The sign on the door of the main office of Create Charter School on Lembeck Avenue reads “Quiet please, work in progress.”
“I still like to think of us as a work in progress,” said Steve Lipski, the principal of the first charter high school in Jersey City, who also serves as Ward C councilman. Create Charter School, which currently has 150 students in ninth and tenth grades, shares a building with St. Paul’s Elementary School after moving there a year ago from its first home on Wade Street.
A “charter school” is a nonsectarian public school of choice normally created by parents and educators. It is not bound by all of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools. The “charter” establishing the school is a performance contract detailing the school’s mission, program and goals, along with methods of student assessment. The length of time granted to a charter school by a local school district is between three and five years.
Lipski, a native of the Heights section of Jersey City, started the school as an effort “to give back to the community that had done so much for me.”
Lipski believes one of the advantages of the charter schools is the small class size. “We have about 17 children per class,” he said. “There is a greater sense of ease with the process of education.”
Students at Create Charter also spend more hours in class and have a longer school year.
“Our school day begins at 8:30 a.m. and runs until 3:30 p.m.,” said Lipski. Most public schools get out an hour earlier. The school year at Create Charter has 195 days, compared to the regular public school year of 180 days, Lipski noted.
The educational vision of the school is, Lipski stated, comprehensive and approaches students in a different manner than the public schools.
“As an example, we had one student transfer to us who had been assessed for special education,” Lipski explained. “We looked at him again and found out he was a computer whiz. Now he helps us out on in the office and is on the honor roll. By looking at him differently, we gave the student the motivation to make to the honor roll.”
Personalized attention
Part of the personalized attention to students that Lipski described is the school’s summer program.
“The summer school is based on the Oxford Tutorial model,” said Lipski. At Oxford University in England, students read a long list of books about their particular major and then meet with a professor to discuss what they have learned.
“In our case, we have one teacher work with four students,” said Lipski. “This gives the education process a more directed and personal feel.”
Titania Perry, a 15 year-old who is in her second year at Create Charter, believes she is a better student for going to the charter school.
“The teachers in the other schools wouldn’t have paid that much attention to me,” said Perry, who participates in the school’s gospel choir and has started a dance troupe. “I had trouble with Spanish last year, but this year I’m doing very well. The teachers here really help you out.”
“The teachers have a lot of patience,” said Kevin Smart, also in his second year at Create Charter. “They help you out in bad times and that has been a good thing for me.”
Smart said he put most of his effort this year into math and English.
“I want to be an accountant like my brother,” Smart explained.
Lipski speculated on where he would like the school to be in five years.
“To have a permanent facility would be the first thing,” said Lipski. “I would like to get an apprenticeship program started, also.”
In the apprenticeship program, Create Charter students would work with lawyers in court rooms or doctors in hospitals to get hands-on experience the fields of their choice, Lipski added.
Lipski said he would like to add a medical clinic to the school with a full-time doctor, a project that he hopes can be funded by grants.
“This would go a long way toward looking at students holistically,” Lipski explained.
Commenting on how the school has been running since its September 2001 opening, Lipski said: “Overall, I am very happy with the things we have accomplished.”