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.

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