SRC creates new office for charters
Members of Philadelphia's charter-school community are taking a wait-and-see approach to the district's new Office of Charter Schools, which was formally created yesterday.
Members of Philadelphia's charter-school community are taking a wait-and-see approach to the district's new Office of Charter Schools, which was formally created yesterday.
The five-member School Reform Commission unanimously approved the establishment of the office and placed it under the direction of a yet-to-be-named district regional superintendent.
The office will address parents' concerns and implement policies pertaining to the city's 63 charter schools.
Some members of the charter-school task force that presented recommendations to the reform commission had wanted the new office to report to the district's governing reform commission, not to one of its employees.
It's a question of the office's independence from district politics, said Lawrence Jones, a taskforce member and president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools.
"This goes beyond Philadelphia," said Jones, executive director of the Richard Allen Preparatory Charter. "If you look at Washington, D.C., South Carolina and, I believe, Michigan also, they actually have independent state entities where the school districts don't get involved at all."
Sandra Dungee Glenn, chairwoman of the reform commission, however, said that it was inappropriate for the governing body to take on a management role. "That's not what SRC is set up to do," she said.
It has not been determined if employees in the former charter office will work in the new one, officials said. *
