Parent: Charter, public schools should cooperate

BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer

RED BANK - A call for responsibility and cooperation with the borough public school district was made by a parent last week during a meeting of the Red Bank Charter School Board of Trustees.

Jeff MacPherson, South Street, read aloud a letter to the board, thanking board members for their hard work, but also pushing for more responsibility to be taken for the financial situation in which the school finds itself.

"One of the more important lessons we learn is responsibility," MacPherson read. "To be able to admit when you're wrong and to be able to forgive when you're right. We demand it of our children and yet, at times, we are hard-pressed to find it in ourselves."

MacPherson said after the meeting that he believes it is important for the board and charter school community to work together to come up with a solution for issues facing the school.

These include a $500,000 lawsuit against the school brought by Patock Construction, Tinton Falls, which did the work on the school's Oakland Street campus, and a $1 million fine levied by the state Department of Education (DOE) for the school's failure to put the project out to public bid

Last December, MacPherson helped found Friends of Charter Public Education, a nonprofit whose purpose is to support charter education and come up with solutions for the problems facing the charter school.

He said that the group consists of about 10 people, including parents of charter school children as well as other members of the community who are supportive of the mission of the charter school.

"When you ask people what makes the Red Bank Charter School so special," MacPherson read from his letter, "the word you hear most often is community. It's the community of families, students, faculty and administrators that make this place go. And it's not something you have to convince anyone of, and it's not something you can fake."

He said that he would like to see the charter school community come together with the community of the Red Bank Public School District, with which the charter school has been at odds since its expansion in 1998.

The charter school began in the late 1980s and consisted of grades four through eight. In 1998, the school expanded to include kindergarten through third grade.

Current litigation facing the charter school was initiated by the Red Bank Public School District, which claims the makeup of the charter school student body does not accurately reflect the racial demographics of the borough schools.

"I think parents on both sides are tired of it," said MacPherson, referring to the strained relationship between the two school districts. "It's time to move on."

Recently, Friends of Charter Public Education, represented by its attorney, Roger Foss, and Daniel O'Hern Sr., former state Supreme Court justice and husband of charter school board President Barbara O'Hern, met with representatives from the DOE concerning the situation of the charter school.

Foss and O'Hern presented a plan to the DOE proposing that all parties, including the charter school, Patock Construction, the DOE, the Red Bank Charter School Foundation, the school's fundraising arm, and Short Term Money, which has loaned $800,000 to the foundation, hold negotiations to resolve any conflicts.

The plan calls for the clarification of the role of the foundation as a separate entity from the charter school, despite the fact that in a report issued by the DOE's Office of Compliance Investigation the school and foundation are found to be one entity.

The plan presented by Foss and O'Hern also requests that Patock and Short Term Money affirm that the foundation, not the charter school, is indebted to them because their contracts are with the foundation.

The final point of the plan would have the charter school provide a mortgage on its Oakland Street campus as collateral to cover debt incurred by the foundation.

According to Rich Vespucci, a DOE spokesman, the DOE was receptive to the plan set forth by Foss and O'Hern.

"We don't have any problems with what they are trying to do," he said last week. "We are in support of charter schools and of the Red Bank Charter School."

MacPherson said that a plan is exactly what the school needs to help solve its problems.