Pocono Mountain Charter School wins appeal, will stay open - Pocono Record
Pocono Mountain Charter School will stay open after a state Department of Education panel overturned the Tobyhanna school's charter revocation by the Pocono Mountain School District.Pocono Record file photo
September 28, 2011
The Pocono Mountain Charter School will remain open.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education's Charter Appeals Board Tuesday rejected an effort by the Pocono Mountain School District to revoke the school's charter.
It's not over yet
Tuesday's decision by the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Charter Appeal Board was a clear win for the Pocono Mountain Charter School.
However, the fight between the school and the Pocono Mountain School District could be far from over.
In addition to possibly appealing the appeal board's decision to Commonwealth Court, the district's school board also voted not to renew the school's charter in March. The five-year charter expired June 30.
The school appealed the district's decision.
The district now must decide whether to pursue the non-renewal issue. If it continues with the non-renewal, it could set off another series of public hearings and testimony akin to the hearings over the revocation hearings.
Those hearings took more than a year and produced more than 2,000 pages of meeting minutes and evidence.
The appeals board's 5-2 decision represented a significant victory for the charter school in its protracted legal battle with the public school district.
"This is what we were looking for, for the school to stay open," said Carolyn Pugh, who was representing the charter school's legal team at Tuesday's meeting of appeals board in Harrisburg. "The ball is in (the district's) court now."
The district can appeal the decision to the Commonwealth Court.
District officials declined comment Tuesday, issuing only a statement that the decision of whether to appeal will be up to the school board, which meets next on Oct. 5.
There's no indication of whether the board will consider appealing the decision at that meeting, however.
A written decision from the state appeals board likely will not be available for school board review until late October, district officials said.
"We feel the evidence and the conclusions of law we presented before the Charter Appeals Board (on) July 26, along with the certified record of the revocation hearings, conclusively show the Pocono Mountain Charter School committed serious violations of the Pennsylvania Charter School Law through its significant and improper entanglement with the Shawnee Tabernacle Church," the public school district said.
Insufficient evidence
In issuing the decision, appeals board Chairman Ronald Tomalis said he did not find sufficient evidence of the charter school's entanglement with the church, saying only that it may not have "shown the best judgment."
He also said he didn't find any evidence of religious entanglements while school was in session. He cited a draft financial audit that found "no specific abnormalities" with how the school used public funds supplied by the district.
Tuesday's decision ends more than two years of public hearings over whether the charter school can stay open.
During arguments before the appeals board, the district claimed the charter school had a murky relationship with the Shawnee Tabernacle Church. Up until December, both the school and church were run by the Rev. Dennis Bloom. The school and church are in the same building on Route 196 in Tobyhanna.
The charter school argued the district committed procedural errors in canceling the charter by trying to include facts in the case that happened after the district initially revoked the charter.
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