SRC wants new charter applicants to fix existing schools instead

Philadelphia School District officials yesterday indicated that they will not approve any of the 15 applications that seek to open charter schools this fall, but would instead give the applicants and others the chance to bid on converting low-performing schools into charters that would open in September 2009.

The School Reform Commission is expected to approve the move during its next meeting on Wednesday, after having met with the charter-school applicants.

The applicants include a group proposing to open the nation's first high school exclusively for foster-care youth, a group seeking to open a performing-arts high school and others proposing schools to focus on science, college prep, career training, finance, at-risk youth and character development.

Converting existing schools into charters rather than allowing new charters to be created is necessary, the officials said, because the district, facing a budget deficit, has dozens of schools in need of reform. Also, it is in the process of changing leadership and crafting new policies to support the 61 charter schools that are already in operation.

Reform Commission member James Gallagher said that members of the public should have "guarded optimism" that new charter schools will result from the proposal. He predicted that charter schools will enroll 50,000 city students in the near future.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but are run by their founders independent of the school district, currently educate more than 30,000 students - about 18 percent of the district's total enrollment.

Two previously approved charters will, in fact, open this fall.

Reform Commission chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn said that the change will allow officials to be more proactive in creating schools that fit the needs of students, rather than just reacting to applicants' proposals.

Up for reform are the 23 lowest-performing schools out of 70 that have failed to meet progress goals for five years under the federal No Child Left Behind law, said Cassandra Jones, the school district's interim chief academic officer. The 15 charter applicants, educational- management organizations and others soon will be asked to submit proposals to reform the schools, Jones said.

In another matter, Dungee Glenn said that she was optimistic that issues with the Philadelphia Academy Charter School would be worked through to allow the school to remain open. An investigation by the district's inspector general into claims of nepotism and exorbitant salaries at the school caused the reform commission to postpone approving a five-year renewal agreement last month.

Dungee Glenn said that a vote on the renewal would be made in June. Reform Commission member Martin Bednarek, however, asked that the vote be taken sooner to give parents peace-of-mind about the school's future. No decision on a vote date was made yesterday. *