“My special child, pushed out of Kindergarten at a NYC charter school"
Here is the story of Karen Sprowal and her son Matthew, that Mike Winerip of the NY Times writes about here. While charter schools have advertised themselves as open to all students through randomlotteries, many have been shown to enroll relatively few numbers of special needs children and English language learners, and to have high rates of student attrition. The charter school described below is a member of the Success Academy chain, the fastest growing chain in NYC. Its rapid expansion has been enthusiastically supported by the DOE, and by their authorizer, the NY State University Board of Trustees, whose charter committee is headed by Prof. Pedro Noguera. There are currently seven Success Academies, all co-located in NYC public school buildings, with two more planned for the fall, and three more authorized by SUNY to open in NYC in 2012.
If you have had similar experiences with a charter school as this parent, and would like to share them either on or off the record, please contact Karen at katherine_sprowal_cucs@yahoo.com and/or Leonie at leonie@classsizematters.org
This is a mother’s personal story about having child with different needs “counseled out” of a NYC charter school. It’s also testimony of how inclusion, a smaller class size, and the supportive attitude of a great public school made an astounding difference in my son’s life. My name is Katherine Sprowal and I’m the