Annemarie Ginsberg, a Richmond Hill native who will be the principal of a new charter school in Woodhaven, said she is looking forward to running a school in the area where grew up. Photo by Anna Gustafson
Educational leaders and volunteers from a charter school proposed to open in Woodhaven this coming fall told residents at a meeting last week that they are targeting institutions around the neighborhood in an effort to ensure children living in the area immediately surrounding the school will know about the facility.
Michael Etsep, a volunteer spokesman for Circle Academy, which, if approved by the state Board of Regents, will open its doors at 85-27 91st St. in time for the 2014-15 school year, said at last Thursday’s Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association that representatives from the charter expect a good number of their pupils to hail from the Woodhaven area because of their outreach efforts.
“We’re looking for an opportunity to create a school that focuses on the needs of your community,” said Etsep, who has, along with other school officials, been attending numerous meetings in the area in recent months to discuss the charter school, which he stressed will not be taking space from another public school to operate.
Charter schools as a concept have come under fire from some in New York City’s public school system, in part because, while a place like Circle Academy is technically a public school, the teachers are not tenured nor part of the teacher’s union – which some educators have said gives them little job security. However, proponents of charters schools have said the lack of tenure creates incentive for a merit-based environment, instead of a system that rewards individuals for the number of years they have been working. While each charter school is different, they can also do things differently from other public schools because their instructors are not part of a union, including extending the workday.
High-profile leaders have come down on both sides of the issue, with Mayor Bill de Blasio often having been a critic of charter schools and Mayor Michael Bloomberg frequently being a proponent of them.
Michelle Pascucci, a Woodhaven resident who is the lead applicant for Circle Academy, said she is wholeheartedly behind the idea of the charter school after seeing her children being put on wait lists for public schools.
“I thought this was a really, really good project,” Pascucci said at the WRBA meeting.
Annemarie Ginsberg, a Richmond Hill native who will be Circle Academy’s principal, said at the meeting that she was looking forward to returning to her roots to work with children in the neighborhood.
According to the application that Circle Academy filed with the state at the end of March, it will enroll 146 students in kindergarten and first grade next fall and will add a grade each year until the school has pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade. There will ultimately be no more than about 500 students in the school, and there will be an average of 24 students per class, Circle representatives said. After originally moving into the space on 91st Street, school officials expect it to move to a building at 74-15 Jamaica Ave., out of which it will permanently operate beginning in 2016.
By Anna Gustafson
