The new evidence, hotly contested by education officials yesterday, consists of a letter and a memorandum drafted by a midlevel official in the department’s charter school office last Feb. 5, a day after her office met with Chester to tell him that the Gloucester application failed to meet the approval criteria.
In the draft letter, addressed to the Gloucester charter school organizers, the department’s new schools development specialist, Ruth Hersh, said that Chester had decided against recommending the school for approval and included an explanation of the application’s problems.