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| Superior Court, Appellate Division- New Jersey |
I. HoLa ORIGINALLY WANTED TO BE IN THE HOBOKEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
1) the original intent of its founders was to implement a dual-language program (Spanish and English) at Hoboken's Connors school (the district's most segregated and poorest school), but Hoboken rejected the plan.
II. HoLa's ADMISSION PROCESS IS BLIND AND INCLUSIVE
2) Students are admitted to HoLa through a lottery with no interviews. No demographic data is collected until students are registered. In order to represent a cross section of the Hoboken community, HoLa holds open houses and tours and advertises in local publications. It also partners with local organizations to recruit on-site. Dates for the open houses, tours and events, as well as the lottery, are posted on the school's website and are printed on flyers "distributed throughout the city." In addition, applications and brochures are mailed to every low-income household each year prior to the lottery. HoLa's parents and teachers also canvass subsidized and public housing and help complete applications on the spot.
3) Parents may enroll children in the lottery online, in person, or by a phone call to the school. HoLa has a sibling preference, so that if a child is enrolled in HoLa, that child's younger sibling will have priority over other lottery applicants. On December 23, 2014, HoLa submitted a request to the Commissioner to include a low-income preference in its lottery.
4) A-3690-14T3 N.J.S.A. 18A:36A-8(e), however, states that a charter school's admission policy must seek to enroll "a cross section of the community's school age population." (Emphasis added). This indicates that the entire community, not just the students enrolled in the public schools, must be considered.
III. HoLa EXERTS NO SEGREGATIVE IMPACT ON HOBOKEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
5) The percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch decreased for all four Hoboken public elementary schools from 2010-2011 to 2013-2014
6) [A]lthough HoLa enrolls a higher percentage of White students, and a smaller percentage of Black and Hispanic students than [Hoboken], the percentage of White students attending [Hoboken] has actually increased since HoLa opened in 2010 with the percentage of Hispanic students decreasing in that same period. The percentage of Black students in [Hoboken] has stayed fairly constant since 2010. The increase in percentage of [Hoboken's] White students since 2010, along with the decrease in Hispanic students, and the lack of changes to the percentage of Black students indicates that HoLa's enrollment has not had a segregative effect on [Hoboken]. Instead, the data points towards an overall population shift in the last ten years in the City of Hoboken, which began before the opening of HoLa Charter School.
IV. QUALITY OF THE HoLa EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
7) [A] Charter School should not be faulted for developing an attractive educational program. Assuming the school's enrollment practices remain color blind, random, and open to all students in the community, the parents of age eligible students will decide whether or not to attempt to enroll their child in the Charter School and any racial/ethnic imbalance cannot be attributed solely to the school.
V. FAILURE OF HOBOKEN IN PROVIDING EVIDENCE FOR THEIR ARGUMENT
8) Hoboken does not, however, show that expanding HoLa will increase racial imbalance as it did in North Haledon. To the contrary, the percentage of white students in Hoboken schools increased since HoLa opened.
9) The evidence showed that HoLa's policies are geared toward admitting a cross section of the school-aged population, economically as well as racially and ethnically. HoLa canvassed and advertised in Hoboken's subsidized housing developments. On December 23, 2014, HoLa submitted a successful request to the Department to include a low-income preference in its lottery. Hoboken fails to convince us that the facts regarding economically disadvantaged students lead to a conclusion that HoLa should not be permitted to expand.
10) Hoboken does not argue that the financial losses surrounding HoLa's expansion would impede Hoboken's ability to provide a thorough and efficient education. It mounts only general, non-specific and unconvincing attacks on the entire charter school scheme and does not separate HoLa's impact from the impact of the other two charter schools.
VI. CONCLUDING COMMENTS
11) HoLa provides quality education to a cross section of Hoboken's children. As a dual-language school, HoLa allows students to become bilingual in a curriculum with a multi-cultural content, and thus advances public policy goals. Hoboken has not shown that the Commissioner's decision to allow HoLa to expand was arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable.
