Gimme Shelter

The Century House on its way to a new home. PHOTO COURTESY RED BANK CHARTER SCHOOL

By SHARON MCCLOSKEY

RED BANK, N.J. - Small town America loves a parade. But the sight of an 1865 Victorian lumbering down local streets five years ago was a spectacle unlike any seen by residents of this Jersey shore town.

The Century House, built by abolitionist William “Black Bill” Conover, was on its way to becoming home to the Red Bank Charter School. The school’s founders had survived years of legal wrangling over school control and withstood accusations of racial bias, steadfast in their determination to gain a foothold in this community. But they faced one more obstacle.

They had to move a house to make a home.

Red Bank Charter School spent its early years shuttling students between locations as it made use of the cheapest available space. Like other charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere, it could not use public money to build or buy a school facility. So when the state renewed its charter and approved its expansion, it dug deep into the well of resourcefulness to create a space for its growing student body. Getting the Century House signaled a triumph over the state’s restrictive charter school laws and marked an end to local squabbles over school control.

Moving day for the Century House had an air of circus-like festivity. Cameras flashed as an ensemble of engineers and utility workers lifted the house off the ground and stabilized it on a trailer. Amused crowds gathered as the house rolled along to its new location, where it would join the former Oakland Street School – itself stripped bare of years of restaurant facades.

Then the house got stuck, making the turn on to Monmouth Street.

“I was not amused,” said Meredith Pennotti, principal of the Red Bank Charter School.

More controversial press was something the school did not need. It had just emerged from a protracted legal fight with residents, the Board of Education, and the American Civil Liberties Union over the school’s proposed expansion and the renewal of its charter. A bigger charter school meant less money and fewer white students in the primary and middle schools, opponents said. The charter school prevailed, and in the process residents met the changing face of the town’s school-age population – by then predominantly Hispanic and African-American.

In the midst of this swirling controversy, Pennotti stumbled upon a bit of good fortune. Riverview Medical Center, the owner of the Century House, was looking to unload the historic building. The school had already been renting space there when hospital executives asked if she knew of anyone interested in “taking” the house. Pennotti jumped at the opportunity. “I think we paid a dollar for it – maybe two,” said Pennotti. The only condition? The school would have to move the house, literally.

So move it did, on May 4, 2003. A year of construction and renovation followed, linking the Century House and the Oakland Street School and establishing the home of the Red Bank Charter School.

Red Bank Charter School today. (Courtesy RBCS).

To some, the move looked like more work than it was worth. But when it came to setting up shop, Red Bank Charter School had no choice but to be resourceful. It was on its own when it came to paying for its school buildings.

Money lies at the heart of the battle between charter schools and their public school counterparts. By law, New Jersey charter schools should receive 90 percent of the per-pupil funding that other public schools in their districts get. But in reality, they get much less – up to 50 percent less, according to the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association. Charter schools receive none of the state adjustment aid that goes to schools in lower-income districts, even though roughly 80 percent of them are in these districts. They also are unable to access federal matching funds, which depend upon New Jersey funding in the first instance.

But it is the lack of money for school facilities that is on the front line. Over $1 billion in education money is supposed to be heading to New Jersey as part of the stimulus package signed into law on February 17. Although none of that money is earmarked for the construction or modernization of school facilities, more than a quarter of it is up for grabs, and charter school supporters are once again rallying the troops to make their case that, as public schools, they are entitled to public money for school facilities.

“The lack of facilities funding is the primary reason that most charter schools do not get off the ground,” said Jessani Gordon, director of the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association. Gordon has repeatedly testified before legislators, arguing that funding is in fact not following children into the charter schools and urging the passage of remedial legislation. In January 2008, Assemblywomen Joan Quigley and Nilsa Cruz-Perez introduced the Charter School Facility Funding Act, which would have provided $1800 per student for facilities funding. Like predecessor bills, that legislation died on the vine.

Charter schools must access private money for what is quite obviously a public purpose. Grant money is one source. Credit is another, but most lenders want to see a record of success before they issue any long-term debt. Because charter schools must renew their charters every four years, and can be closed for lack of performance, long-term lending can be risky. To access such credit, charter schools often form an affiliate organization – a “friends of the Charter School” entity that then takes out a loan on behalf of the school. The school then pays its lease or mortgage payments to the affiliate, which is the legal owner of the facility and assumes the risk of the transaction.

“There is a very small universe of lenders willing to do business with charter schools,” said Tom Johnston, a Morristown, N.J. attorney whose firm, Porzio Bromberg & Newman, represents several charter schools. Johnston attributes that to restrictions in the charter school laws. And the economy has exacerbated the problem, putting a damper on requests for school funding at all levels. “The political climate in Trenton is to squeeze all school districts,” said Johnston.

As the regulatory and economic environment has tightened, a growing cottage industry of private consultants specializing in helping charter schools find and acquire facilities has emerged. Real Estate Advisory and Development Services (READS), based out of Metuchen, N.J., is one such entity. READS helped the Greater Brunswick Charter School, New Brunswick, N.J. - which had moved three times to four different facilities over five years - finally fund the purchase and renovation of a warehouse building that is now its permanent home.

Another such entity is Civic Builders, based in New York, which recently entered the New Jersey charter school market and is helping develop and expand the North Star College Preparatory High School in Newark. Civic Builders prides itself on innovative strategies for the acquisition and development of unusual spaces for charter schools, including Achievement First Endeavor Charter School in Brooklyn (ice cream factory), Bronx Charter School for the Arts (salami factory), and Democracy Preparatory Charter School in Harlem (church vestry).

This collaboration of public and private resources may represent the future of charter school development. For the Red Bank Charter School, that collaboration evolved locally and enabled the school to acknowledge the town’s school traditions at the same time. With the help of area professionals, the school was able to preserve one historic building and return another - the Oakland Street School - to its original function. And the charter school adopted as its own one of the tenets of the pre-school “Personalized Education Program” once housed in the Oakland Street School, namely, that “all children can learn.”

With a bow to the school’s many community partners and benefactors, Meredith Pennotti calls the Red Bank Charter School facility a “testament to community support for public education.”

All, she might add, without public money.