Buffalo Board of Education Decides to Close Two Charter Schools

The Buffalo Board of Education voted earlier this week to close two local charter schools at the end of this current school year.

According to a report by WKBW-TV, the leaders of the Buffalo Public School (BPS) District voted to not renew the charters for Westminister Community Charter School, located on Westminster Street near Bailey Avenue in Buffalo's University District, and Enterprise Charter School, which is located just outside of downtown Buffalo on Oak Street.

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Under normal circumstances, a local school district does not have the power to close a charter school as most school charters are issued by the New York State Department of Education, however, these two particular schools were originally created by the BPS, so they have the authority to renew or revoke their charter to operate.

The closing of these two schools leaves the educational future of almost 1,000 kids in limbo. DJ Hassan recently spoke with a BPS parent who has a child who attended one of the charter schools in question.

The BPS Board noted they have chosen to close these two schools because of their low-performance scores when it comes to student performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math. Both schools have reported scores that are far below what would be considered high-performing. While officials from the two charter schools responded that scores used to this decision are old and they do not take into account the last 2 years of performance. This is exasperated by the fact that since they have been operating under the recent COVID-19 restrictions, there have not been any recent standardized tests administered. Administrators from the two charter schools also noted that their scores are on par, if not better, than BPS schools with similar student demographics.

There is more to come of those because officials from the two schools are looking at what legal options are available to them.