Great Oaks Charter School recently opened its high school building on Crawford Street in the Central Ward, at the former home of the Marion P. Thomas Charter School
NEWARK -- Since Nigeroll Echols started the seventh grade at Great Oaks Charter School, he's had 19 teachers, five tutors and two principals. Over that time, the school called no fewer than four buildings home.
Now a high school junior, Echols can be sure future classes won't need to follow the same nomadic path.
Great Oaks held a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday for its new high school building on Crawford Street, which most recently housed the Marion P. Thomas Charter School.
For students and employees alike, the event marked the end of a lengthy road to permanence.
"We're finally in our own space, and I couldn't be happier about it," said math teacher Juanita Greene.
The school traces its beginnings back to 2011, when it opened with about 100 sixth and seventh graders in an aging downtown building. A full middle school opened at Teacher's Village on Halsey Street in 2013, and the newly leased facility will serve as a full high school for its 231 students in grades 9-12.
While the building represents a new beginning for the school, its opening comes amid renewed controversy over the relationship between charters and their traditional public counterparts in Newark.
Recent announcements that the KIPP charter network plans to open as many as five additional TEAM facilities and the Central Planning Board's decision to allow the construction of a six-story NorthStar Academy at a former Star-Ledger property have angered many parents and advocates who claim the growth of charters further siphon sorely needed resources from public schools.
New charters lure students, and most of the per-pupil state funding that accompanies them, away from district schools. The district keeps 10 percent of the state dollars to cover administrative costs, transportation and other considerations, though public school advocates say the shifts have created a persistent budget deficit and continuously poor conditions.
While Great Oaks' has no further plans for new buildings or to enroll new students beyond the roughly 540 it expects to serve next school year, Executive Director Jared Taillefer said he understands the perception of inequity between the two systems.
"I would say there is inequity, but it brings flexibility to allow us to try something that works," he said.
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Those differences were on prominent display at Wednesday's ribbon cutting, where students sung the praises of tutors who provide them with two hours of individualized teaching each day, and rattled off extracurricular activities that included everything from step teams to a tea tasting club.
Among them was Nisly Baez, who said she was "falling behind" when she arrived at Great Oaks, but is now taking classes like pre-calculus, running for senior class president and filling her afternoons with basketball practice and meetings of the tea tasting club.
"I have come a long way," she said.
Taillefer said those options were not the result of more funding, but simply an educational model that would likely not be available to public school students due to union contracts and other red tape. For example, class sizes at Great Oaks often exceed 30 students --something administrators are willing to concede in order to employ more tutors.
"We're creating an innovative model. What we should be doing (with public schools) is sharing best practices," he said. "I think there's a lot of political fray at the top that sadly is getting a lot of parents and families caught up...we've got to find a middle ground to work together."
Dan Ivers may be reached at divers@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanIversNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.