Lawyers for Success Academy argued in a legal petition filed Monday that the city “arbitrarily” targeted the charter network in its decision to block one of its schools from moving into a public-school building, forcing the Success parents to consider sending their children to other local schools with “abysmal” test scores.
The full petition is below, but the basic argument is that Mayor Bill de Blasio engaged in “arbitrary targeting” of Moskowitz and her network by reversing three of its space-sharing plans. (He also allowed another seven to move forward.)
The petition also argues that the criteria the city used when reviewing the space-sharing plans would effectively prevent any new charter schools from opening in public space in the future.
State law requires new charter schools to unionize their teachers if they enroll more than 250 students in their first year, but the Department of Education said it considered blocking co-locations involving new schools with fewer than 250 students. That amounts to an “inappropriate end run around charter law,” the petition says, which could force charter schools to choose “between automatic unionization of its teachers or having the DOE revoke, or reject, its co-location.”
Moskowitz and Success parents plan to reiterate the concerns in a federal civil rights complaint later this week.
Read the full petition below.//