In War With NYC Mayor, Success Academy Charter Cancels Pre-K Program

Pictured: Success Academy students in Cobble Hill. Photo via Success Academy/Facebook

By Kings County Politics New Service

BROOKLYN, NY — After nearly a year of battling over a contract with the de Blasio Administration, the New York City-based Success Academy Charter Schools network announced last week that it must cancel its pre-K program for the 2016-17 school year.

The city mandates all entities hosting pre-K schools to sign the contract. But Success Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz refused, saying it exerted too much control over her curriculum, daily schedule and field trips.

Success Academy currently runs pre-K at three of its schools — in Harlem, Williamsburg and Cobble Hill — and had planned to expand the program to two additional locations next year. About 3,000 children were entered into the most recent admissions lottery.

“I’ll probably have to do a lot of work with my son at home — over the summer and at night — to ensure he doesn’t already have an educational deficit at the early age of 3,” said Jacqueline Banegas-Abreu, whose child was slated to attend pre-K at Success Academy Cobble Hill next year.

The charter network's Cobble Hill location came under fire earlier this year after a video surfaced of a teacher yelling at a little girl who was struggling with math.

Success Academy also has campuses in Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene, Bushwick, Crown Heights, Ditmas Park, Bergen Beach and Bensonhurst.

Success Academy's leader, Moskowitz, has argued that the State University of New York (SUNY) is the proper oversight authority over charter schools in her network.

But New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia ruled for the city, saying pre-K is a state-funded grant program, rather than part of the K-12 levels overseen by SUNY.

Moskowitz appealed the matter to the state Supreme Court earlier this year, but acknowledged the court’s decision would come too late to open doors in August.

Now, families of admitted children must scramble to find alternatives.

“It is unbelievably sad to tell parents and teachers that the courts won’t rescue our pre-K program from the mayor’s war on Success in time to open next year,” Moskowitz said.

The NYC Department of Education (DOE) argued that every other one of the 277 organizations that applied to host pre-K — including every other charter — signed the same basic contract.

The terms of the DOE’s proposed contract all stem directly from the baseline program quality requirements set for participating pre-K providers by statute, regulation and the New York State Department of Education.

“For the first time, every child in New York City has access to free, full-day, high quality pre-K programs across district, charter, parochial and early education centers,” DOE spokesperson Devora Kaye said.

“The state upheld our important standards to ensure all programs are high quality, and we look forward to welcoming more charter schools and organizations across every neighborhood to Pre-K for All to provide families with this critical year of academic learning,” Kaye said.

A version of this story originally appeared on the Kings County Politics news site