People seeking new educational alternatives in Jersey City have three reasons to be hopeful about the future.
Applications for three charter schools to open in Jersey City in fall 2011 have been submitted to the state. The results will be announced by Sept. 1.
Charter schools are public schools, but they are usually founded by parents and/or educators and can avoid some of the strict state oversight and teacher’s-union control that other public schools must face. They get most of their funding from the state. Usually, students enrolled in a charter school are chosen from a lottery or from signing up on a list.
“We thought we could help while providing a top-quality education.” – John Sico
________
Math and science school
John Sico is a retired Paterson school district administrator and current adjunct professor at William Paterson University in Wayne. He is part of the team of nine veteran educators who are behind the creation of the proposed Mathematics, Engineering, Technology and Science Charter School (METS).
The school would open to 280 students in grades 6 to 9 in the first year, with expansion in following years to 490 students enrolled in sixth to 12th grades. That is an average of 70 students per grade level.
The school would be housed at the Beacon condominium complex on Montgomery Street in downtown Jersey City.
Sico, a Union County resident, said the idea behind the school was a proposal by a member of the team who lives in Jersey City.
“He saw there was a problem with the test scores in some Jersey City high schools, especially for math and science,” Sico said. “We thought we could help while providing a top-quality education.”
Sico is confident that the application for the METS School will be approved. So is George Filopoulos, developer of The Beacon condos. Filopoulos is excited about the school potentially opening in his building, one of three schools planned to open within the Beacon in the next two years. Filopoulos said the other two schools are an early childhood center for kids from 6 months to 5 years old, and an elementary school serving kindergarten through fifth grade.
“I am happy it is at the Beacon, but I am even more excited because of the people behind this bringing a school of this caliber to Jersey City,” Filopoulos said.
Sico said once the METS application is approved, the founders will host a public meeting for parents interested in enrolling their children.
Other charters
An application was also submitted by longtime attorney Francis Schiller, who is also a priest at St. Patrick and Assumption/All Saints Roman Catholic Church in Jersey City’s Bergen-Lafayette section.
Schiller is proposing the Dr. Lena Edwards Charter School, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school serving about 400 students. Dr. Edwards, who died in 1987, was one of the first black female obstetrician-gynecologists in the United States and carried on a private practice in Bergen-Lafayette for many years.
Christopher Tisdale, the lead teacher at the currently existing Schomberg Charter School (a kindergarten to fifth grade school) in downtown Jersey City, submitted an application for the DREAM Preparatory Academy Charter High School, described in the application as an arts-based institution with rigorous academic standards that would serve up to 500 students.
Tisdale could not be reached at the school for comment.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.