Dear Editor:
I’m writing in response to your article last week concerning the NJ Department of Education, the Hoboken Board of Education, and the lawsuit against Hola Charter School.
HoLa’s renewal and expansion was approved after substantial vetting by the NJ DOE – including demographic and recruitment details – and no one but the Hoboken Board of Education has called that into question. As an HoLa parent, I welcome another review from the NJDOE. As a taxpayer, I resent having HBOE spend resources of up to $50,000 (so far) on a lawsuit that has no basis in fact and is a waste of tax dollars.
Available demographic information bears out that HoLa has no segregative impact on the Hoboken pubic school district. As for “recruitment” – substantial effort has been and continues to be made by the HoLa community to encourage all Hoboken families to consider our wonderful program. Disappointingly, the Hoboken superintendent rejected a recent request to distribute charter application information to public school Pre-K families.
But HoLa families will be reaching out to the community directly in the coming weeks. Parents can also go to www.holahoboken.org for an application (due Jan. 5). My two children are thriving at HoLa. We love the bilingual program and I’m amazed at their progress. How wonderful that Hoboken offers this choice. Let’s not scrap a valuable, successful, thriving school. Let’s support all Hoboken students and make the district the best that it can be.
Sincerely,
Aileen Boyle-Delaney