Thank you Pamela Campbell for in-depth analysis and coverage of this issue in the Cape Ann Beacon. Readers, please support this paper in whatever way that you can.

UPDATE: Governor intervenes in Gloucester charter; state education officials vow to stick by vote
By Pamela Campbell/Correspondent
Thu Aug 06, 2009, 06:04 PM EDT

Gloucester -

Stunning many citizens on both sides of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School debate, Gov. Deval Patrick has decided to intervene in the process that had been considered a done deal, asking the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to reopen the process for community discussion, and to take another vote.

Equally stunning, his request has been refused, with the same Department of Education leaders who have been accused of ignoring proper procedure and statute requirements throughout the charter process now citing procedure and statute to justify a refusal to reconsider the issues.

“Because it is essential that the community has utmost confidence in the transparency and integrity of the process, I am writing to ask you to reopen your process and reconsider your decision,” Patrick tells Maura Banta, Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, in a letter sent July 27.

“The proposed charter for the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School has caused deep division within the Gloucester community at precisely the time when we need people to come together,” Patrick continues.

He cites as reasons for his action concerns about the process raised by Gloucester’s two state legislators, Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Sen. Bruce Tarr, in a July 6 letter to him, along with concerns voiced and written by other Gloucester citizens, complaining that the process has been flawed and that the community’s objections to the charter on its merits have gone unheard.

Specific flaws in the process were found to be valid by a legislative oversight committee that visited Gloucester in June. That legislative committee recommended to Chester and Banta that another hearing be held but stopped short of recommending that the February vote results be reconsidered.

Chester and Banta refused that recommendation as well, stating that the oversight hearing itself, in which speakers were cautioned not to address the charter on its merits but to keep comments limited to the process, would suffice in retrospect as the public hearing (in the presence of board members) on its merits.

That declaration places the February vote before the June public hearing, technically violating state statute.

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