Pa. Supreme Court ruling says charter school data are public

A Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision has, for the first time, established that charter schools must release information requested under the state's Right-to-Know law, according to a lawyer in the case.

The decision, handed down Tuesday said a Chester charter school must hand over its management contract and other financial documents to a Delaware County newspaper.

In 2005, Matthew Zager, a reporter for the Delaware County Daily Times, filed a Right-to-Know law request with Vahan Gureghian, head of the management company that operates the Chester Community Charter School. Zager asked for an auditor's report, financial statements, and the school's management agreement with the corporation that had managed the charter before 2002.

The request was denied by Danielle Gureghian, Vahan Gureghian's wife and a lawyer for his management company. She said the management firm was a private company and not subject to the Right-to-Know law.

Delaware County Common Pleas Court, Commonwealth Court, and the Supreme Court all rejected that argument. "Charter schools are not exempt from the statutes that are applicable to public schools," the Supreme Court said in its ruling.

The 1,980-student charter school was closed yesterday; Bruce Crawley, its spokesman, did not return a phone call. Gureghian could not be reached for comment.

Michael Dignazio, the lawyer who handled the school's appeals, said: "We thought that the charter-school law indicated clearly that charters were only subject to the Sunshine Law [which sets public decision-making regulations] and not the Right to Know."

The charter-school law, which authorized the establishment of charter schools in Pennsylvania, was passed in 1997; there are now 123 such schools, said Timothy Daniels, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools.

Dignazio said that in addition to bringing charters under the Right-to-Know law for the first time, the court said that individual schools, not just school districts, were subject to the law.

Henry Fintan McHugh, Zager's lawyer, said yesterday: "It's good that there is a decision like this providing direction to other charters, that they have to be held accountable to the public. . . . A lot of children are getting educated in charters and it could only be a positive thing to hold them accountable."

He added: "If charters were allowed to operate in the dark with public money, it would be an incredible breeding ground for fraud."

Daniels, of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools, said yesterday that the decision "may have an impact on one school but most charters are already well in compliance with that ruling. . . . It's not a concern."

McHugh said the Chester Community Charter decision, coupled with another the Supreme Court handed down the same day establishing that the state retirement system had to disclose the salaries of Pennsylvania State University football coach Joe Paterno and top administrators at the school, indicated that public disclosure was gaining ground in the state.

"Pennsylvania is . . . ranked among the worst in terms of public disclosure and transparency," he said. "It should be the wave of the future that there be more transparency in government."