LI district blames planned school closure, layoffs on charters and begs Gov. Kathy Hochul for help: Students will suffer

Long Island’s Hempstead School District says it plans to close an elementary school and cut jobs over a $34 million budget shortfall it blames on parents preferring charter to public schools.District officials in the country’s largest township are pleading with Gov.Kathy Hochul to step in to close the financial gap to help alleviate such crises.“Without financial relief, our students will suffer,” said Victor Pratt, Hempstead’s school board president, at a press conference at Hempstead Senior High last week.In New York, students can opt to go to a charter school in their town over their local public school, with the local public school district footing the bill.For Hempstead, this means the district will be responsible for the $106 million tuition bill for the nearly 4,000 local students attending charter schools next year — or more than $28,000 per student, the district said.

By comparison, Hempstead had around 5,700 students enrolled in its own public schools in 2023-24.It was not immediately unclear what it cost to educate each of its public-school students.The overall $106 million figure for Hempstead charter students is $20 million more than this past year and nearly double what the district shelled out the year before, according to school officials — adding they expect it to only continue to balloon with each passing year.Hochul’s Long Island spokesman, Gordon Tepper, told the Post that Hempstead is already set to receive $247 million in state funds next year, calling the amount “a massive increase” over the previous year.

Hempstead said it is receiving about $12 million more in state aid.Ron Edelson, a spokesman for the Hempstead School District, said the increase is being consumed by charter-school tuition, so the district isn’t close to breaking even.“They’re right, the state did give us an increase in aid,” Edelson said of Hochul administration officials.“But it is all eaten up by charter payments, so what are we really get...