Palmer school to cut enrollment by nearly 600 using a lottery

AFTER LOSING a battle over funding, Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School announced yesterday it would have to cut enrollment by about 600 students, forcing many families to find an alternative one month into the school year.

The charter school, which has more than 1,200 students at two campuses, will hold a lottery at 5 p.m. today to determine which 675 students in grades K-8 can remain enrolled, the school's founder, Walter Palmer, said. The future of grades 9-12 will be decided in a second phase.

A Common Pleas judge last month denied the charter's emergency petition for funding from the district, ruling that the district was financially responsible for only 675 students - the cap set in a 2005 charter renewal. The charter claimed that if it did not receive $1.38 million, it would have to close.

Following the ruling, Palmer proposed a plan for the school to be run by the Friendship Public Charter School, based in Washington, D.C. Palmer said an anonymous donor had come forward and offered to pay for the extra students through June. Yesterday, he said that plan fell through because the district would not cancel a plan to revoke the school's charter for poor academic and financial performance.

"They wouldn't take revocation off the table, so it just simply could not work from [Friendship Charter's] vantage point, so that really [eliminated] any opportunity to try and prolong it any longer," Palmer said. "It's a very, very tough thing that we're experiencing."

Palmer said he had not yet decided how grades would be reconfigured, how many people would be laid off, or if they would close one of the campuses, but that those decisions would be made today. He held a meeting with families, teachers and staff last night to inform them of the lottery.

Told of the lottery by a Daily News reporter before the meeting, John Hall, whose son attends kindergarten at Palmer, said he was not sure what his backup plan would be.

"It's going to put everybody in a bad spot because a lot of people just bought uniforms," he said. "I have to figure out how to put him in the school around the corner from my house where my daughter [goes]. That's an alternative. I don't know if they're going to get rid of kindergarten or just get rid of one of the schools altogether."

Trisha Shaw, the mother of a second-grader, said she was frustrated because the disruption comes so early in the year. "I'm just fed up about the whole thing," she said. Shaw added that her first choice could fill up quickly. "I would like to send my child to the school down the street, Kearny, but then I was thinking I know a lot of parents are probably feeling the same way, that they're going to send their child to that school because it's like a neighborhood school, so the classes are going to be full. I don't know. It's just frustrating."

The district sent letters and made robocalls to Palmer parents and guardians last month informing them of their school options. A district spokesman said yesterday that parents still may register a child at a neighborhood school or submit an online application for citywide and magnet schools. Parents also may apply to another charter school, although many have waiting lists.

Palmer, who has long challenged enrollment caps on charters, said he would not force students out immediately, but would give families time to find another school. "We want to make sure we have a strong apparatus in place to help counsel and guide and direct the parents and teachers in the transition," he said. "We will not shut the door on them until we help them get placed."