By Rich Bockmann
Of the dozen charter schools already open in Queens, more than half are in the western part of the borough, but the proposals so far for new charters in the 2014 school year are focusing on neighborhoods in the southeast.
While Hollis’ Merrick Academy was the first charter school in Queens, the controversial institutions are mostly found west of the Van Wyck Expressway, where there are now seven bunched in the neighborhoods of Astoria, Long Island City, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Middle Village.
This year, however, there are already five proposals for charter schools in southeast Queens which, if approved, would double the number already in Hollis, St. Albans, South Jamaica and Far Rockaway.
Last week the state Education Department accepted three applications from southeast Queens into Round 2 of its selection process.
Both the Bloomberg Philanthropies-backed ReSolve Charter School and Black Spectrum Theatre Founder Carl Clay’s Spectrum Charter School indicated they will be looking to co-locate with public schools.
ReSolve is hoping to open four schools across the city in neighborhoods with large black and Latino populations including the Jamaica area, where it has identified nine underused city school buildings it could call home.
“Given the availability of space and the mayor’s support for this initiative, the founding group is confident DOE space will be found for all ReSolve campuses,” the application said.
Clay’s Black Spectrum school will use “an integrated theater arts approach as ‘the hook’ to achieve academic excellence” and said its ultimate goal is to find a home of its own, but noted it will be looking to share space with a public school for a three-year incubation period. The application identified August Martin High School in South Jamaica and IS 59 in Springfield Gardens as possible solutions, but Clay is going to have some competition for those spots.
The city Panel for Education Policy is considering proposals to co-locate both those schools with Success Academy charter schools, which will be seeking approval from the SUNY Charter Institute beginning in February.
The Board of Regents will make its rulings on NYSED applications in later this year, including a proposal by the Rockaway Community Charter School to find an incubation space on the peninsula, which has charter schools in Far Rockaway and Edgemere.
Only one of the applications Education Department accepted is looking to open a school in western Queens.
The founders of the Literacy Empowerment Academy, whose goal is to raise literacy rates among Spanish-speaking students, said they understand District 24 is already the most crowded in the city and are aware of the stresses that co-locations create among school communities.
“With this in mind, we have made the deliberate decision that we will not co-locate in a New York City public school building,” according to the application, which said the school had reached a tentative agreement to share space with the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran School in Glendale.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
