Posted on Tue, Jun. 1, 2010
A charter school focusing on Hebrew-language instruction and Middle Eastern studies may open in Philadelphia in the fall. Or maybe not.
Center City businessman Steve Crane and others are so optimistic about the school's prospects they are refinishing the oak floors of a Vine Street building in anticipation of students' arrival in September.
Crane said the school is permitted under Pennsylvania's 1997 charter law because it will not teach religion. And lawyers have advised that the proposed Hebrew Language Charter School does not require approval from the School Reform Commission because it will operate as a satellite of the World Communications Charter School at 512 S. Broad St.
The charter renewal the SRC granted World Communications in 2006 gave the school - which has 500 students in grades sixth through 12 - conditional permission to add students and open a second campus.
But Benjamin W. Rayer, an administrator who oversees the district's charter school office, said Friday that World Communications would have to get permission before beginning a Hebrew-language program or adding a campus.
The 2006 SRC resolution that renewed World Communications' operating charter for five more years said the school would have to obtain district approval before opening a second site.
"I have no idea who Crane is," Rayer said. "He can't open a charter school without an application and approval of the SRC. And anything with World Communications would have to be done through World Communications."
Rayer said officials at World Communications told him they had explored offering a Middle East studies program but were not moving ahead with the idea. He said World Communications had not submitted any documents about the proposed Hebrew-language school.
But Crane said plans for the proposed Hebrew charter accelerated this spring when it found support from World Communications.
"Sometimes the stars line up in an unanticipated manner, and that's what happened here," he said.
World Communications opened in 1997 with a mission of training urban and suburban students to meet and
Kevin Riordan: Middle schoolers skate through gym class
By Kevin Riordan
Inquirer Columnist
At Kingsway Regional Middle School, students can skateboard their way toward an "A" in gym class.
"Our main goal," physical education teacher Bill Ewe says, "is to get kids excited about physical fitness. Not to just throw a basketball at them."
The optional, two-week skateboarding unit - described as the first such curriculum in New Jersey - got rolling before the state's education budget cuts hit, and so far "the kids love it," principal Troy A. Walton adds.
I'm standing in the gleaming gymnasium of the middle school, a handsome edifice on Kings Highway in Woolwich Township. About 30 seventh-grade boys and girls in red T-shirts sit on the floor and get into their gear.
"I skateboard a lot at my house, so I know the basics," says Matthew Reed, 13, of Swedesboro. "At first, I thought they would have really bad boards, but it turns out these
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