Thousands of students, parents and staff from New York City charter schools attended a rally in Brooklyn on Thursday to urge state lawmakers to protect charter schools.
Those at the rally at Cadman Plaza and the Brooklyn Bridge, organized by Success Academy Charter Schools, urged the state to expand the number of charter schools, stressing the event was not political ahead of the November mayoral election. That said, there was a host of charter school employees who said they felt forced to show up at a rally they did not support.
During Success Academy’s annual training seminar for incoming teachers in September, Eva Moskowitz, the chief executive officer of SA, dropped in to press the importance of the rally, according to two former employees who were at the meeting.
“When your boss asks you to do something, assuming it's not unethical or a question of conscience, you do the task. Are we clear?” said Moskowitz in a recording of the meeting obtained by BK Reader.
Moskowitz spoke to the incoming teachers at the training seminar about the political threats that charter schools are facing, the former employees said. “We have a core competency in political threats, unfortunately, but this is one of these moments where there is heightened risk, policy risk, political risk. So we are going to do what we've always done, which is to stand up for children and families in a massive way," according to the recording.
Everett McGlamery, a 22-year-old who trained at SA, said he left after three days as he learned how the charter school would clamp down on his political ideology.
“I'm not going to let an employer compel my political speech,” said McGlamery.
At the training seminar, SA employees were told to complete a “phone-to-action” plan, a digital system where pro-charter letters would be sent to elected officials. The phone-to-action links were put on a screen with five separate QR codes, a directive to the new recruits, according to photos obtained by BK Reader.
“I submitted a fake report with a fake name, and I encouraged the others around me to do that as well,” said McGlamery. “[Moskowitz] was very upset because the people in the front office had barely participated. It was about 25% participation in these phone-to-action plans."
New York labor laws were updated in 2023 to restrict employers from requiring employees to attend an employer-based event that promotes a political agenda. This rally, however, was categorized as a rally for all charter schools, not a protest against the Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who has voiced his opposition to charter school expansion.
When asked by BK Reader if she broke state labor laws by forcing employees to attend, Moskowitz stated, “When you decide to work at Success Academy, you sign up to be an ED [education] warrior. And that is very clear in all of our materials.”
Many of the parents found out about the rally through emails and what is known as ‘deliverables,’ or faculty tasks that urge parents to sign up for political advocacy events, said one former SA teacher who asked to remain anonymous.
“We have to promote and ask parents to contact their government officials requesting continued or additional support for charter schools," the former teacher said.
Despite the tension from some employees, the energetic rally at Cadman Plaza transitioned to a march across the Brooklyn Bridge around 11:00am.
Moskowitz stated that there are thousands of New Yorkers who want "the same choices affluent parents get."
"We want the same choices, no matter what zip code you live in," she said during a press conference.
“Charters are public, no more second class,” shouted Kamptary Williams, a Success Academy principal who MC’ed the event, alongside multiple parent speakers and musician and actor Common.
“Equity is access,” the crowd of K-12 school students chanted on their day off from school solely for this event.
“Every year that I've been in this work, there have been people who have been threatening and trying to stop us,” said Rafiq Kalam Id-Din, founder of Ember Charter Schools and chair of the Black, Latinx, Asian Charter Collaborative (BLACC).
“Stop listening to the fake news that charter schools take away resources from public schools," he told BK Reader. "That's like saying public schools take away resources from public schools. No one would say Bronx Science is taking away resources from P.S. 5."
Michelle West, a 48-year-old mother whose child attends the Success Academy in Crown Heights, said she is very pleased with the education her child has received.
“I would never pull them out of this school," she said. "It's the best school. He's in second grade on a fourth-grade reading level… It's like a family, and they need to stop threatening to take away charter schools."
