Booker T. Academy Rallies For More State Dollars

If Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposed budget goes through, Booker T. Washington Academy (BTWA) won’t be able to create a fourth grad for its third-graders, or continue pursuing its long-term mission of becoming a K‑8 charter school in New Haven.

That message came from charter school advocates, parents, and students gathered at State Street charter school Tuesday morning.

Speaking between two bright flags addressing the ​“myths and realities” of charter schools, representatives of the school and of the Northeast Charter School Network (NECSN) spoke to BTWA’s class of 31 third graders and a handful of parents with a single message: Tell Malloy and the Connecticut state legislature that BTWA cannot grow within the current budget. And that the state originally promised to help the school grow from a K‑3 to a K‑8. growth.

The proposed budget for state and local charters — $112,759,500 for fiscal 2018; $119,627,100 for fiscal 2019 — still meets the $11,000 per pupil numbers that the budget has been hitting for the previous years, and allows for a $482 per pupil increase, said NECSN Connecticut Communications Manager Kerisha Harris.

With projected enrollment up to 10,454 students in 2018 and 11,131 in 2019, added Harris, that doesn’t allow for grade growth for new charters like BTWA. Which means that its plan to expand up to eighth grade in its State Street campus may not come to fruition, and BTWA families may need to start searching for alternative options in the next months. 

“These students have been offered a chance to grow … They are working hard, they deserve it, and this was something promised by the state,” said Jeremiah Grace, NECSN Connecticut state director. Calling it ​“nothing short of a miracle that we’re here today,” he lauded the school for being ​“conceived, launched, and managed by people of color, in communities of color, for children of color,” and warned that the current budget, if not increased, would send current third graders ​“back into the very schools which they fled” for the next academic year. 

The charter opened its doors in 2014, and the state renewed its charter through 2020 on Feb. 1 of this year. The school maintains its goal of building its classes up from its current K‑3 status to a Pre-K‑8 school. Its annual operating budget this year is expected to be $3,235,111; about $600,000 comes from the state. Currently, enrollment at the school is at 240; BWTA Principal Laura Main said it is expected to grow by 60 students in 2017 – 18 and 98 students in 2018 – 19, bringing enrollment to almost 400 students by the end of the 2019 academic year.

In its growth, Grace said, BTWA is taking academic steps forward that include taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) exam for the first time this year. 

That growth is welcome to BTWA parents like Chris Marina, an executive assistant at BTWA who has sons in kindergarten and the second grade. Asking students if they were expecting to continue into fourth grade — to which they replied with a resounding ​“YES!” — she gave an emotional appeal, insisting from a NECSN podium that ​“We deserve what Guilford students, what Norwich students, what Green’s Farms students are getting!”

BTWA Executive Director John Taylor took up the rallying cry, advocating for ​“schools of choice” as mechanisms that leveled the academic playing field for low-income students in New Haven and the New Haven area.

“It is amazing at how much of a difference we have made … for students to have the same opportunities that wealthy families have,” he said. But he added that it was the ability to continue growing that made BWTA a charter model, and that would suffer if the current budget is passed. Calling the school’s growth ​“a commitment from the state legislature,” he added that the Pre-K‑8 model was ​“the vision we sold to our parents,” and the vision he hoped to maintain.

That notion of a budgetary ​“promise” from the state legislature isn’t correct, said Hamden State Rep. Mike D’Agostino when reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. Referencing a 2016 change in the allocation of charter funding — it was that year that the funding process transitioned from state Board of Education approval to legislative and gubernatorial approval — he said he needs to see how charters like BWTA compare to ​“chronically underfunded” public schools in many of the state’s poorest cities before deciding whether they should get more funding. What is the representation, for instance, of Spanish-language learners, and students with disciplinary problems?

“For Booker T. Washington Academy to say that they intend to grow further is not the correct process,” he said. ​“I would actually say, ​‘You never had a promise.’ Nobody haas a promise for future funding including our public school systems. For the charters in particular this is really important. Have they made a case that they are successful? Are you educating the same kinds of kids that are in our public schools?”

“So my view is before any charter can expand, it has to make the case that it is succeeding with a similar, if not the same, population that our public schools have, and they’re actually doing better. If they make that case, I’m all for giving them more money. I would say: let me see the case. Right now, many public schools — including in New Haven — are underfunded.”

Of BTWA specifically he added that he is not very familiar with the school, but ​“I would love to go and tour them, and see how that makes the case to me that they are not cherry-picking students. If they make a case, then we should be expanding that school.”