CREATE Charter High School was a four-year public high school that operated under a charter granted by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education. The school was run independently of the Jersey City Public Schools since it opened in September 2001 and was shut down in June 2010 after receiving notice from Acting Commissioner of Education Bret Schundler that the charter would be withdrawn as the school had failed to achieve its goals, including having less than 5% of graduating seniors reaching the proficient level on the language arts and mathematics components of the High School Proficiency Assessment.[1]
CREATE Charter High School was a public school open to all students on a space-available basis. The school also had a middle school, CREATE Charter Middle School, and was the only high school in the county to do so. Offering a 195-day school year with a school day extending from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, the school was founded by Jersey City Councilman Steve Lipski.[2]
Athletics
editCREATE competed in the Hudson County Interscholastic Athletic Association, which included private and parochial high schools in Hudson County and operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).[3] In June 2009, the NJSIAA suspended Create Charter from participating in interscholastic sports, citing incidents in which the school had allowed a student who had been charged in an armed robbery sit on the bench during a basketball game and advertisements placed in local papers that promoted a new football program and solicited potential recruits with the offer of being able to join the team and play immediately.[4]
The boys' basketball team won the Central, Group I state sectional championship with an 82–65 win over Asbury Park High School in the tournament final in 2007.[5]
References
edit- ^ Hayes, Melissa. "Jersey City's CREATE Charter School, told by state to close in June, must prepare students for public schools", The Jersey Journal, March 4, 2010. Accessed December 29, 2011. "Trustees of CREATE Charter School in Jersey City must develop a transition plan for students now that the school has been told it's closing on June 30. Following a lengthy review process, Acting Education Commissioner Bret Schundler notified the school in a March 1 letter that its charter won't be renewed.... The letter states just 4.8 percent of the school's senior class was proficient in Language Arts last year and only 2.7 percent was proficient in math."
- ^ Kelly, Donald M. "A work in progress JC charter school reaches second year anniversary", The Hudson Reporter, December 6, 2002. Accessed December 29, 2011. "'I still like to think of us as a work in progress,' said Steve Lipski, the principal of the first charter high school in Jersey City, who also serves as Ward C councilman. Create Charter School, which currently has 150 students in ninth and tenth grades, shares a building with St. Paul's Elementary School after moving there a year ago from its first home on Wade Street."
- ^ Hudson County Interscholastic Athletic Association Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed July 15, 2007.
- ^ Staff. "CREATE Charter gets sports 'death penalty'; Lipski will appeal" Archived 2012-05-13 at the Wayback Machine, The Hudson Reporter, June 9, 2009. Accessed December 29, 2011. "The NJSIAA issued its final ruling concerning CREATE Charter School's status regarding offering athletics last week, and the news was not good. The executive committee voted last week to give the Jersey City school the 'death penalty,' meaning that the school cannot offer extracurricular competitive athletics for at least the next two years."
- ^ 2007 Boys Basketball - Central, Group I, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed July 15, 2007.