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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, APRIL 1-7, 2022 BXR
Charter School Guide
Families around New York
City might be faced with the realization
that their children may
not be heading back to school for
the remainder of the 2019-20 scholastic
year due to the coronavirus
pandemic.
While online lesson-planning
has provided a consolation of sorts
for students to finish out this year,
it isn’t too early for parents to plan
ahead for next year and beyond
when school doors re-open.
The school choice movement
has provided parents in New York
City and across the United States
with more options on where to
send their children.
While the only legitimate options
in the past were between
public, private and homeschooling,
charter schools have become
a viable and attractive option for a
child’s education.
A charter school is an independently
operated public school that
usually operates under a contract
with a government agency or nonprofit
organization. It allows the
school to not have to follow a mandated
curriculum, thus designing
their classrooms and lessons to fit
the individual student’s needs.
While the idea of charter
schools has been met with plenty
of criticism, there are overarching
advantages of sending your child
to such an institution:
Adapting to challenges
Within today’s educational
landscape lies the growing challenge
of properly informing, preparing,
and developing students
who learn and grow under different
circumstances.
There are four ways children
can properly learn and retain the
material of their coursework: visual,
auditory, reading/writing,
and kinesthetic.
Charter schools can provide a
perfect match.
If your child is struggling
with learning disabilities that
withhold them from flourishing
at public or private schools, there
are charter-school options.
If your child is advanced and
is not being challenged enough
in most group settings, there are
charter-school options.
Specialization with no tuition
Charter schools provide the
best of both schooling worlds.
While they are independent,
they still must have licensed
teachers, students must take
state-mandated tests, and underperforming
institutions can be
closed — much like most public
and private schools.
But the ability to tweak the
curriculum and offer specific
courses that set it apart from public
schooling.
The best part? Parents won’t
have to pay tuition as they would
in private school. Charters are
funded on tax dollars.
They outperform public school
Looking at the data, New York
City charter schools are putting
up better numbers than public
schools.
According to the New York
Department of Education, public
Metro Grapics
school students grades 3-8 were
47% proficient in English Language
Arts (ELA) and 46% proficient
in math in 2019.
Per NYCCharterSchools.org,
charter schools in the city provided
much higher proficiency
numbers last year.
ELA proficiency rates for students
grades 3-8 were at 57.3%
while math proficiency rates
were at 63.87%.
Those numbers result in more
learning gains, allowing students
to learn more material in the
same amount of time as publicschool
curriculum allows.
Charter schools have plenty of
support
Parents’ schedules are already
packed as it is. Their wallets
might not be overflowing, either.
The last thing they need to
do is participate in fundraisers to
get their public school some extra
money.
Charter schools don’t have
that problem as they are privately
funded more often than not,
meaning parents won’t have to
donate more of their hard-earned
money to ensure their child gets a
proper education.
What are the benefits of
sending your child to a NYC
charter school?
The validity of the adage “necessity
is the mother of invention”
was on full display during the COVID
19 outbreak. People quickly
had to learn to adapt to a new way
of life, including an educational
system that was transformed dramatically
by social distancing
guidelines.
More than 76 million students
are enrolled in United States
schools, per the latest Census Bureau
information. In 2018, 2.12 million
students were in Canadian
postsecondary institutions alone.
In a matter of days, millions of students
who once attended classes
in-person were forced to transition
to virtual learning instruction.
The process showed just how
flexible learning systems can be,
and how virtual instruction may
become more than an emergency
protocol in the future. Schools utilized
systems like Google Classroom,
Canvas and virtual meeting
apps to connect and learn.
While in-class lessons provide
the socialization and one-on-one
interaction that can be vital for
students’ academic success, there
are many different reasons why
virtual instruction can be a key
component of learning models
as well. When virtual learning
is used in conjunction with traditional
teaching, students may
have a more well-rounded experience.
Here are some potential benefits
that may unfold as more data
is collected.
• Pace: Virtual learning affords
students the chance to work on lessons
at a pace that fits their individual
needs. Students can go back
and re-read or re-work problems
until they’re satisfied they have
learned their lesson. Lessons can
be slowed down or sped up depending
on proficiency, creating a customized
educational experience.
• No more weather days. Many
school districts include snow or
extreme weather days into their
calendars, adding on extra days
at the end of school year to meet
the specified number of educational
days. Remote learning can
take over in these times and keep
school districts from having to pad
calendars.
• Convenience: The American
Academy of Pediatrics recommends
that middle and high
schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later to
provide students the best chance
to get the amount of sleep they
need. Still, most adolescents currently
start school before 8:30 a.m.
Remote learning enables students
to complete their assignments
when it works best for them. This
may help them get more sleep, too.
• Apps: Learning apps are a
new wave of educational tools that
have helped buoy virtual instruction.
Primary school students or
those with individual education
plans may benefit the most from
reinforced app skills that match
their learning pace in fun ways.
Virtual home instruction may
become a large part of the educational
landscape even after it’s no
longer a social distancing necessity.
Metro Graphics
The benefits of a new approach
to learning for students
/NYCCharterSchools.org