Capital Prep says it will use 2025-26 as a “planning year”

Capital Preparatory Charter Schools, which was approved to open a charter school in New Rochelle in September 2025, has announced that it will use 2025-26 as a “planning year” and postpone the opening of its school until September 2026.  Capital Prep shared its decision in a letter last month to families who had expressed interest in the school.   District Superintendent of Schools Dr. Corey Reynolds officially announced the change in a public letter on May 2.

Capital Prep had been planning to enroll up to 100 students in kindergarten and grades 6 and 7 this fall, but the school reportedly had difficulty finding a suitable facility in New Rochelle.  The school was approved in October 2024 by the Charter Schools Committee of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY) despite widespread local opposition.

Charter schools are marketed in Black communities as alternatives to school districts that for decades have failed to address racial disparities in tenured teachers, suspension rates and academic achievement.  Charter schools are independently operated with limited public accountability but are funded from local school budgets.  In the proposed 2025-26 public school budget that will be on the ballot on May 20, the City School District of New Rochelle allocated $1.9 million to fund the Capital Prep charter school, contributing to a $20 million dollar projected deficit that will require the elimination of up to 200 staff positions. It should be noted that $1.9 million is about 0.5% of the $359.4 million proposed 2025-2026 school budget.

In his public letter on the postponed opening of Capital Prep’s school, Superintendent Reynolds stated that $1.2 million that had been allocated for the charter school would be restored to the public school budget for 2025-26, preventing seven layoffs.  Reynolds said the remaining $700,000 would be held in reserve for potential future budget needs related to the charter school.

“While this is good news for our immediate budget and the upcoming school year,” Reynolds said, “we will have to plan for the potential loss of students to a charter school in the 2026-2027 school year. That number will grow even greater if and when Capital Prep expands to include more grades in the coming years.”