Charter appeals conditions on renewal
SASD stipulates rule on teacher certification
FRANCONIA >> The decision on whether Souderton Charter School Collaborative will have its charter renewed for the next five years will now be decided in court.
Under state law, Souderton Area School District reviews SCSC every five years for renewal or rejection of the charter for the school on East Broad Street in Souderton that opened in 2000.
At its Dec. 19, 2019 meeting, Souderton Area School Board granted a conditional renewal approval with the two conditions being that by September of this year
the charter school bring at least 75 percent of its teaching staff up to the same certification level required for district teachers and that the charter school provide the same health care coverage for its employees as the school district does.
That conditional approval is being appealed to both the Charter School Appeal Board and in Montgomery County Court, Souderton Area School Board President Ken Keith said at the board’s Jan. 23 meeting.
“The two conditions impose restrictions that have no basis in Charter School Law (CSL). Both case law and Pa. Department of Education (PDE) guidance are clear that SASD does not have any legal authority to impose the two conditions on the charter renewal which renders the SASD’s December 19, 2019 statement regarding the school’s alleged non-compliance with CSL inaccurate,” SCSC said in a Jan. 15 press release.
The SCSC teachers have valid teaching certification under Charter School Law, the release said.
The school district, though, interprets the situation
differently.
“PDE right now treats charter schools as private schools when it comes to certification requirements, but the original Charter School Law stated 75 percent of its teachers should be certified per state standards,” Superintendent Frank Gallagher said at the December meeting.
On the insurance issue, SCSC says a previous CAB ruling says the charter school must provide the same types of coverage as the school district, but does not have to be exactly identical, and quotes from that decision: “To require charter schools to provide health care plans that are identical in every respect to the local district’s plan is an unreasonable burden to place upon charter schools and, if enforced, would most likely result in the closure of many charter schools, an unreasonable and absurd result that the Legislature could not have intended.”
Souderton Area School District has a self-insured healthcare plan for its employees.
The charter school says it asked the district in 2017 about the possibility of buying into the self-insured program and was first told the district would charge the charter school higher rates than
the school district rates, then that there would be large legal costs involved in adding the buy-in and the district was not interested in pursuing the matter.
At the December 2019 meeting, Jeffrey Sultanik, the school district solicitor, said the district is open to discussion of a buy-in.
Keith said at the December meeting that he has no beef with SCSC, but does have a problem with the state laws governing charter schools and the current system of funding charter schools through payments from local school districts. Souderton Area School District is paying Souderton Charter School Collaborative more than $3.2 million this year in tuition payments, Keith said at the January meeting.
“We have always maintained that we support a parent’s right for school choice, but we also feel we should have the right to compete on a level playing field with a charter school that is exclusively funded by our taxpayers,” Keith said at the January meeting.
“Charters insist they are public schools,” he said, “but they simply don’t play by the same rules, nor do they have the same level of responsibility.”