Deputy superintendent attended King High School private meeting

Philadelphia Deputy School Superintendent Leroy Nunery has found himself involved in a power struggle over control of Martin Luther King High School.

Nunery was at the closed-door meeting of State Rep. Dwight Evans, School Reform Commission Chairman Robert L. Archie Jr., and an official from Mosaica Turnaround Partners that prompted the Atlanta company to drop its plans to convert King into a charter school.

District spokeswoman Jamilah Fraser on Saturday confirmed information The Inquirer had obtained from sources inside and outside the district that Nunery was the unidentified "district representative" mentioned in a statement about the meeting March 16. The session took place right after the SRC voted, 3-0, to select Mosaica to run King in the fall.

The next day, Mosaica backed out of its plans to run the East Germantown school.

Nunery, Fraser said, did not speak at the private meeting and had no advance notice of it.

Archie had recused himself from the SRC vote because he is a partner at the Duane Morris L.L.P. law firm, which has represented Foundations Inc., a nonprofit in Moorestown that also applied to run King.

The SRC selection of Mosaica followed the recommendation of a committee of King parents, staff, students, and community members. They voted, 8-1, in favor of Mosaica over Foundations, which has been involved with the school for seven years.

Evans has worked closely with Foundations for years. He told the SRC that he wanted King to continue to work with Foundations as part of his educational plans for schools in Northwest Philadelphia.

Archie has said he called the meeting to try to get Evans and Mosaica's representative to work together at King.

After the SRC meeting, Fraser said, Archie directed Nunery to approach Mosaica's John Q. Porter "to invite him to participate in an impromptu meeting" with Evans.

Archie and Evans are longtime friends.

According to the district's statement, Nunery believed the meeting was being held to discuss how Mosaica and Foundations could work together to improve King.

Porter, president of his company's Turnaround division, has said he went into the meeting planning to run King as a charter school. The next day, he announced that his company was withdrawing from King but would continue with plans to take over Birney School, an elementary school in nearby Logan.

Porter has declined to comment on specifics of his talks with Evans and Archie, other than to say Evans' education plans for Northwest Philadelphia were discussed.

"It was clear to me that there was a master plan for that area for a number of years," Porter said Thursday, "and we didn't want to stand in the way of the representative's plan."

Fraser said Porter has said that " 'Dr. Nunery appeared as shocked as I was during the course of the discussion. It was apparent that he was unaware that this meeting was going to take place prior to it occurring.' Dr. Nunery has worked to maintain the integrity of this process and will continue to do so moving forward."

On Saturday, Porter confirmed Fraser's account but declined to comment further.

Fraser said she did not know what had been said during the meeting. Nunery could not be reached Saturday for further comment.

Archie said last week that neither he nor Evans had pressured Porter to back out.

Fraser said Saturday that Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman had not known about the meeting until Nunery mentioned it to her later that day. He did not go into specifics, Fraser said, but told Ackerman that he had "some concerns" about it.

That evening, Ackerman got a call from Porter, who was "confused and deeply troubled" and hesitant about moving forward at King, Fraser said. She said Ackerman had assured him that the SRC approved Mosaica and noted that its plans had the strong support from King's advisory committee.

However, Porter sent a letter the next day that said Mosaica was withdrawing.

With Mosaica out, district officials told the King advisory committee that its second choice - Foundations - would make King a charter.

Committee members told the SRC and Ackerman that they wanted the district to operate King for another year rather than give it to Foundations.

The disclosure of Nunery's presence at the March 16 meeting was the latest development in the King saga.

After news accounts last week of the meeting, Foundations announced that it, too, would withdraw its bid to run the school.

Citing a climate of "unrelenting hostility," Rhonda H. Lauer, Foundations' chief executive officer, sent a letter Wednesday to Archie and Ackerman saying her organization was no longer interested in participating in the district's Renaissance school-reform plan.

Foundations now receives $600,000 from the district to provide programs and student services at King. That will end June 30.

Fraser noted that Ackerman had said it was "tragic" that King's advisory committee did not get its first choice of a charter operator.

Turning around low-performing schools by converting some into charters is a centerpiece of Ackerman's Imagine 2014 education plan.

"This is her signature initiative," Fraser said. "She respects the integrity of the process."

Fraser said that the SRC would discuss King's fate at its meeting Wednesday but that, with no proposed charter operators left, King would remain a district-operated school in the fall.