CREATE ENDING SOON – CREATE Charter High School on Lembeck Avenue, along with its sister school CREATE Charter Middle School on Canal Street, will both close officially on June 30 because the state Department of Education refused to renew their charter. Was the decision because of test scores, as the state claimed, or something more? Seen in photo, CREATE founder Steve Lipski.
Sixty-six students who graduated from CREATE charter school in Jersey City are moving on to more than 50 colleges, with some getting scholarships to Clemson University, Howard, St. Peter’s College, NJCU, and Seton Hall. But the school’s other 300 students probably won’t be back next year, now that the state decided not to renew the charter for CREATE’s high school and middle school.
Despite the fact that his students have had to already figure out other options for this coming September, the school’s creator, former Councilman Steve Lipski, is still fighting with the state to keep his school alive.
“The truth is that CREATE is a good and caring school that simply did not deserve to be shut down,” he said recently.
66 CREATE graduates were accepted to schools such as Seton Hall and Clemson.
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Lipski’s schools will shut down on June 30.
Lipski did make a motion in May for the state to stay their decision to reject the charter, so he could appeal, but the education department denied the school’s motion.
Students’ future and Lipski’s own
Charter schools are tuition-free public schools, founded by parents and/or educators. They are not subject to the same strict state oversight and teacher’s union contracts as other public schools. They get most of their funding from the state, and their students are chosen from a lottery.
Last week, Lipski said that he will prepare the final graduating classes for their ceremonies later this month and help the remaining students and teachers relocate to new schools.
There are about 370 students and 70 staff members, including teachers, for both schools.
He wasn’t sure about his own future, although he is considering a new career in real estate or possibly opening a restaurant.
Lipski decided not to run for a third term on the council last year after a well-publicized incident in 2008 in which he was accused of publicly urinating at a Grateful Dead concert in Washington, D.C. He is still in alcohol rehab.
Ironically, those who did run for office in Jersey City during that election season ended up in a worse situation, since some were ensnared in an FBI sting for accepting bribes as campaign contributions.
Problems and successes at the school
“It is work to help people transition to the next school or next job, but it is not easy, as we are still trying to keep the school afloat in these final weeks,” Lipski said last week.
The state claimed that the high school was achieving low test scores and poor graduation rates. But Lipski said this is not true.
He pointed out the state’s own data shows that about 48 percent of CREATE High School graduates in 2009 passed the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), and 35 percent of graduates passed the Special Review Assessment, an alternative test for those who failed the HSPA. The remaining 17 percent were exempt from the test. The numbers, he says, compare favorably to other high schools in the area.
“I am so proud of my students and faculty, and I take exception with how the school was described by the state,” Lipski said. “For example, the state said the school didn’t have a college prep program when all the students have been accepted into good colleges, including one young lady from last year who got a free ride to Penn State.”
Such success stories temper his indignation over the state’s handling of his school and what he called the “gross mischaracterization” of the students’ academic performances.
Security guard’s alleged sex crime
The school has dealt with a few problems other than test scores. It has been censured for violations in their sports programs, and a former security guard at the school was arrested in August for the alleged off-campus sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl who was not a student. Then, this past March, a 16-year old student was caught carrying a gun, and later that day, a fight broke out between an 18-year-old student and – surprisingly – the same security guard. Lipski said he was only employed that day.
Lipski said the student carrying the gun was eventually expelled, and the student involved in the fight had to stay out for remainder of the school year, but is scheduled to graduate.
When asked if he thinks his school was closed was because of these other problems, as well as his arrest in the Washington D.C. incident, Lipski said he really “didn’t know” and was only going on the reasons stated in the letters from the state’s Department of Education.
While Schundler is the former Republican mayor of Jersey City, he and Lipski did not have a bad relationship that would hint at any kind of political payback.
Lipski doesn’t lay the blame entirely on Schundler, saying he has not been in the commissioner’s post long enough to have made the decision by himself. Instead, he pointed to education officials in the state and the county who may have influenced Schundler’s decision due to their past knowledge of the school’s problems, and their dealings with them.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.
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