David DeSilva has lived in Lakeview for more than half a century. He was not yet 7 years old when his parents moved into the community in 1958. His father immediately joined black community activists in fighting to desegregate the Malverne school district. As a second-grader in what was then the “colored” Woodfield Road School, DeSilva knew nothing of the heated debates and demonstrations black Lakeview residents held in the name of equality for their children.

By the time he was a senior at Malverne High School in 1969, DeSilva joined fellow students — black and white — to protest unfair practices in the district, which had been forcibly integrated in 1965, two years after the Supreme Court handed down an integration order. The district was integrated, but it was not unified. According to DeSilva, black students were not allowed to participate in school plays and other activities, and some white teachers were prejudiced. Several guidance counselors had advised black students like DeSilva, who had excelled in his studies, to enlist in the military instead of enrolling in college.

Eventually, he joined 136 other students for a sit-in in the lobby of Malverne High School. All of the participants were arrested for trespassing. Seeing the turmoil in a district with a growing black student population, some Malverne parents began demanding that a separate high school be built for black students in Lakeview, according to DeSilva. Others, he noted, pulled their children out of the district schools.

Opening another school is ‘ridiculous’

Having experienced that history firsthand, DeSilva was shaken to the core when he read in the Herald about a proposal to open a charter school in Lakeview (“New view from across the Ocean,” Aug. 25-31). “It’s like I’m reading something from 50 years ago,” he said. “Trying to have another school in Lakeview, separate from Malverne [schools] is ridiculous. … You’re not going to get anything from this. It was proposed back then — a separate school in Lakeview — and it was shot down.”

Malvernites Jodi and Matt Morello last month proposed opening a charter school in Lakeview, their primary motivation being to give district students an alternative. The Morellos assert that bureaucracy is destroying the Malverne school district, which they claim pushes students through without properly preparing them for college or the working world. Low state exam scores and complaints from district residents about the quality of the schools prompted them to make the proposal, they said.

Despite the Morellos’ stated reasons, some residents questioned their motives and took offense at their suggestion to open the school in Lakeview, as opposed to Malverne. A handful of those residents took to Facebook to air complaints, and others commented on the Herald’s website.

Jeanne D’Esposito said she thinks the Morellos are “mostly interested in giving themselves a job.” Asked why she thought so, D’Esposito said, “Because I’m cynical. Because they have no other dog in this fight. Because in their interview they distort things that are occurring in this district and many, many others as a result of the bad economy, and try to turn it into a singular failing of our district.”

Yanking students out of the Malverne school district and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars along with them will do nothing for the community as whole, D’Esposito added.

In response to her comments, the Morellos said that their motive is simple: to see that education is improved. “This is not, and will never be, as some accuse, an act of ‘taking away,’” they wrote in an email to the Herald. “This is a sincere attempt to give back and we are saddened to see our good intentions questioned.”

They went on to say that they are already gainfully employed, and that opening the school would actually be a risk for them. “To suggest avarice (in the face of such risk) is illogical,” they wrote, noting that opening the school is an opportunity to create jobs where there were none — “no easy feat in this economic morass.”

A touchy subject

Although he admitted to knowing little about the problems in the school district, DeSilva said his issue was primarily with the idea that a charter school would resegregate the district and undo all of the progress made thus far. “You have to understand, this is really touchy for me,” he said. “This has gone on and on and on, and then you have a couple wanting to do exactly what the Supreme Court turned down in the ’60s — segregating Malverne, putting black students in one area. You’re not going to have white students coming into Lakeview to go to a charter school. … We all know that. So this is going to be an all-black school.”

To be clear, DeSilva said, he is not divisive and has no problems with Malverne residents. “I love everybody in Malverne,” he said. “I’m just talking about the school system.” To make his point, he cited the school incident in June, when a black student was named salutatorian instead of valedictorian, despite having a higher grade point average than the white student who was named valedictorian. The situation became racially charged shortly after the district decided to name both students co-valedictorians, and eventually forced administrators to name the black student, Aalique Grahame, valedictorian, and his white classmate, Sarah St. John, salutatorian.

Additionally, DeSilva said, the Morellos cite low test scores and other educational inadequacies as reasons for their proposal, when in fact those are widespread problems that result from the state of the economy, financial issues and, perhaps, an administration that is lacking. “You try and improve the school district,” DeSilva said. “You don’t try and segregate a portion of the school and leave them in Lakeview. This has been the cry since the ’50s to keep the students in Lakeview over here. This is another veiled attempt to do it.”

The Morellos denied DeSilva’s accusation, calling it “polemical political posturing at its worst and a complete misunderstanding of our objectives.” They reiterated their goal: to provide neighborhood children a choice where teachers have more dominion over the learning process than administrators. “Suggesting that the ugly specter of segregation is part of our secret hand of cards not only wrongly imputes us, but reveals how low on the fantasy scale of perceived racial tension the opposition is willing to sink to,” the Morellos wrote. “It is one thing to express doubts about a new charter school. It is however, a suspicious other to cast aspersions as a first response.”

That first response, DeSilva said, is a result of his passion, which comes from having lived through the civil rights movement. He remembered standing at the corner of Pinebrook Avenue and Woodfield Road on May 12, 1965, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. passed by in his car, waving to residents. He remembered the motivational and heartfelt speech King gave later that day before a large crowd, and the warm handshake he shared with the inspirational leader. “It was just unbelievable,” DeSilva said. “Woodfield Road was full of people.”

Taking up a fight

Although he claims to be “just a regular guy” and not an activist of any kind, DeSilva said that the matter is close to his heart, and he simply could not stay silent after reading about the charter school proposal. “I feel like my father, who died in 2006 — that I’m taking up a fight that he spent so much time doing when we first moved out here,” he said.

The Morellos feel as if they, too, are taking up a fight — for the children and members of the Lakeview and Malverne communities who have a history of criticizing the educational and staffing practices of the school district. They doubt the district will improve itself, as its superintendent, Dr. James Hunderfund, and others have suggested.

“Malverne has maintained it is good enough, so why admit the need to improve if their methods have not already let this community down?” the Morellos wrote. “And how, precisely, will Malverne schools improve? Their ostensible supporters offer no rabbit and no hat, merely a scoff that ‘a charter school won’t help.’ This is presumptuous and erroneous. A charter school will help to fill the gaps irrevocably left open by the limits of a two-school community.”

The Morellos discussed the matter with community residents on Aug. 30 at an open forum on the proposed charter school. Check the Herald next week for an update on the forum.

Read the previous article in the series: ‘View from across the Ocean’
Read the next article in the series: ‘Forum furor’

 

[Note: This article and its accompanying photos and videos originally appeared on LIHerald.com on August 24, 2011. This content is the rightful property of Richner Communications, Inc.]

This article is the fourth in a series of nine written throughout the course of a year as part of an investigative series, which won first place for best in-depth series in the New York Press Association’s 2011 Better Newspaper Contest. Read the previous or next articles.

Bureaucracy is destroying Malverne public schools. That is the sentiment that has driven a Malverne couple to propose opening a charter school in neighboring Lakeview, “across the Ocean,” in local parlance, divided as the two communities are by Ocean Avenue.

Matt and Jodi Morello are both teachers. They don’t have any children, and neither attended Malverne public schools. But they are passionate about education and the futures of their nieces and nephews, godchildren and the children of friends and neighbors. The Morellos are concerned about low state-exam scores, reduced art and music instruction, and students who they say are being pushed through the Malverne school system only to end up ill-prepared for college and the working world.

“Seventy-five percent of Malverne residents send their children to private schools,” Matt Morello, 44, told the Herald. “If that’s not an indictment of the [public] schools, I don’t know what is.”

Some Malvernites attribute the private-school trend to the district’s turbulent history. It was forcefully integrated in 1965, after two years of protests, demonstrations, boycotts and delays. Many outraged white parents refused to send their children to the Woodfield Road School, which had been the “colored” school. Angry black parents who lived in Lakeview boycotted the schools. Some parents opened secret schools in their homes, and others staged blockades. Eventually the district was fully integrated, but mostly white Malverne and mostly black Lakeview were never unified.

“You have one school serving two communities, and neither community is happy,” Morello said. “This calls for an alternative.”

The Morellos have explored the idea of a charter school for four years, and recently decided to bring it before the entire school community. According to Jodi, 49, who has taught fine arts at a number of schools, children who attend charter schools perform better than public-school students because charters, which are run by teachers and controlled by the state, have smaller class sizes and are more autonomous than public schools. In many public schools, Matt added, teachers are pressured to push students through by administrators who are under pressure from the state to have high graduation rates.

“Teachers know how to get kids to read and write and do math,” said Matt, who teaches high school English in Queens. “At a charter school, they’re not entrenched with top-down bureaucratic curriculum. … Schools have gotten very political. Money is involved, high salaries — the administration has lost sight of what’s needed.”

The Morellos say they have found that student performance at a number of public schools improved significantly after charter schools were opened in their communities. “It’s competition,” said Jodi. “[The public schools] have something to prove.”

For that reason alone, opening a charter school in the area would be a “win-win,” Matt said.

But Malverne schools Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund said he doesn’t see how a charter school would affect the quality of education in the district. “I don’t believe that this would have a material effect on the public schools,” he said. “We offer a comprehensive program in terms of academic and co-curricular activities that most charter schools cannot match and don’t have. As far as competing, we really are in our own dimension.”

‘A cry for help’
The Morellos believe the time is ripe for their idea: In recent months, they have seen the district’s problems reach a boiling point. Racial tensions exploded at several Board of Education meetings in April and May. Students protested personnel cuts. Teachers protested stagnant contract negotiations. Parents lashed out at board trustees and school administrators for making what they considered unfair budget cuts — namely to art, music and library instruction — to accommodate a “teaching-to-the-test” curriculum.

“It’s a cry for help,” Matt said.

“And people, parents are receptive to listening,” Jodi added.

Charter schools are publicly funded elementary or secondary schools governed by nonprofit boards of trustees, which often include educators, community members and leaders from the private sectors. According to the New York State Education Department, charters have the freedom to establish their own policies, design their own educational programs and manage their human and financial resources. They are held accountable for high student achievement through the terms of a five-year performance contract.

Public-school districts are mandated by the state to pay the tuition of district students who attend charter schools. As they do for children who attend private schools, the districts also provide transportation and textbooks for charter school students.

For the 2011-12 school year, the Malverne school district will spend more than $295,000 to send 15 students to charter schools. According to Business Administrator Tom McDaid, the district pays about $19,000 per student.

If a charter school were to open in Lakeview, “it could be a burden to the district,” McDaid said. “Let’s just say we have an additional 10 students that go [to charter schools], I’m going to have to find another $190,000 in this budget. … If 10 students go, one from each grade, I’m still going to have the same number of teachers, I’m still going to have the same number of everything else. My cost to run the district won’t change, won’t go down, because I lose 10 kids.”

Aside from tuition costs, charter schools rely heavily on private donations and federal and state grants. Because they are run by a principal and overseen by a board of trustees, they “cut out many levels of bureaucracy,” Matt Morello said, and therefore have more money to spend on equipment, materials and teacher salaries. He noted that the Malverne district has several highly paid administrators — including Hunderfund, whose salary is more than $234,000 — but is struggling to maintain programs and hold on to staff in a weak economy.

‘Us versus them’
Before the state gives the go-ahead to open a charter school, it must have documented proof that a prospective host community wants it there. The Morellos have scheduled a meeting at the Lakeview Public Library on Aug. 30, when they hope Malverne and Lakeview residents will gather to discuss the possibility of bringing such a school to the community. They are fully aware, they say, that not everyone will be happy with the proposal.

“We don’t want to make it an ‘us versus them’ situation,” Matt said.

“We live in the community,” his wife added. “We don’t want to divide it, we want to bring it together.”

Already, however, some people are split on the idea. Laura Avvinti, a PTA mom with children in the elementary schools, takes issue with the notion that Malverne schools aren’t performing well. “It saddens me that people feel that the school district is not doing as well as they [want],” she said. “We do have really great teachers, and I’m very happy with the quality of the schools and education that my kids are getting. … Probably it will provide a lot of competition, and if a lot of the children decide to go the charter school, there will be less children in our school, which may or may not be a good thing.”

Malverne Board of Education Trustee Gina Genti said there is simply no need for a charter school. “I understand some of the community’s frustrations with the direction we’re heading in,” she said, “but I don’t think bringing a charter school — which is a long-term solution to what is probably a short-term problem — is the answer.”

Five years ago, Genti said, the district was on an upward trajectory: test scores were up, more people were enrolling their children in the public schools and the community supported the district. “That’s changed,” she said, noting that residents are frustrated with the quality of education in the district, the test scores and the exaggerated emphasis on testing. But, Genti added, those are all issues that can be corrected or improved.

Lakeview activist Rener Reed — former president of the Lakeview NAACP and mother of three adult children who went through Malverne schools — has long been vocal about problems in the school district. Reed, who grew up in Mississippi and attended Richton Colored High School there in the late 1950s, has spoken out about racial tensions in the district and her discontent with its administrators. For decades she has worked with other community activists and parents to improve the schools, sometimes succeeding, other times not. Still, she said, she doesn’t believe a charter school will resolve anything.

“I don’t think opening up a charter school is going to bring [Malverne and Lakeview] together,” Reed said. She questioned the Morellos’ motives, and why they are so interested in school district matters when they don’t have children in the school system. She also asked why a Malverne couple would want to open a school in Lakeview.

“I’m not opposed to charter schools,” Reed said, “but I am curious as to why certain people want to get into this kind of situation. … I would first say, let’s give Malverne a chance. Let’s get up there the things that are not done right, let’s see if we can’t help to make them right by putting all this on the table.”

Like Reed, Lakeview NAACP President Bea Bayley is more concerned about the people proposing a charter school than the proposal itself. “A charter school would be welcomed in Lakeview, provided that it come from the Lakeview community and reflect cultural diversity in staffing,” Bayley said. “Any outside group that would come in trying to prosper from our demographics would not be welcomed.”

The NAACP has battled with the school district over its hiring and retention practices, claiming that the makeup of the staff does not reflect the student population, which is largely black. Bayley said that there are not enough black role models in the schools, but a charter school that hires teachers from within the community could provide several.

“We need schools that focus on the needs of the children and encourage them to push beyond all perceived limitations of their surroundings,” Bayley said. “Lakeview residents need an alternative to the current system of education, which is plagued with high-paid administrators and low expectations.”

Hunderfund agreed with Genti and Reed that the district should be given a chance to correct its problems. “We would certainly want to attempt to serve the needs of every child and every parent; it’s just that sometimes people don’t express to us what it is that they don’t have that we would like to provide for them,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a matter of communication and working together to get the end result that you want. But I do believe that Malverne public schools [offer] a high quality education.”

‘Enough is enough’
If all goes well and they receive the community support they seek, the Morellos hope to see a charter school open somewhere in Lakeview — possibly at the Lakeview library, which was once the Woodfield Road school — by September 2013. In its first year of operation, it would have only two grades, sixth and ninth, and a total of 60 students. They are still not sure how many teachers the school would have.

After the first year, seventh- and 10th-grade classes would be added for the graduating sixth- and ninth-graders, while new classes of sixth- and ninth-graders would begin. That process would continue until the charter school was operating as a grades 6-through-12 school.

Although the Morellos are well aware of the controversy their proposal has sparked, they expect people to warm to the idea after they learn more about the potential benefits of a charter school at the Aug. 30 discussion.

“Enough is enough,” Matt said. “There’s a need, there’s a problem, and our charter school can fix it.”

Read the previous article in the series: ‘Race to the top’
Read the next article in the series: ‘Charter school proposal sparks heated debate’