Rivera asks state to reject new charter school

• By Keith Eddings keddings@eagletribune.com 
• Jan 24, 2019
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MALDEN — Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera is asking the state to reject a proposal to open a charter school for 640 students in his city, alleging the people who would run it are out-of-towners and the top rental agent for a landlord — Riverwalk owner Sal Lupoli — who would earn as much as $1.1 million annually leasing space to the school.
Reading a statement from Rivera at a meeting of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education earlier this week, his chief of staff also reminded the board that it has four times rejected a similar proposal from Frank DeVito to open a school in Lynn, his hometown. DeVito would serve as the executive director – similar to a principal – of the school, which he's calling Equity Lab Charter School.
“His roots are in Lynn, where he has tried multiple times, unsuccessfully, over the years to open a charter school based on the exact model” he's proposing for Lawrence, Chief of Staff Eileen Bernal told the state education board. “It's difficult to believe that this application was designed for the specific needs of the Lawrence students and families. Rather it appears Mr. DeVito has shopped his template around trying to hit the jackpot in Lawrence. Lawrence seems to be simply the next stop on his circuit.”
Bernal told the state education board that the only people who spoke in favor of DeVito's proposal at a public hearing the board hosted in Lawrence on Dec. 5 are members of his board of directors or those who have “a vested interest (in the proposal), specifically the developers who would benefit from the lease” that DeVito would sign at Riverwalk.
The school's board of directors includes Gerry-Lynn Darcy, who is senior vice president for leasing for all of Lupoli's developments. That could allow her to negotiate with the school for the lease at Riverwalk on behalf of Lupoli, then vote on the lease on behalf of the school.
DeVito's school would open in phases at Riverwalk up to 2026, when it would rent as much as 64,000 square feet of space to teach 640 fifth- through twelfth-graders. At $17 a square foot, the lease could earn Lupoli $1.1 million annually by 2026.
Darcy, a Middleton resident, did not return a phone call Thursday seeking comment on any potential conflict. She disclosed her job with Lupoli Companies in a questionnaire that Equity Lab's board members had to submit to the state education board. She said in the questionnaire that she would recuse herself when Equity Lab's board considered issues involving its lease with Lupoli.
DeVito said the state Ethics Commission told Darcy she could serve on Equity Lab's board if she recused herself on matters involving its lease. David Giannotti, a spokesman for the state Ethics Commission, said state law does not allow him to say whether the commission ruled on the issue.
In a telephone interview after the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting this week, DeVito acknowledged that the board three times rejected his proposal to open his Equity Lab Charter School in Lynn, but said the board was prepared to approve it on his fourth try in 2017. By then, he said the board could not approve his application because Lynn's school system had moved off the state list of the worst performing 10 percent of the state's public schools. That meant no new charter schools could be approved in Lynn. The rankings are based on MCAS scores and other factors.
Public school systems on the state list of the bottom performing 10 percent can be required to divert up to 18 percent of their state education aid to charter schools, a cap that Lawrence has not reached.
DeVito refuted Bernal's suggestion that his school in Lawrence would be owned and run by out-of-towners with little understanding of Lawrence's students and families. He said seven or eight of Equity Lab's 19 board members and top staff, including its learning director and its business and finance officer, live or work in Lawrence.
DeVito lives in Lynn and taught history at the city's high school for eight years. He also served a year on the Chelsea School Committee.
DeVito said he conducted a year of community meetings and interviews in Lawrence that caused him to adjust his proposal for the charter school that he submitted in Lynn to make it a better fit for Lawrence. Among them, he said he added staff to serve students with disabilities or who are English language learners.
Among its missions, Equity Lab would focus on educating students through experiences rather than textbooks and would address students' emotional and social development as well as academics, DeVito said in his application to the state ed board. He said he chose the name of the school to emphasize its mission to provide students from impoverished communities the same quality of education that students from wealthier communities get.
The state education board is scheduled to vote Feb. 12 on DeVito's application to open his school in Lawrence, and also will vote on an unrelated application to open another charter school in Haverhill. In Lawrence, the Equity Lab Charter School would be the city's fourth charter school.
It would open in September with a total of about 160 fifth- and sixth-graders and phase in a new grade level every year after that, through 2026. That would increase total enrollment in Lawrence's charter schools to 2,542 students, or more than 15 percent of the city's total student population if enrollment in the public schools and the three other charter schools now operating remain unchanged.
Bernal told the state education board that Lawrence public schools cannot afford to lose more students to a fourth charter school.
“Financially, it would detract from our real needs, which is full (state) funding,” she said.
The Equity Lab Charter School would receive $8.7 million in state funding and other aid by 2024 – the last year for which it has submitted a budget proposal to the state – when it would enroll 480 students and have a staff of 73, including 42 teachers. It would charge a tuition of $16,112 that year, which the state and city would pay, and would end the year with a $1.1 million surplus, its budget shows.
DeVito would earn a $155,000 annual salary as executive director.