Dear Editor:
The decision by school board members to privately fund a lawsuit against the HOLA Charter school, should disqualify those board members from serving on the Hoboken Board of Education. Their oath to serve “all” students in the Hoboken School system, is being compromised by their personal vendetta against one of our more successful charter schools and is both hypocritical, as well as a poor example for our students!
While they may fundamentally have an issue with charter schools’ in general, what they are doing by continuing to fund a lawsuit that has been twice reviewed and rejected by the state’s education Commissioner David Hespe, along with an independent panel, is downright irresponsible. Their lawsuit will waste over 150k of taxpayer monies in legal fees, even if the school board members are privately funding their desire to appeal the decision again; the HOLA school still has to pay to defend itself.
On March 28th 2014 and again on February 2, 2015, the NJDOE affirmed its decision to allow the expansion of HOLA, after carefully reviewing the student enrollment data from the district that showed “no segregative effect on the school district.” At this point, it seems that board members, rather than focusing their energies on improving the quality of public school education, or raising private funds for much needed resources for students, are engaging in scorched-earth politics.
We can’t forget that this program could have been a catalyst for improving our public schools, but the majority of members voted it down. I support all efforts to maximize the attractiveness of our public schools. Nevertheless, to pursue costly litigation against one of the most successful charter schools we have in Hoboken, seems nonsensical and spiteful. Our children deserve better quality options within our community, not less. As Ernest Yeboah once said, “Education without inspiration is only a recipe for desperation”, so I challenge you to inspire and not conspire!
Sincerely,
Carmelo G. Garcia
Assemblyman 33rd District