Riverhead Charter School

Riverhead Charter School students and their families marched with teachers, school administrators and board members in downtown Riverhead today, commemorating Juneteenth and demanding justice for black Americans.

A Juneteenth protest march is set for for 4 p.m. today in downtown Riverhead. It is one of many protests taking place across the country to commemorate the day a Union army general and 2,000 troops brought news of the Emancipation Proclamation to the slave population in Texas, where slaveholders refused to acknowledge the proclamation or the end of the Civil War.

Riverhead Charter school is serving a community the school district has failed. The district responds with misinformation designed to stoke fears and kill school choice.

Emotions ran high at a contentious public hearing Tuesday night on a proposed expansion by the Riverhead Charter School—which has submitted an application to the New York State Department of Education to revise its charter and increase its enrollment capacity from 787 to 1,037 students over the next two years.

The charter school seeks to expand its maximum enrollment from 787 to 1.037 students in grades K-9 over the next two years.

Riverhead Charter School physical education teacher Robert Cook has been honored with a national “all-star teacher” award from Project Fit America, creators of an innovative fitness education program brought to local schools by Peconic Bay Medical Center.

The State Department of Transportation will undertake a new study to look at ways to improve safety on Middle Country Road near the Riverhead Charter School, State Senator Ken LaValle said today.

Riverhead Charter School superintendent Raymond Ankrum dons a bright orange vest every morning and afternoon and walks into traffic on Middle Country Road in front of his school campus in Calverton. Ankrum starts and ends the school day at the K8 school working as a traffic control officer.

The proposed expansion is "an organic concept," the charter school principal said. It would provide the opportunity for existing charter school students to continue their education in the charter school.

The Calverton K-8 school is requesting state approval to add grades nine and 10, as well as to increase enrollment from 500 to 787 in the fourth and fifth years of its current five-year charter, which runs through 2022. It would add grades 11 and 12 in the following two years.