Chester, PA, December 29,
2011
– The Chester Community Charter School (CCCS), the largest K-8 charter
school in Pennsylvania, today announced that it has filed suit, in the Commonwealth
Court, against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Department of
Education (PDE), the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Education, the
Chester-Upland School District (CUSD) and the District’s board of
directors, seeking a judgment that would compel the respondents to ensure
immediate payment to the school of $3,862,983.40 in seriously delinquent funds
due and owing. The amounts due to CCCS are undisputed by CUSD and the
PDE. Moreover, through the end of the 2011-2012 school year, CCCS is owed
an additional $18 million.
CCCS’ funds, according to the
Pennsylvania Charter School Law, first flow through the School
District, which is then required by law to make 12 equal payments
to CCCS, according to a fixed statutory formula, no later than the fifth day of
each month.
Yet, through December 2011, CCCS has
experienced ten, consecutive monthly defaults by CUSD, and the lack of timely
payments has placed the charter school, and the continuing education of more
than 3000 students, at risk.
"There is no question," said Dr.
David Clark, CEO of Chester Community Charter School, "that we have been
extraordinarily patient, up to this point, while our school and its students
have been deprived, inappropriately, of the funding to which they are entitled.
"Our greatest concern," Dr. Clark
added, "is that the academic progress for CCCS' school children will be
negatively impacted, something we don't want to see happen. Such a development
would be most unsettling for the entire city of Chester, and for its families. Neither the
District, nor the PDE has the right to deprive these young people of an
opportunity to be properly educated. In that regard, we're petitioning the
Commonwealth to restore funding."
Contrary to
popular belief, the existence of charter schools within a school district does
not contribute to budgetary shortfalls. In fact, when a student chooses a
charter school education, not only does the student change schools but also the
cost of educating the student
changes schools. In other words, while the school district
“loses” funding when a student makes the choice to receive a
charter school education, the school district also loses the cost of educating
that student. And significantly,
the funding that follows the student is not 100% of the cost of educating that
student, but, rather, 75% of that amount, according to the Charter School Law.
That being the case the school district actually enjoys a financial windfall
when a student leaves.
As is the case
for all brick-and-mortar charter schools, CCCS operates on the Charter School Rate, a reduced rate of
funding determined as a percentage of the per-pupil funding of the school
district. That is to say, CCCS receives a smaller amount for each student
it educates than does CUSD for the students in the schools it operates. Yet
CCCS has achieved significantly greater outcomes.
The PDE has acknowledged CUSD's repeated
defaults but has also acknowledged that it has several times advanced or loaned
money to the District. In fact, the PDE recently acknowledged that it advanced
several millions of dollars from CUSD’s 2011-2012 subsidy to pay off
CUSD’s 2010-2011 debts. In making this advance, the PDE failed to protect
CCCS from the District’s fiscal mismanagement and put CCCS’
2011-2012 statutory entitlement in jeopardy. Equally important, the
PDE’s practices have put the successful education of all of CCCS’
students in peril.
Since opening in 1998, CCCS has grown from
an initial enrollment of 98 students to today’s enrollment of 3023
students. The public charter school is located in nine buildings over two
campuses in the Chester-Upland
School District. It has
made AYP, the federal benchmark for academic success, for three years in a row.
CUSD, by comparison, has been ranked among
the very worst-performing school districts in the Commonwealth, for decades.
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