A state order to a charter school to pay $30M to the Philly school district is on hold
WPACES, at 67th and Callowhill, is authorized to educate 400 students; it now enrolls about 650.
West Philadelphia Achievement Charter Elementary School, which enrolled hundreds of students over its legal limit for more than a decade, does not have to pay the Philadelphia School District $30 million — for now.
A Commonwealth Court judge on Friday issued a temporary stay of the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s order for WPACES to pay the district money its CEO says the school does not have.
A three-judge panel in April will hear both the motion to halt the repayment order permanently and WPACES’ appeal of the PDE order, which the charter claims was illegal.
» READ MORE: This West Philly charter owes the school district $30 million for students it overenrolled. Should it have to pay?
WPACES, at 67th and Callowhill Streets, is authorized by the terms of its most recent charter, signed in 2006, to educate 400 students; it now enrolls about 650, but over the last 10 years has sometimes had more than 700.
Charters receive per-student payments from districts based on their annual enrollment. This year, Philadelphia charters get $12,754.11 per student, or $40,053.17 for students who receive special-education services.
After a yearslong delay, the state education department in December ruled that WPACES must pay because of its “failure to abide by an enforceable term of their charter.”
WPACES officials say they told Philadelphia charter officials that to afford the new building they moved into in 2010, they would have to enroll more students. Stacy Gill-Phillips, the founder and still CEO, said she was given approval to do so, upon completion of several conditions.
But the school’s charter never formally changed.
WPACES has said it is not in the wrong, and accused the district of treating it and other Black-led charters with bias.