Harrisburg schools leader makes it clear she has no time for charter schools
At 3:30 p.m. Monday afternoon, a line of parents stood outside of Premier Arts and Science Charter School waiting to pick up their children after their first day of classes in the 2019-20 school year.
A little less than three hours later, the district’s new receiver Janet Samuels held a public meeting, where she announced that a process intended to shut down the charter school at the corner of State and North 17th streets will continue.
At that same meeting, Samuels announced plans to block another charter school, Pennsylvania STEAM Academy, from opening. And that’s all while criticizing the performance of cyber charter schools.
“Students who attend cyber charter schools struggle mightily,” Samuels said, before pitting the Harrisburg School District against local charters.
“Here in the Harrisburg School District, we are ready to compete with any and all charter schools in this region, in this area,” she said.
With that said, Samuels presented and approved a resolution that allows Harrisburg School District officials to move forward with proceedings to close Premier Charter School, which is currently operating without an approved agreement.
That’s the case after the district’s elected school board members moved last year to begin a process that would revoke Premier’s charter, citing charter leadership’s failure to report accurate enrollment numbers as well as lower-than-expected attendance rates and underperformance on standardized tests.
Premier officials appealed.
As part of that appeal, a series of public hearings about the revocation were expected to take place, but they were postponed multiple times for CONTINUE READING: Harrisburg schools leader makes it clear she has no time for charter schools - pennlive.com
