Friday’s court hearing on the United Federation of Teachers lawsuit to block the co-location of two Success Academy charters was packed — thanks to parents outraged that their kids’ interests weren’t being represented.
That’s because Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank refuses to let Success have any voice in the case, even though the UFT’s goal is to prevent its use of space in a Far Rockaway middle school and the Sheepshead Bay HS campus.
The UFT claims the Department of Education’s building-use analysis overlooked the impact of the new law requiring smaller class sizes.
Bull: Class sizes in the schools now operating at these sites at the two schools are already under the new cap, and their overall enrollments have been falling.
That’s why there’s plenty of room now, and will be for the foreseeable future.
And since the class-size law kicks in gradually, while each Success school will only expand slowly by adding new grades, there’s ample time to adjust if long-term trends suddenly reverse.
At the very best, the UFT might have some technical claim that some form wasn’t filled out properly.
More likely, this is just one more nonsense suit in the union’s decades-long “lawfare” on Success (and other succesful charters, too).
SA has beaten over a dozen such suits in the past, which is probably why the union got the judge to prevent the charter network from presenting its case as a party to the suit — even though it’s plainly the real target.
The city Department of Education, meanwhile, manages to lose to the UFT all too often.
Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks worked though the legally-mandated process to get these co-locations approved, respecting the needs of all students and families, SA and DOE alike.
Heck, the UFT’s needs aren’t even threatened here, only its wishes: It wants to crush every charter it can.
It doesn’t care that SA has a decade-long track record of providing excellent educations to its scholars — overwhelmingly black and Latino kids from low-income families.
Actually, the UFT resents that record, because it shows what’s possible for a well-run public school to acheive.
That’s right: Charters are public schools; any NYC family can enter the lottery for entry into any NYC charter.
But these public schools operate outside the UFT’s power, and the main DOE bureaucracy (which is all too vulnerable to UFT influence).
That’s key to their success.
The one thing the lawsuit is achieving for sure is to leave Success parents of kids destined for the newly co-located schools fearing that their children won’t have a place to go if the case prospers.
With Judge Frank not expected to issue a decision until the fall, they’ll be on edge all summer.
“It’s outrageous, ridiculous. The UFT is working against the parents and the students,” said Chanee Mitchell, whose daughter, Monay Bradley, is a fifth grader at the Success Academy Far Rockaway MS.
It is indeed, but then again the UFT works against the interests of parents and students all the time.
And as the schools it largely runs continue to fail for their students, while charter kids prosper, expect the bullying to grow ever more outrageous — and more naked.