Citizens of the World Charter To Use Dead Souls To Bolster Enrollment in Effort to Stay Open

With the school threatened with closing due to low enrollment (as the so-called charter demand is once more exposed), Citizens of the World supporter Eric Grannis (the husband of Evil Moskowitz) is scouting local cemeteries for recruits.

State Ed Commissioner John King approved of the move. "The dead should not be excluded from the higher order skills gained from the Common Core."

The SUNY charter authorizing body also approved. "Once a charter we authorized has opened it assumes the properties of a black hole: public funds get sucked in but will never emerge due to the gravitational pull of the charter lobby."

James Merriman of the NY Charter School Center who has often said that if there's no demand for a charter, it will fail, said, "Until all the dead souls are given their right to choice the fat lady hasn't sung.  

Afterburn

For people not familiar with CWC they are LA-based. They came to NYC after being contacted by Eric Grannis, a long time charter supporter who is also married to Eva Moskwitz. Grannis has said he had been in contact with white, middle class parents in W'burg who had told him what they wanted in a school and that he then contacted CWC. The goal supposedly was to bring more diversity to charter schools, which many saw as a code word for bring more high achieving affluent kids to charters. Grannis supposedly has no official connection to CWC or the school.

James Merriman of the NY Charter School Ctr has often said that, if there's no demand for a charter, it will fail. Given there doesn't seem to be demand for this one, let's see if it's allowed to fail or if someone will pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Gail Robinson
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The reality is that charters are being rapidly expanded in NYC where DOE thinks they can find space for them into a public school building, NOT where there is real demand.

Yet another way in which the co-location policies of the DOE are completely off the mark and are driving bad policies.

This is why Eva has to spend millions on ads and promotional flyers, Democracy prep in Harlem had to send mailers to parents as far south as Lower Manhattan, Girls Prep offered cash rewards to people who recruited more students to the school, and COTW is now hugely under enrolled.
 
This is NOT parent choice at work, or even the free market -- but reflects the overriding preferences of those running the city and their wealthy cronies to maximize and facilitate the corporate takeover of our schools.

Leonie Haimson

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WAGPOPS Has Partner in LAPOPS in Cross Country Battle Against Citizens of the World Charter

Eric Grannis (Eva's husband) should be strapped to a public school he is invading and have his liver eaten by buzzards (his heart has been gone a long time). The amazing Brooke Dunn has done it again and keeps doing it. See a previous item in Citizens of the World charter from Brooke at Norms Notes: Brooklyn Charter School Targets Rich, White Parent... as the Ed Deform so-called "civil rights issue of our times" support racist segregation policies while the major media is complicent  - or just too busy trying to find out where parent activists are sending their kids to school.

Many of you know that WAGPOPS! (Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents: Our Public Schools!) has been fighting Los Angeles based Citizens of the World Charter Schools for the past year and a half.  The good news is that we have a sister organization, LAPOPS! (Los Angeles Parents: Our Public Schools!) in Los Angeles.  We've also developed partnerships with parents who attend Citizens of the World Charter Schools (CWC) in Hollywood (CWCH) and Silverlake (CWCSL).

We've amassed some unbelievable information (with documentation) regarding the schools themselves and the impact on NY for their expansion.

The LA schools are being asked to pay (retroactively as well) 1% of their per pupil funds for licensing, or the right to use the name "Citizens of the World," but here's the rub:  CWC NY schools will be forced to pay 3% of their per pupil funds for the same right to use the name "Citizens of the World," and that % will climb higher in future years - up to 8%!!!  This is NOT standard practice in NY Charters and is just for licensing.   Management and services are separate fees and percentages.

The licensing fee was only mentioned in a single sentence in the proposal to SUNY, and was not included in their submitted budgets, although it was mentioned in the SUNY recommendations to approve the charter.  I'm not sure if SUNY or the Regents are aware of this.  It's a pretty significant figure with millions of dollars funneled out of NY into CWC National. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  

CWC has been under-servicing ELLs in their LA schools, and have legal action pending against them from at least 3 families who's children with special needs almost died from negligence, one was found lying in a pool of her own vomit when she picked her child up form school (be sure to scroll to the end where the parents made the Board amend the minutes to include their testimony).  The negligent teacher from CWC SL was promoted to principal of the soon to be opened CWC Mar Vista!  You can't make this stuff up!

http://www.cwchollywood.org/docs/2-27-13%20CWCLA%20Board%20Meeting%20Minutes-updated%204-23.pdf . 

“When I arrived at the school approx 20 minutes later I discovered my daughter lying face down on the office floor, passed out and covered in her own vomit. The two individuals in the office at the time had no idea this had happened as they were occupied with photocopying behind the front desk.”

“The harsh reality of the situation is that if I was not in the front office my son would have died in the classroom.”

“I have been verbally requesting an IEP since the start of school and until February 7, I was ignored. Since this initial meeting on February 7 nothing has been resolved. In fact, my son has not been at school since he is not safe here.” 

The parents in their LA schools (CWC Hollywood, CWC Silverlake, and the soon to open CWC Mar Vista) were forced to consolidate to a "sole member" LA Board with the "sole member" being "CWC National."  This new National Board was made up of all the individuals from the scandal ridden Wonder of Reading (http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/NBC4-Extra---Book-Wars-Episode-Two.html ), notably Kriste Dragon, the former head of Wonder of Reading who folded the organization and funneled $2M into Citizens of the World, placing herself on the Board.  Dragon pulls the strings on all the Boards, and commands a salary of $240K while she lives in Atlanta.  Meanwhile, at the CWC NY "Meet the Principals" events, CWC staff is telling parents that they have a governance structure that is different from the LA schools, even though CWC NY will also be a "sole member" Board with CWC National as the sole member.

The CWC LA schools are financially unstable.  They're using money fundraised from CWC Hollywood to support the sustenance and opening of other schools against parents wishes, and have repeatedly been told by their outside management network that they are running out of funds.  

Finally, on top of 40-50 students leaving CWC SL in the middle of the year next year, CWC SL will be losing all but one teacher.  I've never heard of a teacher turnover rate like that, even at Success Academy!

We got some recent press coverage for CWC spending their resources targeting mostly white, affluent famillies: 

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130423/crown-heights/brooklyn-charter-school-targets-rich-white-parents-enrollment-plan-shows?cluster_id=177953&index=1&group_hood_id=73165

and

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2013/04/citizens-of-what-world-recruiting.html

Any recommendations for next steps are much appreciated.

Best,

Brooke

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