State Education Officials Decline Application for Peekskill Charter School

Plans to place a charter school in the building of the Assumption School in Peekskill have been derailed for the foreseeable future.

Audrey Warn, lead applicant for the school, sent the following statement late Friday night:

In the afternoon of Friday, May 3, 2013, the Guardian Academy Charter School of Peekskill was notified by the State Education Department that it had not been invited to continue the next phase of the chartering process.

In the light of these developments, the proposed initial Board of Trustees will reconvene in the coming weeks to evaluate options.

The proposed charter school, which officials announced in February, would have been placed inside the Assumption School, which is closing at the end of this school year. The school would have opened during the 2014-2015 school year if it had received state approval.

Peekskill school officials have expressed concerns over the charter school and feared the Guardian Academy would have siphoned nearly $10.7 million in school aid from the district in its first six years of existence.

Peekskill school board members and administrators have scheduled an Important informational meeting on charter schools  for 9 a.m. today inside the Peekskill Middle School.