No student should have to pay rent for their classrooms! There are 24,000 students across 75 charter schools, that were excluded from receiving the same rental assistance funding as every other NYC public school. These students’ per-pupil funding is being diverted from the classroom to pay for the buildings in which they are being educated. The dollars set aside for paying rent could be repurposed to fund programs, services, and supplies that directly help students, such as extracurriculars, before-and-after school childcare, and additional teachers and social workers.
End Student Rent!
Charter schools are already the most underfunded public schools in NYC. Charters without rental assistance – all of which have been serving their communities for over a decade – are left even further behind! Our children deserve better – it’s time to end this inequity! Together we can ensure all NYC students have access.
Why are NYC Public School Students Paying Rent?
District schools and nearly half of charter schools are co-located in NYC Department of Education-owned buildings. But under a 2014 law, charter schools located in private facilities that had grown to capacity or established grades prior to the 2014-15 school year were excluded from receiving the same rental assistance funding every other school in the system gets. As a result, today there are nearly 24,000 students – the only ones in NYC’s entire K-12 education system of 959,000 students – who are bearing the cost of their school buildings.
We are calling New York’s legislators to begin fixing this inequity! Albany would have to allocate just $16.3 million toward facilities aid for all, a drop in the bucket of the State’s $237 BILLION annual budget.
23,826
NYC charter school students do not have access to facilities funding.
Historically Underserved Students Most Impacted
Charter schools are already underfunded, but schools that don’t receive rental assistance receive almost $5,000 less per-pupil than district schools.
