HOBOKEN, NJ — The Battle of HoLa may be at an end, Hoboken.

Last week, after more than two years of costly litigation between the Hoboken Board of Education and the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School (HoLa), the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court affirmed a previous decision from the state commissioner of education that granted the school's application to expand its program to the 7th and 8th grades. The decision comes a week after the school graduated its first 8th grade class, according to school administrators.

As part of their June 29 decision, an appellate panel of judges found that – contrary to school administrators' claims - there was no evidence of socio-economic impact or an adverse funding impact to the Hoboken district from its expansion. Read the full court decision here.

According to a statement from HoLa, the years of legal action between the three involved parties - HoLa, the Hoboken Board of Education and the New Jersey Department of Education – cost taxpayers more than $200,000. The Hoboken Board of Education sued the school in March 2014 after the Department of Education approved the school's expansion to the 8th grade. At the time, the school's oldest students were in 5th grade.

Hoboken BOE members had argued that the charter school's expansion has shown trends of segregation, and that the percentage of minority students who attend HoLa is about half that of the district's public schools.