Princeton Public Schools Superintendent Steve Cochrane
By Erica Chayes Wida, Packet Media
The Princeton Charter School Board of Trustees’ voted unanimously Wednesday night to ratify its application for expansion despite pleas to reconsider., The small conference room in the Marsee Center on the charter campus was uncharacteristically full with parents of both Charter and Princeton Public Schools students, PPS Superintendent Steve Cochrane, and past-PPS Board of Education members Andrea Spalla and Molly Chrein., Many spoke in public comment before the board broke for mid-meeting closed session to discuss their resolution to amend or ratify the application. Some residents urged the board to withdraw their application to the state Department of Education completely, some asked for a “do-over” to allow the public to vote on the decision the board made and submitted to the department on Dec. 1 of last year, some demanded points on charter diversity and segregation need more attention, and others pleaded for an end to the volatile tenor of the debate between the two schools’ administrators and parents., “I am new to Princeton and new to Princeton Charter. I love Charter and we’re having a great experience here,” said parent Sheila McLaughlin. “But I am very uncomfortable around the level of hostility around this conversation.”, Mia Sacks also voiced her appreciation for the Charter School and the tremendous things it has done for her son and his education. She, too, however, was unsupportive of the application., “I cannot defend the secretive ways the expansion request was done. What I am saying to you is I do not want to raise my child in an educational war zone for the next 10 years,” Ms. Sacks said. “I want everyone in this room to work together. … Think beyond finances and think of the psychological cost to children and families. … I think your intentions were good, but what you’re voting for now is something very different than what you originally had in mind.”, The “secretive ways” Ms. Sacks alleged, refers to information from the Princeton Public Schools’ pending lawsuit against Princeton Charter on the grounds its board violated the Sunshine Act by not approving their resolution to expand and create a weighted lottery in an Open Public Meeting., Princeton Charter, however, by way of its Jan. 11 resolution to re-authorize, ratify and confirm its application to expand the school by 76 students and use a weighted lottery to favor economically disadvantaged students, states it met Nov. 28 “pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act” and denies the allegations., Mr. Cochrane addressed the board, not to “stir up any animosity,” but to appeal to their shared passions for the students of Princeton., “I’m here because I believe this board was genuinely and morally motivated to do the right thing in petition to increase economic diversity, and I believe you felt you would help public school overcrowding. But if we’re forced to cut programs and personnel, we’ll most likely have to cut from high school — cutting the very school where all of you are sending your kids. That doesn’t work well for any of us,” he said. “As educational leaders we need to stop operating at cross purposes … I hope you will make the right decision at this point, and perhaps hold the expansion request.”, Princeton Charter Board President Paul Josephson offered his respect and admiration for all those who spoke in support of this common passion and how he has been deeply impacted by the “tenor of discussion has devolved into.” He said for years, the Charter School has shouted, “Our kids are your kids,” to PPS and his heart is warmed to finally hear PPS parents say the same., Mr. Josephson and his board believe the firestorm of opposition to expansion came from misinformation disseminated to the public, and that many of the worries expressed were unfounded., Board member Randy Hubert, following the board’s closed session, discussed the histories of the Charter’s School’s nine expansions throughout its 20 years of existence and stated how each time the district, though not to the degree of filing suit, met them with opposition and fear of cutting programs and laying off teachers but have never had to., “The fiduciary duty of the Board of Trustees of The Princeton Charter School is first to our students and school and second the fiscal viability of the school,” Mr. Josephson said., Both Mr. Josephson and Mr. Cochrane appeared to have white flags waving in the first half of the Jan. 11 meeting. But after the board’s unanimous vote to move forward with the application, the battle wages on.
