Judge Welch's Decision

I am well aware that I haven't posted in months and I apologize. Things have happened--mostly summer, three children and getting back to the real work of improving our schools.

I encourage anyone who is still considering sending their child to the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School to read Judge Welch's decision in its entirety, especially the following paragraph:

"As the court stated at the hearing on this matter, the calculus regarding preliminary injunctive relief changes markedly during the next academic school year. At that time, the traditional Gloucester public schools will suffer significant financial harm. The GCA cannot claim any justifiable reliance regarding financial commitments/staffing if this court reconsiders the injunctive request early enough to allow planning by both sides for the next academic year. Likewise, any student who chooses to attend GCA this September will be aware of the inherent uncertainty involving the next academic year. Therefore, should this case not reach a beneficial resolution before next year, this Court will hold a hearing on any renewed motion for preliminary injunction (should the plaintiff file such a pleading) in early January 2011."

gloucesterdecision

Thank you for stopping by.

Jane Cunningham

Welcome Readers

I posted a link at the Gloucester Daily Times and have been sharing the address for Off the Charter with those who want it.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about the process by which this charter was granted and about the way in which the board of trustees of the GCACS presses on no matter--with little to no oversight from the state.

If you are visiting this blog for the first time, please check out the following:

Why?

Open Letter to the People of Gloucester

Do Not Recommend Document for Gloucester Charter School as created by the Charter School Office of Massachusetts

Paul Reville's "Tough Pill" E-mail

IG Letter to Governor Patrick

Letter

Amanda sent a letter to the editor of the Gloucester Daily Times on Tuesday, March 2. The letter was not printed in Wednesday's paper. On Wednesday the GCA board signed a lease. Amanda sent an updated letter to the Times, but the original letter was printed instead.

Here is the updated letter:

I am writing to express my continued opposition to the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School . In the beginning, I was concerned about the effects the school would have on the majority of Gloucester ’s students. As time passed I was infuriated by the lack of democratic process and how many rules were broken in granting the charter. Now, as the school is working toward opening, my opposition is strongest.

I do not believe this school can open and run successfully. To date the GCAC has no head of school. The Board of Trustees has canceled five scheduled meetings and has met only once since January 13. They have signed a lease for a building in an industrial park-- a far cry from the downtown location which is the basis of much of their curriculum.

I have attended the six information sessions the GCAC has offered thus far and have found a total of fifteen families interested in the school.

The mismanagement and inefficacy of the Board gives me cause to believe this school may fail. In the information session, a good amount of time is spent on an example project from the Lowell Community Charter School . As strong as the example is, it is important to note that the school it comes from has failed. At its five-year review the state wished to revoke the charter, only to find that after adjusting to the loss of students, the public schools of Lowell were not able to accommodate all of the students returning in one year.

Our children get only one chance at their education. If the GCAC fails, we can not give back those years of learning. The rest of Gloucester ’s students will be hurt first by the cuts made to accommodate the loss of students and, if need be, by the sudden influx of students from a failed school.

This is not a victimless experiment. The GCAC will be spending $2.7 million tax-payer dollars a year. In five years we get to see what they have done with it. We deserve to know what they are doing with the money. To date there has been little to no oversight from the state.

Since the charter was granted in February of 2009 the Board has nothing to show. The risks are too great to let them have the next five years to figure it out.

Amanda Cook
Gloucester, MA

Of Tough Pills and Medical Centers

Charter school signs lease
Former Medical Center building to house school
By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer

The Gloucester Community Arts Charter School has signed — and this time the landlord has accepted — a lease that will allow the school to open its doors in the Blackburn Industrial Park building recently vacated by the Cape Ann Medical Center.

The building at 2 Blackburn Drive was the charter school's second choice location, targeted only after a deal to lease space in the William G. Brown Building on Pleasant Street fell through in January.

Like the proposed deal for space in Brown's Mall, the former medical center building lease will be for 15 years with an average annual rent of around $406,000.

But unlike Brown's Mall, the Blackburn space does not fulfill the goal of charter founders to be downtown and within walking distance of the city's primary cultural institutions.

The main advantages of the new site are for drivers.

A lack of off-street parking and a dedicated bus drop-off were major concerns for the Brown's Mall location. Blackburn is built for automobiles and charter officials yesterday promised plenty of parking and easy pick-up.

The Blackburn site will also allow the school to provide plenty of outdoor recess space for students and a larger gym than Brown's Mall.

After weeks of rumors that they were close to a deal, the charter school board of trustees announced they had signed a lease for Brown's Mall.

But it became clear within a few days that the owners of that building, the Montagnino family, had not signed the deal and negotiations were stalled over the cost of renovations and parking.

In early February, charter officials confirmed that the deal for Brown's Mall was dead and they had turned to a second choice "close to downtown," widely assumed to be the former medical center.

"I think it allows us to do a larger multipurpose space and there will be lots of outdoor play space here," said interim charter school Executive Director Matthew Gallup about being in Blackburn yesterday. "And parking is not an issue."

Finish reading here.

Common Sense

To the editor:

Your Feb. 17 Times editorial exhibits common sense about the proposed Gloucester Community Arts Charter School.

Adding a new school to our district will very likely mean closing one of our existing elementary schools. That's a significant step. Given this proposed school's history and recent track record, we should ask if that would be an acceptable price to pay.

Finish reading.

PETER DOLAN
Gloucester

Applying to the GCA Charter School?

My View: Applying for charter school? Think of what we know
Jason Grow

Every responsible parent wants to make the best decisions they can for their children.

One that is especially important is where and how your child is educated.

Recently, the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School began accepting applications, and while it may be tempting to toss your child's name in the hat, take a moment to make an informed decision by looking at what we know about this school:

We know that the application submitted was deficient enough to warrant a "Do Not Recommend" rating by the professionals at the state Charter School Office charged with vetting proposals.

We know that the approval process by which the charter was granted was deeply flawed, including a violation of the regulations governing the public hearing process. And we know that there is enough concern over the legality of the process that the state inspector general and now the attorney general are investigating.

We know that the community input submitted to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) ran 10-1 against the creation of this school and that most if not all of the "partnerships" originally outlined in the application have subsequently been withdrawn.

We also know that Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester informed the BESE that community opposition was not a factor the board should consider in its decision counter to its own guidelines that community acceptance is a critical component of a school's chance for success.

We know that, prior to the vote, Education Secretary Paul Reville penned a midnight e-mail to Commissioner Chester urging him to push the GCACS as the best of three poor applications calling it a "tough but necessary pill to swallow" in order to move forward a larger agenda.

Finish reading.

Where the GCACS Board Stands Today

February 6, 2010
Charter arts school bids for students
Registration bid comes with interim leader, but still no site
By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer

A year ago this week, a series of late-night, long-distance e-mails between top state officials about a proposed Gloucester charter school sowed the seeds of one of the state's most enduring education controversies.

On Wednesday, with the controversy still very much alive, that school began recruiting students despite a string of setbacks that have left it without a building, a permanent head of school and — after at least one resignation this week — a key founder.

The Gloucester Community Arts Charter School is seeking 120 fourth- through seventh-graders to sign up for the school by March 10, five days before a scheduled lottery to choose students in the event of over-subscription. An enrollment report to the state is due after the lottery.

Finish reading here.

The Love Song of GCA Charter

In honor of the anniversary of the "tough pill" e-mail written by Secretary of Education Paul Reville, Amanda Cook has written a parody of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.

In case you have forgotten what it is that Paul Reville wrote one year ago, I give you the following excerpts from his infamous e-mail:

"Our reality is that we have to show some sympathy in this group of charters...Frankly, I'd rather fight for the kids in the Waltham situation, but it sounds like you can't find a solid basis for standing behind that one. I'm not inclined to push Worcester, so that leaves Gloucester."

"...It's a tough but I think necessary pill to swallow." E-mail here.


The Love Song of GCA Charter
by Amanda Cook

for Jane Cunningham

Let us go then, you and I,
When the District’s budget is spread across the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain reduced-lunch streets,
Through car-radio beats
Of restless nights in our own downtown,
Upon which future doctorates frown:
Streets that fill with working men
Of generations spent
Who do not stop to ask the question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In Malden they stop and stoop
Bending down to interest groups.

The pink light of sun rising over City Hall,
Over neighborhood schools, one and all,
Licking its tongue, its learning of language,
Lingering in classrooms filled with Fundations.
Let us look upon small learning communities
Filled with parent groups and activities.
And seeing there was little oversight,
They made an application, and started a fight.

And indeed there will be time
For the pink light that guides the morning buses,
Rumbling yellow backs along Washington Street;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a statement for the faces you meet,
There will be time to write letters and debate,
And time for phone calls and meetings and plans
Time for Van Ness and Amy,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the chatter in the state committee.

In Malden they stop and stoop
Bending down to interest groups.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do they dare? And, “Do they dare?”
Time to reapply, when it is fair,
With a Board that is barely there—
[We will say: ”How the Board is growing thin!”]
Their curriculum, innovation lifted from within,
Their science, walks to where the water’s been—
[We will say: “But where’s the building they’ll be in?”]
Do they dare
Disrupt the District?
In a year there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them already, known them all—
Have spent the evenings in cold meeting rooms,
Have measured them out in doom and gloom,
Have seen them ignore their own bylaws
While Mitchell and Chester fester in their own rooms.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the flaws already, known them all—
The hearing with no-one from the state,
And when I am angry, fuming over injustices great,
When I call the governor, and call, and call,
Then how should I begin
To justify emails written so late?
And how shall I presume?

And I have known the players already, known them all—
Players like Chester who doesn’t play fair
[But the committee! There was no approval there!]
Is it power, like a cloak
That affects these folks?
Players that lay blame, and refuse responsibility.
And how should I presume?
And can the school begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have countered each misstep with letters
And waited for justice from the men in power,
And what from the Governor, hiding out in his proud room?...

Their community of civics, their own bylaws
Cast off like lost sailors on a silent sea.

. . . . .

And the Board has acted so slowly!
Cancelled meetings for personal commitments,
Asleep… or incapable… or malevolent.

Played out in the papers, the globe and GDT.
Should I, having read the email of Paul Reville,
Have contented my self to swallow that bitter pill?
But though I have made note and attended, called and engaged,
Though I have seen my community [grown weary with disillusion] served upon a platter,
I am just a citizen—and that doesn’t matter;
I have seen chances as resolution given,
And I have seen the Men of Education driven, by games
Of political expediency. I was betrayed.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the email, the do-not-recommend,
The calls from all sides to make this mess end,
Would it have been worth while,
To let them proceed with a smile,
To have drained from the budget a good part of it all,
Without asking the overwhelming questions,
And say “The GCAC is Lazarus, come from the dead,
They know better than all, they will tell us all’—
If, once the school opened, those who meant well
Should say “This is not what we meant at all.
This is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the hearings and the protest and the cardboard bitter pills,
After hours at a meeting, Ballin wouldn’t take questions from the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible they say what they mean!
But as if a genie had come and signed a lease:
Would it have been worth while
If, finding some brown-site not quite downtown,
The board should turn to each other, and say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.”

. . . . .

No! I am not some naysayer, nor was meant to be;
I want change and improvement , and will do
What I can for progress our schools,
For all Gloucester’s children, not just a few,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Political, cautious and meticulous;
Full of honest anger, and wanting justice;
The men in Malden think me ridiculous
And play me, at times, the Fool.

Votes are sold… votes are sold…
The truth about the Charter process remain untold.

Shall I still support Patrick? Do I attempt another speech?
Do I argue there are no tide pools on Pavillion beach?
I have heard them talk of art and science, each to each.

I do not think they will integrate me.

I have seen the GCAC Board riding forward on the waves
Quieting rumors of no building, the head of school they lack.
They push forward and we push them back.

We have lingered in the chambers of their meeting halls
Gloucester girls, political and strong,
Until justice comes, and they are gone.

MA Ed Board Brushes Off Lawsuit Threat as Gloucester Charter Flap Grows

Ed board brushes off lawsuit threat as Gloucester charter flap grows
By Kyle Cheney/Statehouse News Service
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jan 26, 2010 @ 05:39 PM
BOSTON —

Even as lawmakers threatened prolonged legal action and investigation, members of the state board that approves charter schools insisted they had no legal authority to shut down a Gloucester school that has become mired in political controversy and infuriated residents of the coastal community.

Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education stood by their decision to approve the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School last year, a decision that has now drawn the eye of Attorney General Martha Coakley, who said Monday she is looking into the flap.

The board’s staunch defense led to an immediate countercharge from Inspector General Gregory Sullivan who accused board members of making “patently inaccurate” statements about the school. He vowed to release a follow-up report to an early-January report that found flaws in the charter school approval process.

But board members brushed off his claims and dismissed a call to ask the attorney general for guidance.

“I resent the assertion that somehow there’s a grand scheme … to deceive people and do it in a way that is not in the best interest of the public,” said board member Dana Mohler-Faria.

The Gloucester school has been under a microscope since September, when emails from Education Secretary Paul Reville to Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester surfaced indicating that the school’s charter should be approved, in part, to appease charter school proponents. The revelation sent Gloucester into an uproar and led to calls for the school’s revocation by local lawmakers and, eventually, Gov. Deval Patrick and Reville too. Republican lawmakers harnessed the controversy to call for Reville’s resignation.

The six-hour board meeting brought Reville face to face with Rep. Ann Margaret Ferrante and Sen. Bruce Tarr of Gloucester, as well as Inspector General Sullivan, each of whom lambasted the approval process and called for the revocation of the charter.

The packed room fell silent as Sullivan described February 2009 emails between Reville and Chester, as well as between other staff members of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, that he said indicated that Chester was pressured into approving the school over the negative recommendation of his Charter School Office. The inspector general also pointed out that the department’s own policies, as listed on its website, indicates that the commissioner shall not recommend approval of any charter school that fails to meet established criteria.

Finish reading.

My Dog Ate My Homework

Records missing on Gloucester charter school approval
By James Vaznis, Globe Staff

State education officials apparently enacted a policy of destroying virtually all documents related to the evaluation of a controversial charter school proposal in Gloucester, the state inspector general's office said in a report released today.

One key document that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has failed to turn over to the inspector general's office since it began its investigation in November is a 29-page evaluation form, which would have specifically outlined which criteria the proposal met or fell short on, the report said.

At least two of the education department staff members who reviewed the proposal for the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School revealed in interviews with the inspector general's office that they may have shredded their notes, the report said.

Inspector General Gregory Sullivan said the reviewers' "detailed evaluation records are an integral part of the charter approval process. These records provide accountability and transparency for any determination about whether the applicant met the stated criteria."

More here.

IG: Ed chief misled lawmakers, destroyed charter documents
By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer, Gloucester Daily Times

State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester is accused of misleading lawmakers probing the approval of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School in a new set of findings from the state's inspector general that also fault the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for destroying key documents.

The latest findings from Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, released today, come on the heels of his initial report to Gov. Deval Patrick that concluded that the Gloucester charter should be considered legally "void" because the process that approved it did not follow regulations.

In the latest findings, Sullivan says Chester's account of how he recommended approval of the Gloucester charter to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last winter against the advice of his own charter school review group, is contradicted by documents and testimony.

Chester last summer told legislators on the Joint Committee on Education gathered in Gloucester for an oversight hearing that the recommendation from the education department's Charter School Office not to approve the Gloucester charter was only the beginning of deliberations on the issue.

But the Inspector General said that no other education department staffers interviewed recalled any further discussion on the issue between the time the CSO issued its recommendations and the time Chester endorsed the school.

More here.

IG Letter to Governor Patrick re GCACS

IG Letter to Governor

Gloucester Charter School Approval Faulted by IG

Charter school approval faulted
Gloucester vote in error, inspector general rules
By James Vaznis
Globe Staff / January 3, 2010

Inspector General Gregory Sullivan has determined that the state improperly approved a controversial charter school in Gloucester last year and believes the board should void its vote, according to a letter his office sent to the governor yesterday afternoon.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has not nullified approval of any charter school since the independently run public schools were created under the 1993 Education Reform Act.

The Gloucester Community Arts Charter School is scheduled to open in the fall.

It was not clear yesterday whether the board and its agency’s commissioner will comply with Sullivan’s findings because they have not seen a copy of the letter yet, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“We don’t have any comment,’’ said spokeswoman Heidi Guarino. “We need to review it with our legal counsel.’’

However, Colin Zick, an attorney who represents Gloucester Community Arts, said he disputed the inspector general’s interpretation of the rules and regulations and believes the commissioner does have the authority to overrule his own in-house specialists. “This does not automatically revoke the charter,’’ said Zick, who had not yet seen the letter.

The inspector general’s office plans to release a report on its findings to the two legislators who requested it, Senator Bruce Tarr and Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante.

In his letter, Sullivan said that Mitchell Chester, the commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, recommended approval of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School last February in violation of the agency’s own rules and regulations, which he says forbids a commissioner from giving a favorable recommendation against the advice of its own experts.

The department’s charter school office determined a few weeks before the board’s vote that the school’s application did not meet the approval criteria.

Finish reading here.