We discussed in FS 5 (“What’s the Beef?”) that charters and traditional public schools should work to find common ground. Charter schools and traditional public schools can join together to celebrate the closure of a school found by a court to have violated the Constitution and state laws.
As is our mantra, excellence in education is the ground on which both stand. Converting low performing traditional publics to charters has turned many of those schools around; closing charters who break the law serves the cause of educational excellence that charters and traditional publics share.
On June 3, 2014, the state Department of Education’s Charter School Appeal Board (CAB) upheld for the second time the decision of the Pocono Mountain School District to revoke the charter of the Pocono Mountain Charter School. Why revoke? Religious entanglement and breach of ethics. The District revoked the school’s charter nearly a decade ago but the Charter school continued to operate without a board of trustees under a court-appointed custodian. Hearings and appeals to CAB and court have dragged on ever since. Finally, on June 3rd, in a unanimous vote, CAB upheld the District’s decision to revoke based on evidence of excessive entanglement between the Charter and the church where the Charter rented space. The District had found that the Rev. Dennis Bloom, who founded Shawnee Tabernacle Church, also served as CEO of the Charter. Running around the conference table in a diabolical game of musical chairs to play both sides, Bloom directed the boards of both institutions to enter into a lease agreement that obligated the Charter to build a gym, a parking lot, an elevator and an electronic message board as additions to the church. The Charter’s gym floor proudly proclaimed the name “Shawnee Tabernacle” which was painted on it. The lease provided that the improvements were to revert to the church at the end of the lease. Cost to taxpayers for the building? $900,000. Cost of lease payments to the church? $920,000. Where is Bloom now? In federal prison, where he sits until September, convicted of evasion for failing to report the transfer of church acreage to himself and his wife. But that’s not all. Upon his release, an ethics case against him will proceed: investigations by the auditor general and Pennsylvania’s Ethics Commission found that he broke the rules by diverting more than a million dollars of taxpayer money to himself, his family, his businesses and his church. The lesson here? The laws should allow speedy redress to rein in such self-serving diversion of resources meant for the education of Pennsylvania’s children, by charters. By traditional public schools. On that, the farmers and the cowmen can agree.
CAVEAT EMPTOR. The Freundian Slip is a publication of the KingSpry Education Law Practice Group. It is intended to inform the reader about interesting, important or entertaining developments in our practice area. It is not intended as legal advice and reading The Slip does not make you our client, although we would be happy to have you as our client if the need arises. (c) COPYRIGHT John E. Freund, III, Esquire. 2014.
