We oppose the opening of the Innovators Charter School. The school will siphon more than $10 million from the public schools in New Bedford and Fall River, resulting in cuts to staff and programs in the public schools that serve the vast majority of students in our region.

This proposed charter school sets up an unnecessary and competitive process for students seeking early access to college and college credits. We urge our public colleges and universities to work with our public high schools to expand existing programs for early college access. This will be the best way to ensure that every student has an opportunity to benefit from early college access.

Charter schools were conceived to foster new ideas in public education. This proposal, however, will take students from programs that already exist in the districts’ public schools. This will ultimately undermine opportunities for students.

Charter schools also do not serve the entire student population. Even though enrollment must be open to all, charter schools are not required to retain students and can return them to their sending schools. This creates an uneven playing field, one that becomes exacerbated once the funding loss triggered by the charter school has an impact on the districts’ schools.

We support public funding for public schools that truly serve all students.
Furthermore, this charter school will not be accountable to locally elected officials and instead answer to a private board of directors. We support public schools that are accountable to the communities they serve.

For all of these reasons, we oppose the Innovators Charter School application for the New Bedford and Fall River region.