I write to you today to ask for a moratorium on new charter seats in Middlesex and Somerset counties.

As of the 2016-17 school year there are five charter schools located in Middlesex and Somerset, and a sixth charter, Ailanthus Charter School, was approved in October 2016 to serve students in Franklin and New Brunswick, with an opening date set for September 2018.

Three of these existing charters, Hatikvah International Academy Charter School (Hatikvah), Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School (TEECS), and Central Jersey College Prep (CJCP) are looking to drastically expand their seats.

- Hatikvah has applied for another class of 25 students per grade in grades K-8; a total of 225 students.

- TEECS has applied for two new campuses, each with 360 students; one in Old Bridge and one in Perth Amboy.

- CJCP has applied for a new campus in New Brunswick with 540 students.

Right now there are 2,316 charter school seats available in these three charter schools. Public records show that this number will increase by 128% to 5,283 charter school seats if all of the outstanding expansion applications are granted and Ailanthus is granted a final charter to open in 2018. This will undoubtedly lead to drastic and debilitating cuts throughout the public school districts in these two counties.

None of these charter schools have demonstrated sufficient need in the districts they serve or the districts they propose to serve to warrant such dramatic expansion. In fact, the existing schools are unable to fill their seats with students from the district(s) they are currently approved to serve.

For example, TEECS and CJCP are each approved to serve three large districts, but only 96% of the students enrolled in TEECS reside in that school’s region of residence and only 87% of the students enrolled in CJCP reside in that school’s region of residence. Hatikvah is approved to only serve one district - East Brunswick. Only 48% of the students enrolled in Hatikvah reside in East Brunswick, and the other 52% of students come from 25 other districts in 7 counties.

It is therefore impossible to determine which districts the expansions will impact, and to what extent. In the current school year the Highland Park school district has students attending Hatikvah, TEECS and CJCP. This draws over $350,000 out of the local schools, even though these three charters are not approved to serve Highland Park. It's important to note that in the 2010-2011 school year only 4 Highland Park students attended Hatikvah, costing the district a little over $60,000. Just six years later that number has grown to 25, at a cost of over $300,000 to the district, plus transportation.

For districts with charters within their boundaries, like Franklin, the impact will be absolutely devastating. This year over $8.5 million dollars have been diverted from the Franklin Public Schools to send students to TEECS and CJCP, but another $500,000 has been lost to 4 more charter schools in other districts. With transportation costs factored in, Franklin is spending almost $10 million on charters this year.

To make matter worse, the charter schools diverting funds from local districts are not serving the same populations of students. Data shows conclusively that many local charter are serving far less students with special education needs, less English Language learners and less students who qualify for free/reduced lunch.

For example, the student population at TEECS for the 2015-2016 school year is 5% free/reduced, while the North Brunswick Public School District for that same year had a 40% free/reduced lunch population and the Franklin Township Public School District had a 45% free/reduced lunch population. The differences between the charter and its districts of residence student populations are simply staggering.

It is also shocking that the racial makeup at TEECS fails to reflect that of their sending districts. In the 2015-16 school year Asian students made up only 26% of the student population of North Brunswick and only 17% of the student population of Franklin. That same year TEECS had a student population that is 67% Asian.

In the same year North Brunswick and Franklin had a 31% and 30% Hispanic student population respectively, TEECS had only a 4% Hispanic student population. The 13% Black student population of TEECS is also notably less than North Brunswick's 21% and Franklin's 38%.

There is blatant and egregious segregation occurring at TEECS.

There is absolutely no evidence that any kind of study and/or statistical analysis has been conducted by the NJDOE to look at these issues. Unless and until such an analysis has been conducted and the NJDOE fully understands the financial and segregative impact on each and every district potentially impacted by the proposed expansions, I respectfully request that no new charter seats be approved in Middlesex and Somerset Counties.