WEST NEW YORK AND BEYOND — The state Department of Education was expected to consider 17 new charter school proposals in Trenton on Friday, one of which is West New York Mayor Felix Roque’s proposed military charter school.
The 17 proposals were selected by the NJDOE from the 42 applications they received in October. Applicants who made the first cut were set to re-present their plans Friday. The NJDOE will spend the next few weeks in further review before they announce their final decision on Jan. 17.
“This is history in the making,” Roque said Thursday. “It would be the first military charter school in the state.”
Roque was a colonel in the U.S. Army.
The approved charter schools would add to the current total of 80 independently-run, publically-funded New Jersey schools, not including the 25 approved last year for 2012.
Most of the county’s charter schools are in either Hoboken or Jersey City. —Gennarose Pope