A coalition of educators, parents, students, community activists and elected officials recently defeated an attempt by well-connected political and business figures to open an additional charter school in New Bedford.
Days before the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education had scheduled a vote, proponents of the Innovators Charter School withdrew their application, clearly stung by opposition organized in large part by the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools.
In a statement, the coalition said the retreat of the charter school proponents was a "huge victory for public education and our communities."
"The New Bedford and Fall River public schools have been underfunded for decades and have been the victims of consistent privatization efforts," the NBCSOS said. "Though the Student Opportunity Act begins to address this funding crisis, communities like ours remain in the crosshairs of those who would wrest democratic control of our schools away" from local residents.
The Innovators Charter School proposal emerged with a splash in September 2021, with considerable support from segments of the business community.
But educators and their allies quickly responded. The presidents of the New Bedford Educators Association and the Fall River Educators Association jointly penned a public statement pointing out that the proposed school would take away more than $10 million annually from the communities’ public school systems. Innovators had planned to enroll more than 700 students from New Bedford, Fall River and surrounding communities.
"This is a deeply flawed proposal for our communities as it will drain millions of dollars from public schools to support a privately operated charter school touting ‘innovations’ that are, in fact, duplications of programs already in place in our district public schools," the presidents wrote.
Members of the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools combed through the Innovators application, exposing its many weaknesses. They publicized the absence of genuine innovation in the plan and compared what the school intended to offer to existing programs in the public schools.
As the educators emphasized, not only would the charter school duplicate programs in public schools that provide early access to college and college credits while students are still in high school, but it also would fail to provide students with current levels of access to counseling and support services.
The NBCSOS — in coordination with MTA members from many locals in the region and members of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts — also mounted an expansive grassroots campaign of standouts, neighborhood canvasses, phone banks and mailings, all aimed at informing the public about how the new charter school would be run by a private board and further drain resources from public schools.
The community organizing proved effective. By December, when the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education held its public hearing on the charter proposal, dozens of education, labor and community activists turned out to denounce the plan. Prominent business leaders also spoke out, saying the time was not right to strip additional funds from public schools.
MTA President Merrie Najimy told BESE members to listen to the community. "You all know charter schools are not public schools. They are publicly funded private schools," Najimy said.
After the hearing, she explained that the Innovators scheme would have dealt a critical blow to both the New Bedford and Fall River public schools, undoing all of the hard work that went into securing passage of the Student Opportunity Act.
"For more than 20 years, New Bedford and Fall River public schools, like those in many other urban districts, were denied the resources that they needed," Najimy said. "Such inequities reinforced structural racism and robbed these schools of the ability to fully meet the needs of their students, who are largely students of color, with many coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
"Letting this charter school take away funding equal to the overdue investment provided by SOA would have been the height of injustice," she added.
After noting the volume of community opposition voiced during the hearing, the NBCSOS encouraged key supporters of the Innovators plan to rethink their position. Coalition members especially focused on BayCoast Bank, which had pledged to provide both financial assistance and leadership for the school. The community group wrote to the bank’s president and CEO, Nicholas Christ, and members held standouts at its headquarters, denouncing BayCoast’s support for the charter.
Christ, who along with other bank executives was named in the application as an ICS board member, announced in January that BayCoast was withdrawing all support for the charter school. Once the bank dropped its support, other businesses and organizations withdrew letters of support submitted as part of the application.
With support for the proposal withering and the NBCSOS poised to sustain its community organizing, the application was withdrawn in early February by key proponents including Meg Mayo-Brown, a former Fall River superintendent of schools; Jack Sbrega, a former president of Bristol Community College; and Omari Walker, director of the New Heights Charter School in Brockton.
The NBCSOS has pledged to remain active in ensuring that students have access to the education that they deserve and are shielded from persistent efforts to undermine public schools in the region.
"Our public schools have work to do. They always will," the NBCSOS said in a statement. "The history of public education in this country is steeped in systemic racism, and our communities were not spared."
The coalition added: "Increased resources and opportunities for all students have to be at the forefront of this work. As such, NBCSOS will remain vigilant in our focus on investing the funds our public schools deserve in service to every student."
