By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-09 20:47:17 | Updated at 2025-03-10 03:19:12
6 hours ago
Long Island’s Hempstead School District says it plans to close an elementary school and cut jobs over a $34 million budget shortfall it blames on parents preferring charter to public schools.
District officials in the country’s largest township are pleading with Gov. Kathy Hochul to step in to close the financial gap to help alleviate such crises.
“Without financial relief, our students will suffer,” said Victor Pratt, Hempstead’s school board president, at a press conference at Hempstead Senior High last week.
In New York, students can opt to go to a charter school in their town over their local public school, with the local public school district footing the bill.
For Hempstead, this means the district will be responsible for the $106 million tuition bill for the nearly 4,000 local students attending charter schools next year — or more than $28,000 per student, the district said.
By comparison, Hempstead had around 5,700 students enrolled in its own public schools in 2023-24. It was not immediately unclear what it cost to educate each of its public-school students.
The overall $106 million figure for Hempstead charter students is $20 million more than this past year and nearly double what the district shelled out the year before, according to school officials — adding they expect it to only continue to balloon with each passing year.
Hochul’s Long Island spokesman, Gordon Tepper, told the Post that Hempstead is already set to receive $247 million in state funds next year, calling the amount “a massive increase” over the previous year. Hempstead said it is receiving about $12 million more in state aid.
Ron Edelson, a spokesman for the Hempstead School District, said the increase is being consumed by charter-school tuition, so the district isn’t close to breaking even.
“They’re right, the state did give us an increase in aid,” Edelson said of Hochul administration officials. “But it is all eaten up by charter payments, so what are we really getting?
“If the increase in state funding has to go toward an increase in charter payments, there is no increase in funding,” Edelson said — pointing out that a third of the district’s budget is set to go toward charter tuition next year.
He noted that Hempstead has five charter schools within its borders, with one more opening next year. Excluding New York City, it is home to the most charters in the state.
District officials added that Hempstead pays a disproportionate amount of tuition fees compared to other districts around the state, or about $8,000 more per student than the surrounding towns. Edelson said the state sets those amounts and that the district has asked the state why it costs more to educate charter students in Hempstead but has yet to get an answer.
Evolution of education
Edelson said the elementary school that the district plans to close could end up being the David Paterson Elementary School, named after the former governor.
It could be repurposed for special-ed kids or used for night classes, he said.
About 15 teachers and an undetermined number of administrators could lose their jobs if the school shutters, although at least some may be moved into other positions and others given incentives to retire, the rep said.
Hempstead school officials said that if there is no more state help soon, the district also will have to dip into its $60 million reserve fund, which Edelson claimed could be depleted by 2028 at this rate and lead to massive cuts — a major step back from recent years.
Hempstead was once a struggling district with a graduation rate of under 60% fewer than 10 years ago, leading to the boom of charter-school options in the area.
But the district has since had a major rejuvenation — increasing its public-school graduation rates to nearly 90% in 2024 and hoping to keep the momentum going, although it says it can’t without extra funding.
Charter schools in the area argue students shouldn’t have to wait for the district to fix its problems in order to have an adequate education if there is another tax-payer funded option up the street.
“The money belongs to all the taxpayers and individuals in the community,” said Sarah Brewster, co-founder of Evergreen Charter School in Hempstead.
“The money follows the child where that child goes to school. It does a disservice to pit charter schools against traditional public schools,” she said.
State Sen. Siela Bynoe, who previously represented the area as a Nassau County legislator, introduced a bill last week prohibiting any new charter schools within a five-mile radius of the Hempstead, Roosevelt, and Uniondale school districts.
Bynoe told Newsday that she is committed to helping Hempstead’s district and advocating state leaders to allocate additional funding for it.
