Kudos to Governor Corzine on his announcement Wednesday that DOE Commissioner Davy approved eight new charter schools to open next September! These schools will open with 1,000 students and will eventually grow to 2,500 when fully enrolled. This is the largest number of charter schools approved in a single year since 1999. The approved schools are:

• Hoboken Dual Language Charter School (Hoboken)
• Trillium Charter School (Hunterdon County)
• Academy for Urban Leadership Charter School (Perth Amboy)
• Hatikvah International Academy Charter School (East Brunswick)
• Charter High School for Environmental and Civics Studies (Teaneck)
• Barack Obama Green Charter School (Plainfield)
• Visions Academy Charter High School (Newark)
• Newark Legacy Charter School (Newark)

 

Several ribbons were cut this month as new charter schools opened and others celebrated a one-year anniversary or a long-awaited move. The Community Charter School of Paterson celebrated its one-year anniversary with a festive celebration including Governor Corzine and DOE Commissioner Lucille Davy, federal, state and local dignitaries, parents, students and teachers. Also celebrating a long-anticipated milestone was Learning Community Charter School (Jersey City), which just moved from rental space to a newly purchased home. Senator Sandra Cunnigham, Senator Ray Lesniak and Asssemblywoman Mila Jasey were there to cut the ribbon. And in Newark, TEAM Schools celebrated the opening of its first elementary school, SPARK Academy, which has just opened with the kindergarten class and will eventually scale up to 4th grade. Governor Corzine, Commissioner Davy and Mayor Booker helped celebrate (see photo). Our hearty congratulations on these accomplishments!

 

It's official! The follow-up to our very successful statewide conference will be held on March 18-19, 2010 (Thursday & Friday), at the Ocean Place Resort and Spa in Long Branch, N.J. Building on the momentum and excitement generated at the 2009 conference held in March, the 2010 event will expand to two full days and offer more breakout sessions, more opportunities to network and a larger exhibitor area -- all in a beautiful beach setting!

 

More information on exhibiting, sponsorship, speaking and attending will be released soon! To ensure receipt of all conference news, click the "Update Profile/Email Address" link in the footer of this e-mail and subscribe to the "Conferences and Workshops" e-newsletter.

 

The Association welcomes the following schools that have joined or renewed their membership in the past month:

Annual school membership dues support the Association's advocacy efforts and member programs. All schools are asked to remit their dues no later than Oct. 31, 2009.

 

The Association also offers an Associate Membership Program to local and national suppliers that offer goods and services to the growing market of New Jersey's charter schools. The annual Associate Membership term begins September 1.

 

For information about our membership programs and benefits, contact Carrie Wetherby at 609-989-9700, ext. 4410.

 

Earlier this month, Governor Corzine proposed an expedited approval process for new charter schools, announcing an October 15 deadline for submittal of applications. This expedited process will cut the approval time from 18 months to 11 months, allowing more charter schools to open within a shorter time frame.

Schools Gain Buying Power through NJCPSA's Partnership with STAPLES

 

NJCPSA is pleased to announce a new partnership with STAPLES -- the world's leading B2B supplier of office products -- through which member schools can receive an average of 15% off their current office supply purchasing program. If your school already orders from Staples, you could receive even deeper discounts through this exclusive program! For more information, visit the NJCPSA website or contact Sam Siniavsky, Staples Business Development Manager, at 609-517-1481.

NJCPSA Now Accepting Workshop Proposals

 

Have a great idea for a workshop or conference session? NJCPSA has recently launched a revised Workshop Proposal Form that can be submitted at any time during the year. We are actively seeking proposals for day-long workshops as well as 90-minute breakout sessions at the 2010 New Jersey Charter Schools Conference. Proposals will be kept on file for 12 months. For more information and to download the new Workshop Proposal Form, visit the "Events" section of our website. School leaders are also invited to submit their training needs and available in-service dates to Carrie Wetherby who can help identify appropriate trainers or consultants.

 

Throughout this month, NJCPSA staff has been traveling the state for charter school back-to-school nights to enlist the support of parents for future advocacy efforts. Parent mobilizing is the centerpiece of our advocacy work this year and we are working hard to build our database for future "call to action" alerts on charter related legislation. If your school did not host the association for back-to-school night, please invite us out for a PTA meeting during the fall.

 

A study just released by Stanford University professor Caroline M. Hoxby and featured in The Wall Street Journal, has concluded that New York City charter school students are closing the achievement gap with historically successful suburban school districts and are substantially outperforming district students who also applied to charters but did not attend. The study, "How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement," found that students attending a New York City charter school from kindergarten through 8th grade would close about 86 percent of the achievement gap in math and 66 percent of the achievement gap in English by the time they entered high school. The study also found that students attending a charter high school from grades nine through 12 had about a 28 percent higher probability of earning a Regents diploma. The evidence indicates that the many students who currently apply to charter schools but are "lotteried-out" would benefit if there were additional places available in the charter schools.

 

Real Estate Advisory & Development Services (READS) is a nonprofit real estate development company dedicated to building strong organizations and communities through innovative real estate development. For further information, please contact Brian Keenan, president, at bkeenan@readsusa.com or 732-635-1000.

 

NJCPSA's Associate Member program welcomes businesses and organizations who wish to support New Jersey's charter public schools.

 

On September 15th, Care2, an online community with over 11 million members and over 400 non-profit partners, launched its America's Favorite K-12 School contest. Now through November 15th anyone can sign on and vote for their favorite school. In addition to the top prize of $20,000 for the winning school, each week a random school will win $500. This contest is a great opportunity to promote public charter schools and show our strength as a movement. By activating parents and teachers, and getting them to engage their friends, families and social networks, we have a chance to see public charter schools make it to the top of the list this year.

 

Teams of New Jersey charter school students in grades 6, 7 or 8 are invited to participate in the Christopher Columbus Awards, a program that provides real-life, hands-on experience with math, science and community service. Now in its 14th year, this awards program invites students to work in groups of three or four with an adult coach to identify a community problem and use science and technology to develop an innovative solution. More than $45,000 in prizes plus a free trip to Disney World will be given to finalists. To learn more, visit www.christophercolumbusawards.com or call 800-291-6020. The entry deadline is February 8, 2010.

LEAP Academy University Charter School (Camden) is joining thousands of people all over the nation in sponsoring JUMPSTART's "Read for the Record" on October 8. Members of the community are invited to be a part of this important event by volunteering to read to a pre-school child. Read for the Record is an international effort to read books to ONE MILLION children in a single day. Volunteers will join teachers, parents, college students, and community leaders across the world to read this year's book, The Hungry Caterpillar, to one million children.