LaPlante and the school’s board chair, Carol Aguasvivas, had pleaded with lawmakers not to include the bilingual school in the three-year charter school ban, since it had already received an initial approval from the state in January. They met with McKee and asked him to veto it, citing his longstanding support for charter schools. He signed the bill the next day.

“I didn’t think that we were going to have to fight this hard for dual language,” Aguasvivas said. In the workforce, she noted, “Everyone wants you to be bilingual. But how are we going to prepare these children for the future when we’re not giving them the basics to be able to do that?”

The school leaders said they are exploring their options, including litigation, now that it’s been blocked from opening.

De La Comunidad was planning to open in Providence with 140 students in kindergarten through second grade to start, and then expand over nine years into a K-12 school with more than 600 students from Providence, Pawtucket, and Cranston.

The school would have taught both native English and Spanish speakers, with classes taking place in both languages throughout the school day. The goal is for students to become fluent in both languages.

“The only population that’s being affected here are the children,” Aguasvivas said. “Because the school was definitely going to make a difference. And the doors were shut on us before we could even open.”

The school had the backing of state education commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, and its leaders argued it was meeting the needs of Rhode Island’s exploding population of multilingual learners, the term for students learning English as a Second Language.

“We are responsible to going back to those families and telling them that they no longer have a choice,” Aguasvivas said.

The fierce opposition to De La Comunidad was not necessarily about the school itself, or any of its planned bilingual programming. Officials in Cranston and Pawtucket argued another charter school serving their cities would pull even more resources from strained public school budgets. Both cities sued to try and block the school from opening after it received preliminary state approval. (The lawsuit is still pending.)

The teachers unions that pushed for the charter ban also did not cite any specific issues with De La Comunidad’s curriculum or programming, but said local school districts simply cannot afford to send any more money to charter schools.

“They’re laying off large numbers of teachers in some districts,” said Maribeth Calabro, the president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, one of two major unions. “It’s time for a thoughtful pause of charter expansion, period, full stop.”

“The dual language is absolutely not the issue,” Calabro added.

Tuition at charter schools is paid by the school district where the child lives.

Aguasvivas said she understood the need for a charter pause, but said it should not have applied to a school that was already in the pipeline to open.

“De La Comunidad Bilingual School was not going to be the one school that was going to take away so much funding that it was going to cripple the entire system,” she said.

Brand new charter schools require two approvals by the Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education. After an application and hearing process, the preliminary approval allows them to prepare to open, including getting a lease for premises and posting jobs. Once the school is ready to launch, they go back for final approval.

Existing charter schools that are expanding require only one vote of the council, which is why the Greene School in West Greenwich — which got a favorable vote from the council on the same day as De La Comunidad — will be allowed to move forward with its plans to open a new middle school during the moratorium.

Aguasvivas and LaPlante noted that most children in Rhode Island don’t have access to dual language programs. In the three communities they planned to serve, Providence has dual language programming available to about 10 percent of the total school population, Cranston doesn’t have any, and Pawtucket has only a limited program.

“District schools should have dual language programs,” LaPlante said. “But we’re at 30 years of the same conversation, and they’re not there.”

Cranston Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse told the Globe the district doesn’t have the money to start a program, and charter schools are making it harder.

“Frankly, I would love to start a dual language program,” Nota-Masse said. “I have to cut programs, and I have to cut staff, because of the financial problems municipal districts have. I don’t have the program because I can’t afford it.”

She said Cranston lost $8.7 million last school year to charters.

“It’s not about that school in particular,” Nota-Masse said of De La Comunidad. “No matter the charter school, the way the funding formula works, every single opportunity a charter has to pull kids away from Cranston, I have to be concerned.”

No families were officially enrolled in De La Comunidad yet, as it was slated to be part of Rhode Island’s annual charter school lottery in the spring. But many parents had expressed interest, Aguasvivas said.

One of them was Marlena Stachowiak, also a city councilor in Pawtucket, who was hoping to sign her youngest son Truman up for kindergarten at De La Comunidad next fall.

“It was definitely something we were looking forward to,” she told the Globe. She hoped to enroll her two older children once the school expanded to middle and high school.

One of her sons, 9-year-old Braelyn, had been enrolled in a dual language program in Pawtucket from kindergarten until second grade at Nathanael Greene Elementary School, but he lost access when the program was cut and moved to Baldwin Elementary, she said.

The family only speaks English at home, but Braelyn was learning Spanish and using it around friends and neighbors.

“It abruptly stopped,” Stachowiak said. “He was really enjoying it. It’s been over two years and it’s slipping away,” she said.

Pawtucket Superintendent Randy Buck said the reason the district could not maintain dual language programs at both schools was because of staffing. There are not enough teachers certified in bilingual/dual language to meet the demand, he said.

Infante-Green, an enthusiastic supporter of dual language programs who recommended the approval of De La Comunidad’s application last year, did not respond to requests for comment.

When her department was considering the application, it received 1,778 letters of support, 99 percent of which were in favor of the school, according to RIDE.

The school had been approved for startup funding from the state and other grants worth about $1 million that it now must forfeit, LaPlante said.

Another $70,000 in funds came from the Rhode Island Education Collective, an education nonprofit where LaPlante also works.

Victor Capellan, the founder and CEO of the collective, said the group’s funding comes from local and national backers including the Papitto Opportunity Connection, Bank Newport, Centreville Bank, The City Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and individual donors.

McKee had years ago vowed to veto a charter moratorium. After signing it into law last month, he told the Globe the situation had changed; public school enrollment is dropping, causing serious funding issues.

He confirmed that he met with De La Comunidad leaders the day before he signed the bill, but they didn’t change his mind.

“If they feel strongly that they have support in the General Assembly, they should go back in the next session,” McKee said. “Go deliver your case.”

Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.

CHARLESTOWN, R.I. (WJAR) — A 25-year-old Narragansett man died Sunday after a canoe overturned while he and one other were fishing on School House Pond, according to Charlestown police.

Police said the two men were in a fiberglass canoe about 100 yards from shore when it overturned. One man swam safely back to land, but the other, identified as Jordan Monroe, 25, of Narragansett, disappeared beneath the water.

Emergency crews, including Charlestown police, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers, and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Environmental Police, responded to the scene and searched the pond.

Martha Konstandinidis reports on the death of a man at a pond in Charlestown. (WJAR)

Authorities said Monroe was eventually found a considerable distance offshore and taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police said neither man was wearing a life jacket. Investigators have not determined what caused the canoe to overturn and what Monroe’s cause of death was.

The drowning happened at School House Pond Beach, a swim-at-your-own-risk freshwater facility on Narragansett Indian Tribal land.

The incident remains under investigation.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A new tax on high-end Rhode Island homes that sit empty for most of the year took effect Wednesday, affecting thousands of property owners across the state.

Rhode Island’s Non-Owner Occupied Property Tax — also known as the “Taylor Swift tax,” a nickname inspired by the pop star’s estate in Westerly’s affluent Watch Hill neighborhood — is a new state-level tax on residential properties assessed at more than $1 million that aren’t occupied by the owner or a tenant for at least 183 days a year.

The tax is charged at a rate of $2.50 for every $500 of assessed value above $1 million, on top of the property taxes owners already pay to their city or town.

For example, Swift’s mansion, known as “Holiday House” or “High Watch,” is assessed at more than $28 million, according to Westerly land records. If it’s determined that she doesn’t occupy the residence for more than half the year, Swift’s tax bill would increase by about $136,000 annually under the new law, unless she qualifies for an exemption. (The law uses the assessed value set by municipalities and not the sales value.)

Revenue from the tax is earmarked for Rhode Island’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Fund, which is used to build affordable housing across the state.

R.I. Division of Taxation spokesperson Paul Grimaldi said, as of May, the state had identified 22,431 residential properties statewide with an assessed value over $1 million. Of those, 8,245 properties were flagged as non-owner-occupied and could be subject to the new tax.

The state sent notices earlier this year to owners who may owe the tax, explaining how they can seek an exemption.

Who qualifies for an exemption?

There are currently two ways to get out of paying.

A home can be exempt if it is rented long-term for more than 183 days a year or if the owner is running the property as a registered short-term rental (Airbnb-style) that’s booked more than half the year and paying the state’s lodging taxes.

Michael Pereira, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, said the “Taylor Swift” nickname for the tax distracts from the financial impact the levy could have on property values.

“It romanticized the actual act,” he said. “She’s going to be paying over $130,000. It’s substantial.”

Pereira said his organization was caught off guard when legislative leaders slipped the tax into last year’s state budget at the last minute without the kind of public hearings that accompanied previous versions of the proposal.

“We were sort of blindsided by that,” he said. “We didn’t have any time to put together a survey.”

His chief concern is how the state will ensure the tax is administered fairly.

“People are going to receive bill notifications from the state who actually occupy the property or perhaps have a rental,” Pereira said. “Is there a lot of red tape to prove that you’re innocent and you don’t owe the tax?”

Pereira also raised the possibility that the tax could push part-time residents to sell, flooding the high-end market. So far this year, Pereira said Rhode Island home sales under $1 million are down 3% compared to last year, while sales over $1 million are up 8%.

Pereira said it’s too early to know whether the tax is the cause.

An earlier fiscal analysis prepared by the Division of Taxation projected that the tax would generate about $24.5 million in its first year, growing to more than $27 million by 2031, once more people come into compliance.

The analysis showed more than 90% of the homes subject to the tax were valued between $1 million and $5 million, 6% up to $10 million, and 1% up to $15 million. Less than 1% of homes subject to the tax were valued above that amount.

Property owners subject to the tax can pay in quarterly installments beginning Sept. 15 or in a single lump sum by that date.

“I just feel like the way we’re going about it … we’re deterring people to want to invest in Rhode Island,” Pereira said.