Four New York charter schools and networks filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Education Monday alleging nearly $1 million in grant money was “stripped” from their classrooms.
The promised funds were “swept back” from a total of eight charter schools in the state due to the “bureaucratic issue,” according to the documents filed by just four of the schools or networks in Manhattan federal court.
“These funds were guaranteed, awarded funds that were promised to our schools and our children,” said Emily Kim, founder and CEO of Zeta Charter Schools, which is among those suing the DOE. “They were budgeted for.”
“These lost funds are harming our programs, and we will need to be able to recover those so we can continue to provide excellent education to kids,” Kim said at a rally in the Bronx Monday.
The DOE awarded New York a $113 million grant a decade ago to help newly authorized charter schools get off the ground or high-performing charter schools add grades or up enrollment.
The state was in the process of doling out those funds until fall of 2019, when the schools allege the feds swept back the money, citing an expiration in the grant term, the suit alleges.
Reasons for the state’s delayed disbursement were not immediately clear, though Kim said such delays are “customary.”
The New York State Education Department, which had requested a grant extension, according to court documents, asked for a waiver to complete the disbursements with a newer bucket of funds for charter schools — but was refused last summer due to a lack of “administrative authority” to act.
“By denying NYSED’s Waiver Request, the Department has in effect stripped the School Plaintiffs of their lawfully awarded subgrants,” the filing states.
Materials submitted with the complaint include a letter from the state citing a “mutual misunderstanding” of the length of time they could draw from the original funds, “no doubt exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing increased workloads.”
Kim added that the state “had expected that [the extension] was granted. They hadn’t heard back for months and months and it was swept back.”
“There is no good reason for them to deny this,” she added.
Officials from the state education department also weighed in on Monday, telling The Post the agency had believed the funds would be available to reimburse the schools.
The eight schools impacted, according to the court docs, were: Zeta’s schools in both The Bronx and the Inwood section of Manhattan; Buffalo Collegiate Charter School, Valence College Prep Charter School in Queens, Emblaze Academy Charter School in The Bronx, Neighborhood Charter School in The Bronx, Persistence Prep Academy Charter School in Buffalo and Cardinal McCloskey Community Charter School in The Bronx.
The vast majority of students at the schools — from 97 to 99 percent — are children of color, according to a press release about the suit. Many are also from low-income backgrounds, from 65 to 100 percent of the schools’ student populations.
Plaintiffs asked the court to instruct the feds to reconsider denying the waiver request, a decision they allege is arbitrary and capricious. Their suit notes other instances where the feds granted waiver requests to reallocate funds under the same charter school grant.
The complaint was submitted by attorney Kent Yalowitz of the law firm Arnold & Porter, who according to his biography serves on the board of Success Academy Charter…
Read More: NY charter networks sue U.S. DOE over ‘promised’ funds