For the second time, the Princeton International Academy Charter School (PIACS) will try its hand at receiving zoning approval to open its facility. PIACS was scheduled to appear before the South Brunswick Zoning Board on Thursday, April 14, for a use variance for a charter school and a private school facility at 12 Perrine Road in an office-research zone. For an update, check www.wwpinfo.com on Friday, April 15.
WW-P officials are already planning to fight the application. Planning Board President Hemant Marathe sent a letter urging PTA members to attend the zoning hearing to oppose the application.
He told them that if PIACS opens in September, it could draw over 100 students from WW-P and take $1.2 million of district taxpayer dollars. Loss of that would be equivalent to elimination of 17 teaching positions, one-half of the sports teams and extra curricular activities, and most of the music programs, he wrote.
The site of the proposed charter school is near the Plainsboro border at Schalks Crossing Road. The application on behalf of the charter school was made by 12 P & Associates, LLC, of Lake Drive in Princeton — which is also listed as the contract purchaser. Critics of the school have noted that the Helena May, former PIACS trustee, is the owner of 12 P & Associates. PIACS founder Bonnie Liao confirmed this in an online interview, saying that May resigned from the board in March “with intentions of having 12 P purchase the Perrine Road facility, pending zoning board approval for PIACS.” She insisted she was not in it to make a profit.
Liao also confirmed that the application is not only for a charter school, but also for a private school, the YingHua Day School, which would move to the location. Liao founded the private school in 2007. She insisted that the charter school will not subsidize the private school and that each school would be a separate entity, and that everything was being done legally.
Documents provided by PIACS show that the charter school is applying to allow the establishment of a 13,790-square foot charter school for kindergarten through fifth grades and a 2,115-square foot not-for-profit private school for pre-K through second grades, in an existing 45,340-square foot building, the remainder of which will be vacant for “possible future expansion of a related educational use.” It is also seeking a bulk variance to allow two signs to be placed on the property, where only one is allowed, as well as other various waivers and variances.
“The facility is currently used partly as office space and partly as a liquor warehouse,” said Parker Block, the spokesman for PIACS. “It is surrounded by residential property whose value would be enhanced if the facility were used as a school rather than for its current purpose.”
The charter school, which hopes to open this September, will consist of students from the Princeton, South Brunswick, and WW-P school districts. The school will be the first to offer an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum framework as well as dual language Mandarin-English immersion.
