Buffalo Public Schools has long complained about growing competition from city charter schools, but is now in the unusual position of being able to get rid of two of them.
The Buffalo Board of Education is weighing whether to close Enterprise and Westminster Community charter schools, both of which are up for renewal this year.
While the state Board of Regents or the State University of New York would normally make that determination, Buffalo Public Schools sponsored Enterprise and Westminster in the early days of the charter movement and has the final say on whether they should be closed.
The School Board called a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss the matter, but wrestled with the decision and was unable to reach a consensus. The discussion revolved around academic performance.
Board President Sharon Belton-Cottman, a frequent critic of charter schools, said that the two charters have had “many years” of poor student proficiency rates and the state education commissioner has asked her why they are still open.
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Eighteen percent of Enterprise students in grades three through eight were considered proficient in English language arts during the 2018-19 school year, while 13% were proficient in math, according to the most recent state data.
At Westminster, 22% of students in grades three through eight were proficient in ELA, while 19% were proficient in math.
As a comparison, 25% of Buffalo Public School students in grades three through eight were proficient in ELA, while 19% were proficient in math.
At Large Board Member Ann Rivera asked whether the two charters had enough time to prove progress given the interrupted learning all schools have faced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“If not, would it be a benefit to have more time?” Rivera said.
At Large Board Member Larry Scott said he would have a hard time agreeing to that, especially after the two charters were granted short-term renewals in 2019.
“They’ve kind of been on notice,” Scott said.
Central District Board Member Paulette Woods agreed that all schools are facing challenges during the pandemic and wondered if a short-term renewal was warranted under the condition that this was their last shot.
“We cannot allow a charter school to be performing worse than the Buffalo schools," Woods said. "If they are going to exist, we need charter schools to excel – to bring something different.”
The School Board eventually went into executive session to discuss options with legal counsel.
When the board emerged from behind closed doors, its members agreed to convene again next Wednesday to decide the fate of the two charters.
The board would need to inform the state Board of Regents of its decision by next Thursday, said Darren Brown-Hall, the district’s chief of staff. The Board of Education has the final say if it votes to close the charters, he said. But if it decides to renew the charters, the Board of Regents has a say on the extensions.
Charters are public schools, but they are run independently by their founders – often educators or parents – to provide families with an alternative to traditional public schools. In turn, the home district pays the charters for each student they enroll, which has long been the source of tension as the city school system loses more students and funding to the charters.
Enterprise and Westminster are two of the 23 charter schools across the region, most of them located in Buffalo.
Enterprise, at 275 Oak St., opened in August 2003, and was touted as the only charter in the state authorized by its local school district. The school has more than 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grades.
Westminster, at 24 Westminster Ave., was once part of the city school system, before being converted to a charter school in the fall of 2004. The school, which has long had a partnership with M&T Bank, has 553 students in kindergarten through eighth grades.
