow focus?" said Barbara Pinsak, interim superintendent for the township.

Charter schools are tax-supported and public, but are governed independently of local districts. The money follows the student to a charter with the schools getting 60 to 90 percent of what each public school gets per pupil.

It is estimated that Teaneck would need to peel off $1.4 million from its annual budget, and Englewood slightly more for the operations of the new school, according to both districts.

Critics say the charter is a "thinly veiled" attempt to provide a publicly funded alternative to Jewish day schools, where tuition can be $15,000 annually.

Both Teaneck and Englewood are home to a sizeable number of Orthodox Jewish families, most of whom send their children to the private schools. In Englewood, The Moriah School, a private Jewish school, serves 1,000 students in Grades prekindergarten through eight.

Indeed, some in the private school community have worried in the past that a public Hebrew-immersion charter might also take students away from the day schools.

Hebrew-immersion charter schools opened in Brooklyn and Florida in recent years. The opening of the charter in Hollywood, Fla., sparked debate over whether Hebrew and Jewish culture could be taught without teaching religion. However, proponents say the schools are secular.

In September, The Hatikvah International Academy opened in East Brunswick, and there is an application pending for a Hebrew language charter high school in Edison.

Hatikvah now serves Grades K-2 and already has more applications that than it has seats for next year's K-3 enrollment, said Principal Naomi Drewitz. Ninety-eight students are enrolled.

Hatikvah overcame opposition similar to that now leveled at Shalom.

"We're always trying to dispel the misconception that we're a Jewish school," said Principal Naomi Drewitz. "But it's hard to convince people - we have a very, very diverse population."

Indeed, a mixed group was found on a recent visit to the school, now operating in a Presbyterian Church right next to a district elementary school.

Floretta Caldwell said she chose Hatikvah because of the low student-teacher ratio &mdash' there are about 17 students and two teachers in each class — and because she wanted her first-grade daughter Dionna to learn a second language at a young age.

The mix of students is an added bonus, said Caldwell, who is African-American and lives in East Brunswick, where she says the schools are predominantly white. "Her class is very diverse. I wouldn't have that in the regular public school."

Another parent, Dori Daus, said the secular curriculum at Hatikvah would not, as critics had predicted, appeal to the Jewish day school crowd. "The draw is the quality of education and the small class size — you can't beat that," said Daus of Monroe.

Drewitz said private fund-raising supplements public money to allow the school to maintain small class sizes. keep classes small. Hatikvah will be looking for more permanent space in the near future, she said.

The Englewood plan proposes to start with 160 students in Grades K-5 and grow to 240 in K-8.

Englewood Superintendent of Schools Richard Segall said the charter's mission might be "too specialized' to appeal to public school students in the district — just 15 families expressed interest when parents were polled as to whether they wanted a Hebrew-immersion program within the regular district, he said.

The man behind the Shalom Academy, Raphael Bachrach, did not respond to repeated requests to discuss the new application.

DOE State education officials said they are not concerned with the targeted focus of some of the charter applications — in addition to the language-immersion schools, there is a fashion-oriented academy proposed for Essex County and a tourism one being discussed in Atlantic County.

"They all have to teach the state's core curriculum standards," said Valarie Smith, who oversees charters for the Education Department. "If they are adding a certain focus, it's additional."

© 2010 NJ.com. All rights reserved.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/hebrew-immersion_charter_schoo.html

Proposal Hallandale Beach school divides the community

By Sergy Odiduro, Forum Publishing Group

November 13, 2010

More traffic, more noise, more pollution in a small neighborhood with an already-strained infrastructure.

Some Hallandale Beach residents say that's exactly what they are expecting if the city approves Ben Gamla, a proposed Hebrew-English charter school.

They voiced their opinions at a recent community meeting at the city's Cultural Community Center to discuss the project, alongside others who think the school would be a welcome addition.

Margaret Schorr said there are limited educational opportunities in the city.

"A school like this in the area can only enhance Hallandale," she said.

The school, slated to serve 600 students in grades 7-12, would operate out of the Hallandale Jewish Center, 416 NE Eighth Ave.

Peter Deutsch, a former U.S. congressman, founded the first Ben Gamla site in 2007 amid controversy over whether it would be a religious school.

School district officials approved the courses, and Deutsch has moved on with expansion plans that include locations in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Deutsch said city staff has concluded that there is capacity on Eighth Avenue for this project, and traffic should not be a concern.

Some residents were skeptical, however.

"This is a rainy afternoon," Cynthia Cabrera said as she held up a large photo of a flooded street. "Why are you pushing so hard to have a school on a street where the infrastructure is so poor?"

Some at the meeting questioned whether those who spoke out in favor were actually from the neighborhood.

"How many parents are receiving volunteer hours for attending this meeting?" asked Josephine Alongi, who smiled when several people raised their hands.

Sharon Miller, principal at the school's Hollywood location, confirmed that some parents will receive volunteer hours for attending.

"Meetings that parents can earn volunteer hours include PTO, student advisory committee and monthly parent workshops," she said. "If there are meetings that pertain to our school, and the high school pertains to the growth of our organization, parents will receive volunteer hours for their attendance."

Mitchel Levin, who supports the school, said it could be a boon to the area.

"Don't close your mind to this," he said. "Six-hundred families will be spending their money here."

Barbara Southwick, who serves on the city's education advisory board, was opposed.

"The nature of Ben Gamla will not draw our most financially, educationally and environmentally deprived, which was the original concept of charter schools," she said. "Since schools are paid through your taxes per pupil, our public schools suffer when we fund such a specialized school."

Catherine Kim Owens, who also serves on the board, cited the small percentage of black students at Ben Gamla's Hollywood location.

"Obviously, this is not an inclusive school for all of the community," she said.

Deutsch refuted that categorization.

"We make an effort to recruit [a diverse student body]," he said. "We reach out to political leaders and church leaders. We advertise in Creole and Spanish. We make an effort, but we can't make someone come to our school."

Owens said residents would continue to fight the proposal.

"They told me the Diplomat [hotel expansion proposal] was a done deal, but this community showed those powerful lobbyists and politicians what grassroots movement voters can do," she said. "This Ben Gamla school is another example of a powerful ex-politician and well-heeled friends trying to shoehorn into a tiny area an over-the-top development at the expense of 10- to 50-year residents."

Sergy Odiduro can be reached at sodiduro@tribune.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hallandale/fl-cn-bengamla-1114-20101113,0,2837479.story

Hatikvah to open amid dispute over enrollment - E.B. board says it will pay $873,076 for 77 students

BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer

Hatikvah International Charter School will open in September as scheduled, thanks to a ruling last week by the state commissioner of education.

In his decision Aug. 26, one day before his firing over an unrelated matter, Bret Schundler determined that the East Brunswick Board of Education had not met the four conditions necessary to grant a stay on the charter school, deeming the board’s argument “spurious at best.”

“We are grateful to the commissioner for vindicating Hatikvah’s right to open and seeing this baseless lawsuit for what it was — the desperate culmination of a cynical campaign by the East Brunswick school board to sabotage the first charter school in its district,” said Hatikvah attorney Thomas Johnston.

The township school board initiated litigation against Hatikvah on Aug. 12, arguing that the school, set to open for grades K-2 next week, did not have enough students enrolled. Board Attorney Matthew Giacobbe filed the motion to rescind Hatikvah’s state approval, citing its failure to show that it had enrolled at least 90 percent of its approved maximum student enrollment, as required under New Jersey law.

Giacobbe said the charter school was required to have provided enrollment figures by June 30 — a week before its final approval— but that the estimates were never received. The attorney said the board determined that the charter school had just 68 students enrolled at the time the motion was filed. Since the school’s maximum enrollment is 108 students, Hatikvah would be required to enroll at least 97 students to comply with state requirements, he said.

In an Aug. 20 press release, Johnston said that Hatikvah provided “precisely the type of documentation” needed to prove that it had met enrollment requirements prior to the June 30 deadline. He said the documents showed that the school had enrolled 100 students from East Brunswick, which accounted for 92.5 percent of total enrollment. The remaining slots would be available to students from other municipalities, Johnston said.

Additionally, Hatikvah officials claim that the school board has attempted to undermine their operation, with efforts to deny or delay transfer cards, or to “harass parents who expressed interest in enrolling their students … . ”

Johnston formally requested that the state bring sanctions against the school board and order the district to release the per-pupil funding that the district must pay the charter school.

State Attorney General Paula Dow filed a brief on Aug. 23 urging Schundler to deny the request for a stay, stating that the lawsuit was groundless. Schundler indicated his decision was based on the school board’s failure to demonstrate the existence of four separate conditions — that the board would suffer irreversible harm if the request is not granted; the legal right underlying the board’s claim was not settled; the board had the likelihood of winning on the merits of the underlying claim; and the board would suffer greater harm than the other party if the request was not granted.

The board contended that transportation could not be organized without a final enrollment number; that any issue that impedes the delivery of educational services is the board’s responsibility; and that the board needed to finalize the 2010-11 plans for over 9,000 students.
“I’m not surprised by this at all,” Yair Nezaria, co-founder of Hatikvah, said. “I believe that justice has been served.”

Nezaria noted that the charter school, which will offer a Hebrew language immersion program while focusing on an International Baccalaureate college preparatory curriculum, is “simply nothing less than a gift to East Brunswick taxpayers,” and that it has tried to establish communications with the district to no avail.

“We have been trying to establish dialogue with the school board for over a year, but all we’ve gotten is rejection coupled with arrogance,” Nezaria said. “If they truly cared about East Brunswick students, then they would sit down and cooperate for their sake.”

School officials say it has been the Hatikvah representatives who have been uncooperative over the course of the year.

Superintendent of Schools Jo Ann Magistro said during the Aug. 26 Board of Education meeting that district officials began meeting with charter school representatives last February in order to set up the appropriate registration process. She said that by law, studentsmust register with the district to be transferred to Hatikvah, and in order for the proper residency papers to be submitted and transportation to be arranged.

“The communication went back and forth for months to try to get a handle on who exactly would be attending the charter school,” Magistro said. “The district tried diligently to get accurate information from the charter school to no avail.”

Magistro said she has not been provided with any specifics with regard to Hatikvah’s claims that staff members had been uncooperative with the charter school.

“The comment that the school district has a ‘communication blackout’ is blatantly false,” she said, adding that the district has “several hundred documents” showing its communications and attempts to communicate with the charter school. She said she has not been in contact with representatives since July, despite her attempt to arrange a meeting with the Hatikvah board.

After the school received final state approval on July 7, Magistro said that an auditor from the state Department of Education was sent to check on Hatikvah’s enrollment figures.

“She asked us to be patient and indicated that she would need to call parents to see if students on the charter school list were indeed going to enroll, since they had not gone through the appropriate registration procedure and many were still on the rolls in our district schools,” Magistro said. “At that time, Hatikvah charter school had still not met its required level of enrollment, and that continues to be true to this day.”

She said the district filed the stay after the auditor confirmed that the enrollment was not met. She said the district was required to file an Open Public Records Act request to get the list of names of students that the charter school had submitted to the state. Magistro said the district received those documents on Aug. 25, and that they confirm that the state “either did not check the information received by the charter school or chose not to follow the code requirements for registration of students.”

Giacobbe said the documents show that only 77 students had registered to be enrolled in Hatikvah as of last week. He said the district will now only be required to pay tuition for that number of students, costing the district significantly less than the $1.22 million allocation that was budgeted for the charter school.

“We would only be required to pay about $875,000,” he said. “That will save the district around $350,000, and every little bit helps in these times.”

“We’ve been accused of filing a frivolous lawsuit, but as of today, they still don’t have their 90 percent,” Giacobbe said.

Magistro said the Department of Education’s ruling contradicts its policies, noting that the decision effectively ignores all regulations for registering children and ensuring that students reside in the district where taxes are being paid.

Giacobbe said the district filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey.

Magistro closed her statement by assuring the charter school parents “that we respect their decision on school choice and that we will continue to work on transportation routes.”

She said the board has pursued litigation in order to perform its “responsibility to due diligence on behalf of the taxpayers of East Brunswick. The district does not want to hold back the $1.2 million budgeted for the charter school. But we do want to make sure that East Brunswick taxpayer dollars are being used to fund children that reside in East Brunswick.”

Nezaria said Tuesday that the charter school had still “not received a penny” of the money owed by the school district.

“They are losing the legal battle, but keep persisting that they are doing everything right,” he said.

Looking forward, he said, “I hope that at a certain point we can all sit down and cooperate for the sake of all East Brunswick children.”

http://ebs.gmnews.com/news/2010-09-02/Front_Page/Hatikvah_to_open_amid_dispute_over_enrollment.html

East Brunswick board files motion to stop charter school

Dispute centers on whether first-year school has met its required enrollment

BY LAUREN CIRAULO Staff Writer

August 19, 2010

Less than a month before students are scheduled to file into the classrooms of the Hatikvah International Academy Charter School, the East Brunswick Board of Education has initiated litigation aimed at preventing it from opening.

The school board filed a motion last week with theAppellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey requesting the court to stay the charter school’s grant. It also requested that state Commissioner of Education Bret Schundler reverse his approval of the school.

According to Board of Education Attorney Matthew Giacobbe, either motion would result in the rescinding of Hatikvah’s approval and invalidate its grant funding. Giacobbe said the motions were filed due to the charter school’s failure to show that it has enrolled at least 90 percent of its approved maximum student enrollment, which is required for charter schools under New Jersey law.

“The charter school has not met regulatory requirements for projected enrollment for 2010-11,” Giacobbe said. “They were supposed to demonstrate that they have 90 percent of their projected enrollment, and because they have not fulfilled that requirement, the charter should not have been granted.”

Hatikvah International, which plans to offer a Hebrew language immersion program while focusing on an International Baccalaureate college preparatory curriculum, has been preparing to open its doors in September for students in kindergarten through second grade. This would include full-day kindergarten. The school is set to become the township’s first charter school, and the first public charter school in New Jersey to offer a Hebrew language program.

Hatikvah is to be housed at 367 Cranbury Road at the rear of the Trinity Presbyterian Church property when it first opens. Plans call for its permanent location to be built on the Y Country Day Camp grounds on Dutch Road.

The Hatikvah board has said that each classroom will be staffed with two state-certified teachers, for a maximum teacher-to-student ratio of 1 to 11 and a total of 13 teachers.

The school received final approval from the state Department of Education on July 7.

Giacobbe said the charter school was required to have provided enrollment figures by June 30 — a week before its approval — but that the estimates were never received.

“We asked for enrollment figures, but we were unable to get them verified by the school,” he said. “An auditor from the Department of Education notified us just last week that the numbers weren’t sufficient.”

Giacobbe said the school district had received some certified documents over the past few months, but not a full list. He noted that Hatikvah sent another letter to the school district with more enrollment information on Aug. 12. The attorney said the charter school’s maximum enrollment is 108 students, meaning that Hatikvah must enroll at least 97 students to comply with state requirements. The school currently has 68 students enrolled, Giacobbe said.

“The school board has standards for taxpayer money,” he said. “We need to make sure in the district that taxpayers’ money is scrutinized at every turn, and we need to make sure this charter school conforms with regulations.”

Hatikvah International Academy co-founder and board member Yair Nezaria countered the district’s argument, though he did not provide the exact number.

“In general, I can say that not only did we meet the required indistrict enrollment requirement by June 30, but we exceeded it, and the district knows that,” Nezaria said. “This lawsuit unfortunately appears to be an 11th-hour attempt by the East Brunswick Board of Education to deny an excellent school choice for children of East Brunswick, and to instill fear and anxiety into Hatikvah families. This is a financial issue for the district. By infusing this air of uncertainty, the district hopes to prevent Hatikvah from opening and to then be able to immediately reabsorb all the Hatikvah students into the district system.”

The charter school has been allotted $1.22 million in the Board of Education’s 2010-11 budget, which has been subject to extensive cuts due to a substantial loss in state aid.

“It’s a large sum of money for a handful of kids,” said school board President Todd Simmens. “We won’t get this money back. It’s coming straight out of the district budget, but our costs are not going down. There’s just not enough kids going to the charter school to make an impact.”

“It’s our job to look out for the taxpayers and the district,” he continued.

Hatikvah officials have said that the school will have no effect on the taxpayers. Nezaria described charter schools in general as a more cost-effective way of educating a child since they typically are not unionized and have lower administrative costs than their public district counterparts.

“Hatikvah is working with a lean budget out of necessity — charter school boards do not have the option like public school boards to raise taxes in order to meet their budget,” Nezaria has said. “Charter schools must balance their budget each and every year and live within their means. Consequently, Hatikvah has already raised $335,000 from private donors before even opening its doors.”

The school district is required to give the charter school 90 percent of its per-pupil funding for each student at the charter school. Nezaria said that means the district gets to keep 10 percent of that money for a child that it does not have to educate.

“Therefore, if on an average it costs East Brunswick $13,057 to educate a child, Hatikvah will receive only $11,324 per child, while the difference, $1,733 per child, remains with the district,” he said.

http://ebs.gmnews.com/news/2010-08-19/Front_Page/East_Brunswick_board_files_motion_to_stop_charter_.html

New Miami Beach charter school offers classes in Hebrew

Parents interested in having their children learn Hebrew as part of their schooling attended an open house Sunday for the new Ben Gamla Charter School set to open in August.

BY PARADISE AFSHAR

PAFSHAR@MIAMIHERALD.COM

For the upcoming school year Johany Preston is considering an alternative option to a traditional public school for her three boys.

She is flirting with the idea of sending them to the brand new Ben Gamla Charter School in Miami Beach, which when it opens in August will offer a combination English and Hebrew curriculum, only the third school of its kind in South Florida.

``The location and the Hebrew were the main draws,'' said Preston, 44, of North Miami, who was among two dozens parents on Sunday attending an open house at the school at 1211 Marseille Dr. It will welcome students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Admission to the school is free and open to students residing in the Miami-Dade school district. There is a $100 refundable book deposit.

Preston, who is Jewish, said she feels that the language component is important ``because it's a part of the Jewish culture.''

The Miami Beach campus is the second for the school named after an Israelite high priest -- Yehoshua ben Gamla -- known in the Talmud for his campaign to establish yeshivas throughout Judea.

The school's language curriculum has not been without controversy. When the first Ben Gamla school opened in Hollywood in 2007, the Broward County School Board briefly ordered the charter school suspend its Hebrew classes because the language has too close of a tie to Judaism, raising concerns that the connection could result in a nonsecular school.

Nathan Katz, a religious studies professor at Florida International University, was asked by the school board to review the lesson plans to ensure it was secular and the school was allowed to offer Hebrew classes. Katz said it is within the school's constitutional rights to teach the culture that comes with the language, and that the curriculum doesn't include any religious practice.

``It's like a magnet school where you may have a choice of language like French or German,'' said Katz, who attended Sunday's open house.

Heather Rubin, a first grade teacher, said Ben Gamla students are held to the same Florida public school standards. The majority of the curriculum is taught in English.

``I don't speak Hebrew,'' Rubin said, adding that another teacher comes into the class to teach students the language. ``But I do think it's great to have to learn a second language. It's amazing to see the kids who come here who speak a second language at home, come here and learn a third language.''

But the main goal of the school is to provide a comforting learning environment, she said. Principal Ari Haddad describes the school as a hybrid between public and private schools. Haddad said the new school is being well-received.

``So far everyone has been great. I had one of the neighbors come to me today and say, `You will do great things here,' and I think we will.'' he said.

Currently, there are 930 students enrolled in the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood. The new Miami Beach campus is expected to add 190 new students.

For more information about the Ben Gamla Charter School, call 305-469-9331

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/28/1704044/new-miami-beach-charter-school.html#ixzz188sNdTIo

California's first Hebrew language charter school approved for Santa Clarita Valley

BY REBECCA STEINBERGER

A charter school emphasizing Hebrew as well as other languages is expected to open in the Santa Clarita Valley in fall 2010, after being approved by a Santa Clarita school board on Wednesday evening. “This is an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of our children,” said Rabbi Mark Blazer of Temple Beth Ami, who has spearheaded the project from the start. “I am very excited and proud that the process ended up being passed by our local district,” Blazer said. “This will allow the growth of other charter schools that will offer Hebrew.”

Officials hope to open the Albert Einstein Academy for Letters, Arts and Sciences with 225 students in grades 7 through 9, on a temporary site. The school hopes to add 75 students per year until reaching capacity of 450 and would ultimately be expanded to reach 12th grade.

The school has been labeled a Hebrew language charter school, and its Web site says it is “is the first charter school in California to incorporate the Hebrew language into its curricula.” It was originally conceived to be built on a new Jewish community center site, alongside Temple Beth Ami, but the curriculum has since been expanded to include other languages and the ultimate home for the school is now not yet determined. The school’s Web site states: “An important area in which Hebrew cultural content will be added to the curriculum is through the school’s regular enrichment workshops.”

The William S. Hart School District approved the proposal in a 4-0 vote. Plans had previously caused concern among some board members over separation of church and state. During the district’s first consideration, board members requested amendments that the school will accommodate all religious holidays, as determined by the students’ and staff’s needs, and would include more resources for special education.

Backers of the charter say the school will not be a religious school. Its principal, Edward Gika, has spent more than a decade as an educator, and served as dean of students at Montclair College Prep School. Speaking of the Einstein Academy, he said, “Nothing is blurred between church and state.”

The school’s stated mission is to prepare students for college with an emphasis on multiple languages, as well as communication and critical thinking. Students will study two languages, choosing from Hebrew, Spanish, Latin, Greek and Arabic. Officials said the school will apply for accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Hebrew will be optional.

“If you study Hebrew, you have to be of a particular faith?” Gika asked parents during a recent meeting. “This is a battle we don’t have to fight.”

The meetings, which have taken place over the last few months, showed that parents and community members were mostly concerned about transportation, enrollment and how soon the academy would expand into additional grade levels.

Although the school will likely be attractive to Jewish families, the diversified curriculum and array of extracurricular activities, including athletics, arts, educational travel, writing programs and after-school programs would likely have a larger appeal as well, particularly in a time when public schools are facing statewide budget cuts. 

“We need to focus on giving our kids the greatest and broadest education they could have to be more successful adults,” said Fabian Malinovitz, father to twin 5th graders.

Malinovitz became interested in the school when he realized his daughters were memorizing a foreign language rather than finding meaning in the words. The charter will give more options than the district he said.

Parents interested in enrolling their children may request an application by visiting the Albert Einstein Academy website at www.ealas.org.

Additional information may be found on the website or by contacting Edward Gika at 661-373-3286.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/cover_story/article/how_jewish_are_hebrew_charter_schools_20100824/