Will Chester schools close?

...despite having $33 million currently available, in previously budgeted, Chester schools-designated PDE funds, Commonwealth officials may opt, instead, to allow those schools to remain open, but with inadequate educational resources. 

Even worse, they may also decide to close the City's schools, entirely. 

This would clearly be an unmitigated disaster for the city of Chester, for Delaware County and for southeast Pennsylvania.

All of Chester’s Children Deserve an Education

by Dr. David Clark, CEO

Chester Community Charter School

Over coming weeks, Governor Corbett, and Ronald J. Tomalis, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), literally will be making decisions that will determine the very future of the city of Chester.

Following the Secretary's court-ordered meetings with representatives of the Chester Community Charter School (CCCS), the Chester Upland School District (CUSD), and others, the City's schools may very well receive the funding required to provide a Constitutionally mandated education for more than 7,000 young people, in Chester.

On the other hand, despite having $33 million currently available, in previously budgeted, Chester schools-designated PDE funds, Commonwealth officials may opt, instead, to allow those schools to remain open, but with inadequate educational resources. Even worse, they may also decide to close the City's schools, entirely. This would clearly be an unmitigated disaster for the city of Chester, for Delaware County and for southeast Pennsylvania.

In its ongoing ambivalence about whether to fund schools in Chester, while providing certain and adequate funding for schools in adjacent communities, the Commonwealth seriously underestimates, in our opinion, the resolve of Chester’s parents to ensure that their children receive an education. If Chester's schools close, it is reasonable to believe that those parents will seek classroom space for their children in nearby school districts, such as Penn-Delco, Chichester, Wallingford-Swarthmore, and Ridley. Such an outcome entails the risk of de-stabilizing those school districts and their communities, which will be challenged to find the resources needed to accommodate Chester’s disenfranchised students.

Not lost on observers of the current controversy is that, Chester, Pennsylvania, a city of 34,000 people, is 74.7 percent comprised of African Americans and 9 percent comprised of Hispanics. By comparison, the Commonwealth’s population is 10.8 percent African-American and 5.7 percent Hispanic.

In addition, with large corporate employers such as Sun Ship and Scott Paper no longer operating in Chester, a formerly vibrant, diverse, solidly middle-class community has become, not surprisingly, a city whose median household income -- at $26,787 -- is about half the statewide median of $50,398. In a state with an already unacceptability high poverty level of 12.4 percent, an astounding 35.1 percent of Chester residents are at, or below, poverty level.

Education has long been a critical issue in Chester. Indeed, about 25 percent of the City's adult population has not graduated from high school. With such challenges, there is a growing despair about educational and economic opportunities among Chester’s residents.

That’s where Chester’s schools come in. Since CCCS opened 13 years ago, with 97 students, the City's parents have brought nearly 3,100 of their children to the school, on a tuition-free, "first come-first served" basis, including 60 percent of all of Chester ’s K-8 grade students. CCCS parents receive report cards, themselves, reflecting their own support for their students' educational achievements.

From nine, newly constructed school buildings, CCCS’s students have achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in state-administered tests, for three consecutive years.  In addition, the school’s Enrichment Program, or “gifted education” program, teaches students to become self-directed learners.

Notably, through its High School Search and Selection Program, CCCS has successfully assisted many of its eighth-graders to be accepted into several of the region’s most prestigious high schools, including, St. Joseph’s Prep, Episcopal Academy, Archmere Academy, Cardinal O’Hara, Malvern Prep, Westtown Friends School, and the Milton Hershey School.  Frequently, graduates who require tuition assistance, in such cases, receive scholarships from Danielle Gureghian, and her husband, Vahan, who leads the school's management company.

In a city wherein only 8.75 percent of adults hold a bachelor's degree, it’s encouraging that 40 percent of the graduates from CCCS’s first eighth-grade class, in 2007, are now college students. 

It's clear that, when they are provided with a competitive education, Chester’s children have the potential to change their family’s circumstances for the better, and to contribute to a general improvement in the City's quality of life. Importantly, CCCS accomplishes these results with just 75 to 80 percent of the per-student funding provided to CUSD.

While we have discussed, primarily, the need for adequate, timely funding at CCCS, we are no less anxious to have the state provide funds, and a competitive education, for the 3,600 students who attend CUSD schools. After all, 40 percent of the parents of CCCS’s students also have at least one child that attends a CUSD school.

In our opinion, no matter how challenged the District’s fiscal management history has been, Chester 's children still deserve to have all of their schools providing them a quality, appropriately funded, education. And, certainly, CCCS, which has always operated strictly within its own budget, deserves an opportunity to be funded directly, and to continue to produce strong, life-changing, outcomes for our own students.

We trust that Secretary Tomalis and Governor Corbett agree, and that they will act, urgently.