E.B. charter school gets the state's OK
Hatikvah to focus partly on Hebrew language, culture
BY BRIAN DONAHUE Staff Writer
Acharter school that would teach the Hebrew language and culture is expected to open next September in East Brunswick.

The Hatikvah International Academy was among eight charter schools approved last week by the state Department of Education. Representing the largest group of charter schools approved in a single year since 1999, the eight were chosen from 27 applications submitted to the state in April.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are independently operated based on a state-approved charter.

Hatikvah will use a curriculum developed by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) and teach Hebrew as a second language, according to the proposal. The program would incorporate the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards while basing its framework on an IBO model.

"We're very excited that the state saw the very significant need for our school," said East Brunswick resident Yair Nezaria, one of Hatikvah's founders. "People in our community are very excited to find there [will be] a school to address the significant need in the community, which is for a partial immersion language integrated into the IB curriculum."

Nezaria said he is pleased to see people focusing on the importance of teaching a second language to young students.

"Parents today know that every advantage gained as a child will help our children reach their full potential as adults. No program in this country offers IB and a partially immersive foreign language of Hebrew," he has said.

The school is tentatively planned to be located in the former New York Sports Club location on Cornwall Court, off Cranbury Road, Nezaria said.

It will open in September 2010 for 108 students in kindergarten through second grade. The plan, Nezaria said, is to expand it each year by one grade, or 44 seats, until it becomes a K-8 school with 372 students.

If more students sign up than there are available seats, the school will use a lottery system to enroll students. First preference will be given to students who live in the township or who have siblings already attending the school. Hatikvah would be open to students from outside the township, through a separate lottery, only if it gets fewer applications from East Brunswick residents than available seats.

Despite the school's partial focus on Hebrew language and culture, Nezaria said its operators will welcome students of all backgrounds.

"We are going to be very sensitive to the issue of discrimination," he said. "We're determined to get a cross section of East Brunswick. People are not going to be not accepted or rejected based on religion, race, gender, ethnic background or physical disability."

The East Brunswick Board of Education opposed the school in its response to the application last spring. The board raised questions about whether the school's focus on Jewish culture and the Hebrew language would be "at odds with the spirit of public school education in multicultural New Jersey…" It also suggested that funding the school could prove disastrous for the district's budget.

New Jersey law dictates that the local school district pays the charter school for each student enrolled, equal to 90 percent of the district's own school budget per student for each grade level. The board estimates it will have to budget more than $1 million for the charter school's 108 students in 2010, and projects that the annual payment will increase to $2.6 million for 240 students in 2013. Since the school board must comply with the state's annual cap on tax increases, it may have to cut its own programs, which "would jeopardize the public school educational program," according to the board.

Nezaria said he has seen no data indicating that the presence of a charter school has negatively impacted taxes or a local school board budget elsewhere in New Jersey. From the state's perspective, charter school students are educated for 10 percent less than those in public schools, and the school board still receives a portion of the state aid that would have been allocated for those students, even though the board does not have to provide services to them.

The Hatikvah proposal calls for full-day kindergarten for 44 children, which is an issue for the school board, since the township only provides a half-day program due to cost and space issues. Parents who now pay for their kindergartners to have half-day child care or full-day private kindergarten would now have to also pay for the charter school's full-day program, the board noted. Nezaria said the school's founders know that many families are interested in full-day kindergarten, and they simply want to meet their needs.

Gov. Jon Corzine announced the charter school approvals during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a school in Newark. In addition to Hatikvah, some of the approved proposals include the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School, the Academy for Urban Leadership in Perth Amboy, the Barack Obama Green Charter School in Plainfield, and the Charter High School for Environmental and Civics Studies in Teaneck.