In 1999, the Golden Door Charter School moved out of a series of trailers and into a new community center on Ninth Street built by the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA).
Now, 10 years later, the school of 504 kids (kindergarten through eighth grade) wants to buy the building from the JCRA. The school pays $77,000 a month in rent to the city agency, and believes it would save about $20,000 per month by being owners rather than renters.
But the city agency says it has a lot of debt to pay off on the building, and needs to keep some of the space for other tenants, including the St. Anthony’s school basketball team. They also have said that the valuable building could some day be sold to a developer.
Stabilize the children
A parent of a Golden Door student recently posted a letter on a local website pleading with Mayor Jerramiah Healy to sell the school to Golden Door.
“This is a safe environment that we will be uprooting our children from,” the parent wrote, “only because the city is thinking of money first and not our children.”
The Jersey City Redevelopment Agency does not want to sell the building, because of the debt incurred when they used $9.5 million in bonds to erect it in 1998.
The controversial funding had been pushed through by the school’s founder, former Mayor Bret Schundler, who ultimately wanted the school to move into the building. There was a state law prohibiting public funds from being used for the construction of a charter school. Schundler is not involved with the school in any capacity at the present time, school officials say.
A charter school is a semi-public school founded by educators, parents, and other members of the public. They apply to the state to get a “charter” and receive funding through the local Board of Education, but that board has little oversight of the private school.
A lesson in economics
Brian Stiles, the school’s chief academic officer, says the current $77,000/month rent of the school is slated to go up 10 percent to $84,000/month for the 2010-2011 school year.
Stiles and the school’s board of trustees have already met with representatives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark to find other locations in Jersey City to buy or rent in order relocate within two years.
The Golden Door Charter has 504 kids.
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“We were told flat out they would not sell the property, but it is worth a lot and is located a great area, and they could someday knock [the school] down and build a high-rise on the site,” Stiles said.
Last week, Antonicello confirmed the meeting. He said the JCRA sees the school as a valuable property that produces revenues from not only the school but also from use of the building as a community center by various organizations.
Antonicello said the issue is not that the agency needs to make a profit, but that the consistent stream of money helps to rid the JCRA of the debt.
He confirmed the comment about the site being the future home of a high-rise, but said that was an “option.”
“We have the long-term lease, and in addition to the lease, we manage and maintain it as a community center,” Antonicello said. “It’s still a relatively new building and we have a lot of time and money into repairs in keeping it new.”
Antonicello said if Golden Door moves out, then they will look to bring in another charter school.
Move?
The various situations facing the school beg the question: Why not move?
Stiles said the school staff and the students prefers the stability of staying in one location, recalling when the school was originally based in trailers on land located at the corner of Marin Boulevard and Christopher Columbus Drive.
Stiles said the school handed out a survey not long ago asking, “If Golden Door Charter School relocates to St. John’s School, will you continue to enroll your child at Golden Door?” Seventy-one percent said yes.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonrreporter.com.