Charter school advocates and opponents clash over expansion plans at Town Board meeting

A standing-room-only crowd packed the Town Board meeting room Wednesday night to voice their opinions for and against the Riverhead Charter School’s plans for a high school on Sound Avenue in Northville. 

More than 50 people spoke at the meeting, and dozens more cheered in the audience, as the crowd urged the Town Board to approve or reject the special permit necessary to build the school along the state-designated scenic and historic corridor, located in a zoning use district that limits non-agricultural development. 

Although the board was not scheduled to take any action on an expansion — the charter school has yet to even submit a formal application — the issue has already galvanized both sides of a contentious debate that touches a wide-range of issues, including farmland preservation, property values and educational opportunity.

The crowd for the meeting overflowed into the lobby of Riverhead Town Hall. In an unusual move, the Town Board even changed its meeting agenda to allow the crowd to speak at the beginning of its regular meeting. The comments on the charter school alone lasted two-and-a-half hours.

MORE COVERAGE: Charter school superintendent fields community’s questions on Sound Avenue high school proposal

Many speakers were the Riverhead Charter School’s students, who made passionate pleas to the board about the value a new high school would bring to charter school students’ education. A new high school would mean a gymnasium, a library and a cafeteria, they said — something the current high school, located in a restored historic Northville school house, does not have.

“I’ve been attending RCS for nine years, and I’ve realized over the years that my education is better than most people my age,” eighth grader Riley Stark said. “Since we have higher education, we need classes to expand our education and feel a bit challenged. But one of the problems is the activities. Expanding the school will give students different activities to choose from, and have activities that actually interest us.” 

Stark said a gymnasium will not just give the charter school space for physical education courses, but also a place to put on events for the community and students.

“Currently at RCS we don’t even have a cafeteria, and we eat our lunch in our classrooms,” eighth grader William Pierce said. “I want RCS to expand, it would give me and my peers the same opportunities as students in the districts around us. Due to a lack of space, there are fewer programs for students, especially sports. As an athlete who has a strong desire to play sports in high school, this expansion will help me do that.”

Several of the students said their parents were considering taking them out of the charter school due to it not offering sports and other extracurricular activities. 

Nick Timpone, the charter school’s director of academics, said the school would only be developing on roughly 13 acres of the 72 acres of land being purchased. The other acreage cannot be developed or used for non-agricultural purposes at all, and Timpone said the charter school hopes to have the preserved land used as a commercial farming operation.

“We want our students to understand the importance of farmland and agri-business in our community,” he said. “And what better way to do that than to have a high school surrounded by 53 acres of commercially farmed land?” 

Timpone said concerns about the development’s traffic impacts have been “overstated.”

“There’s a lot of other organizations and companies out there that contribute to the traffic in the fall and the summer, and I think you know what we’re all talking about. Those are good for the economy. They bring money in,” Timpone said. “But is educating our students not as important as bringing money into the economy? What better way to sustain our economy by educating our students and letting them know about the opportunities for agri-business, agriculture, and getting them to perhaps stay in our community and start businesses and remain in our community?”

Aimee LoMonaco, of Riverhead, the vice president of the charter school’s board of trustees, said the school does not have all its plans fleshed out. She said the charter school has been looking for high school space for the last seven years, but that there are only nine zoning districts in the town that would allow a school.

“So when you only have nine zoning districts, you’re limited to those areas. So some municipalities allow schools in all zoning districts, but Riverhead does not. And I hope that that’s something you look at when you’re looking at your comprehensive plan,” LoMonaco said. 

Although public schools are typically exempt from certain local zoning laws, the Riverhead Charter School is a private school for zoning purposes, according to the State Department of Education.

A groundswell of opposition to the charter school’s plans have formed in recent weeks, after Riverhead Charter School Superintendent Raymond Ankrum announced in November that the charter school was purchasing roughly 72-acres, currently farmland, for the new school’s development. The opposition group has organized on social media and has the backing of the Riverhead Central Faculty Association, the union representing school district teachers. Opponents were also well-represented at the podium in Town Hall Wednesday night.

MORE COVERAGE: Residents organize against Riverhead Charter School plan for new high school on Sound Avenue

Some speakers, including those residing in neighborhoods near the property, told the Town Board plainly: It’s not the right spot.

“I’m not opposed to education. I’m not opposed to everything that these children want. They deserve it,” said Jennifer Confort of Aquebogue. “I am opposed to the location. That’s what I’m opposed to. It’s [an] agriculturally protected zone and it should stay that way.”

Raaya Churgin, of Henpecked Husband Farms, a wholesale flower grower in Riverhead, said farmland on the North Fork must be protected. The development would forever ruin the land’s soils, she said.

“You pave it over, you build on it — no young farmer can knock down a building, road, sewer system to farm,” Churgin said. “So once you give it away, it’s gone. It is gone.”

Aquebogue resident Kevin D’Amato, who lives off of Church Lane, said he has spoken to several real estate agents recently about the value of his home if the charter high school were to be built.

“Unilaterally, the consensus was that building the high school would absolutely depress home values,” D’Amato said. “The agent continued, the reasoning is simple: Our buyers are looking for a rural farming community. A high school works directly against that appeal.” 

“And I think that’s the appeal that we’re all upset about. We’ve bought into a community that wasn’t developed. We already suffered from the worst traffic patterns imaginable where we don’t go out on some Fridays and Saturdays,” D’Amato said.

Others had concerns about how the development could affect the area, but also attacked the charter school itself.

“While touted as innovative alternatives, charter schools pose a serious threat to the foundations of public education,” said Virginia Scudder, of Aquebogue, a parent of three children in the Riverhead school district and the spouse of Riverhead school board member James Scudder. “First and foremost, charter schools take much needed funds away from public schools by diverting taxpayer dollars to privately managed institutions like charter schools by weakening the resources available to traditional public schools, exacerbating disparities in funding and widening the achievement gap.”

“It goes without saying but I will strongly convey that the charter school is a drain on the school resources: the Riverhead public school’s,” Scudder said. Scudder said the school district “offers a superior education” to the charter school.

The charter school is mostly funded by public money, which is distributed to the charter school by the district in which a student going to the charter school resides. Roughly half of the Riverhead Charter School’s students come from the Riverhead Central School District, Ankrum said last week, and more than $11.6 million is projected to be given by the school district to the charter school for tuition this school year.

“When the application is processed, do not approve this special permit,” Mary Mackie, of Calverton said. “Our open space and public schools are special too, and they deserve to be kept that way.”