The Charter Schools Committee of the SUNY Board of Trustees put a high-performing Bronx charter school on probation yesterday for not meeting state requirements for teacher certification.
Although as many as nine teachers at the Bronx Preparatory School were out of compliance, the trustees were reluctant to take an action that could ultimately lead to charter revocation against such a successful school.
Last year, Bronx Prep’s fifth- through eighth-graders bettered by more than 22 points the average school in District 9 school on state reading and math exams and the school has posted much higher graduation rates than the city average.
“The larger purpose is, are they doing a good job educating kids?” asked trustee Pedro Noguera.
Bronx Prep now has until May 1 to draft a plan for complying before the start of the next school year.
Bronx Prep principal Samona Tait argued that “uncertified” is by no means synonymous with “unqualified.”
Charter schools are allowed to have as many as five uncertified teachers, who are still responsible for meeting certain classroom- or work-background benchmarks.
“The bottom line for us is the results that folks can generate for our scholars,” Tait wrote in an e-mail.
Also yesterday, public-school parents and teachers who object to the city’s bid to replace failing public schools with charter schools filed a lawsuit against the city’s Department of Education.
The lawsuit argues that swapping three zoned elementary schools two in Harlem and one in Brownsville with schools that admit students by lottery is tantamount to rezoning, a power reserved for parent education councils.