Pennsylvania Education Department schedules hearing over Phildadelphia district's dispute with charter school
The Pennsylvania Department of Education will wade into a funding and enrollment dispute between the Philadelphia School District and a city charter school.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education will wade into a funding and enrollment dispute between the Philadelphia School District and a city charter school.
The department has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider funding for the Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners high school. The charter has asked the department to divert $1.7 million in district state aid to it for its high school.
The district says it doesn't owe money to the charter because the high school was not approved and Palmer has enrolled more students than the 675 permitted by its operating charter.
The Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Academy, which opened in 2000, has campuses at 910 N. Sixth St. and 1415 N. Broad St.
"The district maintains its position that the charter school acted contrary to its charter agreement and added students which the School Reform Commission did not authorize," district spokesman Fernando Gallard wrote in an e-mailed statement.
Walter D. Palmer, the charter's founder and board president, has said the district owes his school $1.7 million because it is educating nearly 900 students.
The charter asked the department to withhold state aid from the district in July and send it to the school. State law permits such diversions of money when districts refuse to pay tuition for students attending charter schools.
Barbara J. Nelson, an Education Department official, notified Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman two weeks ago that the state intended to withhold the disputed money unless the district filed a challenge.
"Just to be clear, this decision to withhold funding from the district does not reflect any judgment by the department on the merits" of the charter school's claim, Nelson wrote in her letter.
The district filed its appeal within days, Gallard said.
The district said last month that other Education Department officials had assured the district it was not required to pay for students beyond the 675 specified in its signed charter agreement with the school.
Palmer said he was dismayed that the district had appealed.
He said he believed limiting enrollment at individual charter schools violated provisions of state law that prohibit capping charter enrollment. The district has interpreted the law differently.
Palmer said that after the SRC repeatedly assured the charter that the commission would approve its high school program, it began adding high school grades in 2007.
The commission, however, did not approve the high school.
A year ago, the SRC gave the charter permission to enroll students in grades nine through 11 for only the 2009-10 school year. That resolution said the school would be required to end its high school program in June 2010 unless the SRC voted to approve it. Total authorized enrollment remained at 675.