School's in Session at Hybrid Charters, Despite Ongoing Legal Challenges

New Jersey’s experiment with online charter schools has started, even while the legal challenge from the state teachers' union is also moving ahead.

The first of two hybrid charters, which mix both traditional teaching and online tools, opened in Newark this week -- with the 80 sixth graders at Merit Preparatory Charter School receiving their Apple laptops.

The second hybrid, the Newark Preparatory Charter School, will open this coming Thursday. It's based on the same model: students attend school every day but take many of their classes online.

But that doesn’t mean the legal battle over hybrids is over. The New Jersey Education Association had sought to block the schools from opening outright, filing a challenge last week in state appeals court and asking for a stay to stop them.    

The NJEA’s long-running argument is that the New Jersey Department of Education has no authority under the state’s charter school law to establish online schools, nor have they shown evidence of providing a quality education.

With the schools themselves filing legal briefs in the case, the appeals court on Friday ruled against the union’s request for a stay, saying its claims that there would be irreparable harm if the schools opened was “purely speculative.”

But the decision did not speak to the merits of the union’s overall argument, and in a conference call with lawyers yesterday, the union decided that it will pursue the challenge -- albeit at a much slower pace.

“We would have preferred the stay, but that has nothing to do with the merits of the case, which we still believe in,” said Vincent Giordano, the union’s executive director.

Giordano said the union would seek to have the case heard on an expedited calendar, which will still take four to six months at best. “But that’s not one or two years,” he said.

Last week, the leaders of Merit Prep wrote student's families to inform them of the legal challenge.

“We believe there is no merit to the action and are vigorously defending the school’s right to serve your family and your student,” said Ben Rayer, the school’s founder, in the letter. “We will be open every day this year and the years to come.”

On Sunday, the day before school opened, he sent another letter to update families on the appellate court’s decision. “We pointed out to the court that the Union action was frivolous, and the judge agreed,” he wrote.

A spokeswoman for state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf also praised the court’s decision to deny the stay.

“We’re not surprised by the court’s decision and are pleased that we can now turn our attention to what matters most -- ensuring all of our students have a great start to the school year,” said Barbara Morgan, Cerf’s press secretary.

Continue reading on NJSpotlight.com.

NJ Spotlight is an issue-driven news website that provides critical insight to New Jersey’s communities and businesses. It is non-partisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded.

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