District's New Concern: Charter Schools

Two charter schools that will accept Hillsborough students during the 2012-13 school year present a host of concerns for district officials this budget season.

The Trillium charter school, located in Flemington and the New Jersey Sino American Charter School, located in Somerset, have both named Hillsborough as a potential sending district should the schools open in September 2012. Both schools have applied to the New Jersey Department of Education to become official schools.

If the schools open, Trillium would accept a maximum of 63 Hillsborough students at a total cost of $628,857 to the district for one year of study, while the New Jersey Sino School would accept 43 Hillsborough students at a total cost to the district of $476,818. The figures do not include costs to transport any students to the schools and cost-per-pupil estimates were unavailable.

“If the enrollment estimations come to fruition, it is highly unlikely that the cost savings from reductions in staff and supplies will offset the tuition requirements from the board,” Hillsborough Superintendent Jorden Schiff said. “ The financial hardship that may be caused by the funding of our programs is to be significant.”

The district could expect a loss of about $1 million if all the estimated Hillsborough slots at either school are filled. In addition, the money lost from payments would likely be more than the money saved by having fewer students.

Still, Schiff suggested reaching out to similar districts to discuss the impact and to gather information.

“It is important that we continue to explore both the positive and negative consequences of having charter schools in our community,” Schiff said.

The charter school concern became a topic at the New Jersey School Boards Association delegates’ meeting this weekend, with the body passing a resolution regarding the schools.

According to Marc Rosenberg, who is the district’s delegate to the New Jersey School Boards Association, the resolution states that voter approval should be required prior to establishing a charter school, and that local and board opinion should be factored into charter decisions.

“If an estimated 100 children leave our district for a charter, we would expect that most children would come from an equally dispersed cross section of buildings and classrooms,” Rosenberg said. “We would not be able to reduce cost commensurate to the loss of funds. The loss of $1 million from our budget would be a significant problem for our district.”

In addition, several delegates voting on the resolution expressed concern about money supporting schools in other towns.

“The children can attend charter schools in other towns,” Rosenberg said.  “The Trillium School, in fact, is not only in another town, it’s in another county...the charter schools we are talking about are not Hillsborough charter schools.  They are charter schools 10, 15, 20 miles away.”

“The taxpayers who vote on the budgets have a reasonable expectation that their money will be used in the school district where they live and not be allocated to other schools without their consent,” he said.

In addition, the district must allocate the tuition funds from its budget—and compensate for it—without knowing whether the school will open, Schiff said. The district will know if the schools receive Department of Education approval in February 2012, though applications are already being accepted.

But the district doesn’t know when the charter schools will inform sending districts should the opening be delayed—creating a problem for districts that cut programs or issue layoff notices during budget season.

“It makes it much more difficult to reconstitute programs or rehire staff that have been taken out of the budget,” Schiff said. “We’ll have to talk about whatever we want to budget for the Department of Education’s [application] estimates and whether we want to go above or below that. It makes a difficult budget process that much more challenging."