Editor’s note: Ever since the Princeton Charter School was launched in the late 1990s, it has been an attractive option. To meet the demand the school’s trustees have proposed to expand. The plan has been the subject of a spate of letters in the weekly papers. Below are one argument against the expansion, and one in favor.
Charter School expansion would be bad for schools
The Princeton Charter School expansion is not the right decision for our Community.
The PCS trustees’ proposal seeks 76 more students, 60 of whom will be in grades K-2, at a cost of $1.16 million dollars that will be taken out of our existing school budget each year.
The trustees of Princeton Charter School claim that by taking 60 children in grades K-2, from Princeton’s 4 Elementary schools, plus taking $1.16 million dollars each year from the current Princeton Public Schools budget, the expansion will help the Princeton Public Schools with their enrollment issues. It will not.
First, enrollment at Princeton High School has been steadily rising for years and is already at or above capacity. None of the new 76 Princeton Charter School “seats” will help PHS.
Second, in the past two years, John Witherspoon Middle School (JWMS) enrollment has ballooned. The district must have the funds in its upcoming budget season to hire more staff, in order to maintain/readjust class sizes and maintain programs there. As explained above, the bulk of the Princeton Charter School expansions proposal would call for taking 60 children currently in grades K-2, from the 4 Princeton elementary schools. That does nothing to lessen JWMS’s enrollment.
Third, the PCS proposal calls for an additional few kids per grade, in grades 4-8. This will take out only a handful of students from JWMS, spread over the three grades there. This will not affect enrollment, nor will it lessen the need for the district to hire more staff there. If charter school expansion happens, JWMS will still have almost the same number of kids, therefore will still need the same resources and teachers. Fixed costs remain the same! and as a result, we will not have the money to staff those needed new sections. Once again, the PCS expansion does not help JWMS. As a matter of fact it further weakens JWMS now and in the future.
Lastly, the majority of children PCS would take would come from three grades across the 4 elementary schools, which aren’t experiencing a crowding issue. Even if they were, the expansion as proposed would not meaningfully help.
So, if the PCS expansion doesn’t help PHS, doesn’t help JWMS, isn’t needed in the four elementary schools, and only weakens the excellent Princeton Public Schools as a whole, why is it being forced on our community?
— Wendy Vasquez, Princeton
Charter School great; ready to help more
As a parent of a child that went into PCS as a kindergartner in 2002 and graduated from it, I would like to express my support for its expansion.
PCS was a great educational experience for our daughter. An impish naughty handful when little, she was nurtured by the excellent teachers there to become a thoughtful person, and extremely well prepared for the challenges of high school. She attended PHS, and went on to attend Princeton University. We credit PCS for instilling the right academic habits and inspiring intellectual curiosity, and PHS for providing the additional challenge and social maturity.
When we had enrolled her in PCS kindergarten, we did so because we had heard anecdotal comments from parents of older children that they chose PCS to avoid John Witherspoon middle school, which, in the early 2000s was, supposedly, not as strong in academics as PCS.
Over the years, the grapevine script has changed: we have been hearing how wonderful JW is, which means that the competition from PCS must have facilitated changes that improved its quality dramatically. I believe that competition is a good thing. It keeps PCS on its toes, because its charter gets renewed only if it provides education at least as good as the district schools, and it keeps those schools on their toes as well. It also instills an ethic of constant improvement, which only serves our student population better.
While our daughter was a student there, PCS received a “Blue Ribbon” award, as part of the “No Child Left Behind” act. I was proud as a parent, because this meant that the school did not cherry-pick the students, but instead worked with the students it had, and was able with its more limited resources to improve the academic skills of its most disadvantaged students.
PCS is ready to accept the challenge of educating more disadvantaged students by changing its charter to a weighted admission lottery, which would favor them substantially. I would like to ask for your support and the support of the entire Princeton community in this challenge. It is a noble challenge, in the spirit of a cooperative competition, and it is something open-minded Princeton citizens should embrace.
—Nadia Braun, Princeton
More Pine Barrens, less politics, please
I got 3/4 of the way through the article “The Jersey Devil Walks into a Bar” by Pia de Jong thinking what an interesting place the Pine Barrens were, until Pia made a point to mention politics in an “us” versus “them” attitude. Just because the bar clients were not likely to have voted for Clinton doesn’t mean she couldn’t finish her chili! I would have enjoyed reading more about the place and less about politics. Let’s move on!
— Nicole Barberis, Harrison Street, Princeton
