Parents looking for an alternative to the Buffalo Public Schools are going to have an easier time finding one.
The local network of charter schools has collaborated to offer a single, common, online application where families can apply to any one of the participating 18 charters. The new website launched in December, Enroll Buffalo Charters, was spearheaded by the New York Charter Schools Association prior to the April application deadline for the 2021-22 school year.
“This really shows how we can all work together,” said Janique Curry, community engagement manager for the charter association. “This is an opportunity for all the schools to work together and promote each other and just promote a choice in education.”
The collaboration is significant, not only for the charters, but for the Buffalo Public Schools, which is losing students amid increased competition from the charters as more have arrived on the scene in recent years.
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Charters are public schools, but they are run independently by their founders – often educators or parents – to provide dissatisfied families with an alternative to “traditional” public schools. In turn, the home district pays the charter schools for each student those schools enroll.
That funding mechanism long has been a source of tension between the charter schools and the city school district. In fact, those payments to charter schools have become the fastest growing portion of the school district’s budget.
The region now has a total of 12,318 students enrolled across 23 charter schools, most of them in Buffalo, Curry said.
“Enroll Buffalo will definitely help our community by making access to charter schools easier,” said Joseph Polat, executive director of Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School.
“Parents would see all options in one location and with only one application they would apply to multiple schools,” Polat said in an email to The Buffalo News. “No more trying to find how to apply and where to apply, no more hassle filling out multiple forms, no more confusion for parents but definitely a better access to a school choice.”
Eric Klapper, executive director at Tapestry Charter School, expects parents to be vying for seats at charters more than ever this fall, given what has transpired during the Covid-19 pandemic. The city school district has remained closed for in-person instruction since March, while charters have reopened classrooms, at least part-time.
Charters here and across the state have "very clearly been able to offer more in-person instructional opportunities, of better quality, with better strategies for both academic and social-emotional interventions,” Klapper wrote in an email to The News.
In addition, the 18 charters have agreed to the same April 1 deadline for parents to submit an application for the 2021-22 school year, Curry said. Acceptances also will be announced on the same date – April 13.
“Which is a huge deal,” Curry said, “because everyone has done acceptances at different times, taken applications at different times, so this is a huge collaboration.”
Participating charters include: Buffalo Academy of Science and Buffalo Academy of Science II; Buffalo Collegiate; Buffalo Commons; Buffalo Creek Academy; Buffalo United; Charter School of Inquiry; Elmwood Village-Days Park and Elmwood Village-Hertel; Enterprise School; King Center; Health Sciences; Persistence Prep; Primary Hall; South Buffalo; Tapestry; West Buffalo; and Westminster Community.
More information is at enrollbuffalocharters.org.
