Officials Block Charter Schools Out of Spite—Create Room for Students!

For many years, public schools in New York City have been sharing facilities. Approximately two-thirds of the city’s district and charter schools share a building with one or more other schools — totaling around 1,300 schools.

Over the years, the co-location policy has enabled both new charter and district schools to open and thrive, thanks in part to the significant underutilization of many school buildings across the city.

In the last three years, even with the gradual implementation of a class size reduction law, there have consistently been over 215,000 unused student seats — accounting for one-fifth of all available seats.

This data comes from the city’s findings in the “Blue Book,” officially known as the Enrollment, Capacity, and Utilization Report, which provides an annual overview of the city’s school buildings.

Before the pandemic and the subsequent drop in district enrollment, there were 100 school buildings that had 500 or more empty seats — sufficient space for a new school to operate without incurring additional costs for the city.

However, despite this surplus capacity, charter schools are often relegated to less space than district schools.

A noteworthy instance that has come to light recently is the Success Academy High School of the Liberal Arts – Manhattan, which is one of the 57 schools under my leadership as CEO of Success Academy. Here, choir students are compelled to practice in a stairwell due to a lack of space.

We serve 22,000 students in grades K-12, the majority of whom are students of color from low-income communities, and many of whom are the first in their families to pursue a college education.

At our Manhattan high school, we accommodate 27 students for each classroom allotted, compared to 16 for two district high schools that share the same building.

Unfortunately, this disparity in space allocation is not an isolated issue — it is more common across numerous co-located charter schools throughout the city.

It sometimes feels as if the city Department of Education assumes that charter school students require less space than their district counterparts!

While the majority (88%) of co-located schools are district institutions, the 12% that are charter schools almost always receive smaller allocations than district schools.

In the Bronx, Success Academy operates seven schools that share facilities with district schools, and in each case, our schools are at or above capacity, whereas the district schools have more available space than their enrollment would justify, based on the city’s own findings.

For instance, Success Academy Bronx 2 in District 9 operates at 131% capacity while its counterpart in the same building utilizes only 67% of its space.

Similarly, SA Bronx 3 in District 9 operates at 152% capacity while New Millennium Bronx Academy of the Arts in the same building has only 31% utilization of its allocated space.

In District 4, SA Bronx 4 operates at 185% capacity, yet I.S. 131 utilizes only 68% of its space.

These examples illustrate just a fraction of the issues faced in one borough. Similar disparities are evident for charter schools across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens — and not limited to Success Academy alone.

KIPP Amp Charter School in Brooklyn’s District 17 operates at 125% capacity, while MS 354 uses only 41% of its capacity — with an enrollment of 220 in facilities that can accommodate 530 students, according to the DOE’s conclusions.

In District 8, Bronx Charter School for the Arts operates at 108% capacity, yet it shares space with a district high school that occupies less than half of its available area.

Although the teachers’ union has attempted to limit or eliminate co-location for charter schools through legal actions and pressure on city officials, research has shown that NYC district schools co-located with charter schools benefit from such arrangements — resulting in improved academic outcomes, heightened student engagement, enhanced school safety, and greater expectations for all students.

District schools also receive matching funds for any upgrades a charter school implements on their premises above a cost of $5,000.

Despite these advantages, political factors have complicated the issue.

The outcome is that many charter school students, 82% of whom come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, find themselves squeezed into inadequate spaces.

It’s imperative for the city to take action beyond merely assessing and reporting the capacity and utilization of its school buildings — let’s address this inequity and ensure that all students, both district and charter, have fair access to learning environments.

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.