NYS United Teachers sues to overturn Brentwood, Central Islip charter school approvals
The Academy Charter School in Uniondale. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
New York’s largest teachers union is suing the State University of New York and a charter school operator in a bid to reverse the approval of three proposed charter schools in Suffolk County.
The SUNY board sanctioned The Academy Charter School’s applications to open schools in Brentwood and Central Islip despite “a vast outpouring of community opposition," New York State United Teachers alleges in a pair of lawsuits filed Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Albany County.
The lawsuits name SUNY, its board of trustees, its Charter Schools Institute and individual state officials, as well as The Academy Charter School, its founder and chief executive, Barrington Goldson, and its trustees. With the union, its president, Melinda Person, and 11 parents in Brentwood and Central Islip as plaintiffs, the lawsuits — one focused on each school district — seek to overturn the approval of the new schools.
“SUNY Charter Schools Institute’s actions left us no alternative,” Person said in a statement. She said the institute, which reviews charter applications and makes recommendations to SUNY trustees, “has repeatedly ignored state law by dismissing community voices and overriding education experts in order to rubber-stamp charter applications.”
A spokesman for the institute defended the approvals. The group’s process for reviewing proposed charter schools “is lauded nationally for its rigor,” Michael Lesczinski said in a statement. Its “high standards and strong authorizing practices have cultivated the strongest charter school portfolio in the state and one of the strongest in the country,” he said.
A spokeswoman for SUNY referred questions to the institute.
Goldson said in a statement the lawsuits are "wholly without merit and will ultimately fail." The legal actions, he said, are "less about protecting students and more about the union forcing The Academy to divert scarce resources from classrooms to legal fees — funds that would be far better spent educating Long Island students."
Goldson said Academy "is prepared to fight for families seeking a greater choice in their children’s education" and is "confident that the union’s latest attempt to stifle parents’ voices in demanding school choice will neither derail nor deter the planned opening of our schools in Brentwood and Central Islip."
Academy operates charter schools in Hempstead, Uniondale and Wyandanch. It plans to open an elementary and middle school in Brentwood this fall. A Central Islip high school would open in the fall of 2027.
State law requires "adequate evidence of community support," but the charter school applications received widespread opposition, the union argued in court filings.
The New York State Parent Teacher Association also filed court papers in the lawsuit expressing opposition to the charter schools, citing local resistance.
In its lawsuits, the union alleges that Academy "lacks a clear plan to enroll and retain students" in Brentwood and Central Islip who are low-income, disabled or English language learners. In both districts, 36% of students last year were learning English and more than 15% were disabled, state reports show. Economically disadvantaged students made up 91% of the school population in Brentwood and 64% in Central Islip, according to the reports.
The original approval for the three schools dates to October, when SUNY trustees greenlit the applications despite opposition from parents, teachers and other community members who said at public meetings that they believed the schools would drain resources from district schools.
The Hempstead school district paid $87 million last year in tuition reimbursements for Academy and other charter schools.
The state’s Board of Regents rejected the applications last month, citing local opposition, and sent them back to the SUNY trustees for reconsideration.
But the SUNY trustees had the final word, unanimously voting Jan. 22 to approve Academy’s applications without any changes. Under state law, their approval means the charters would be granted 30 days later.
Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.
