Division I regional track finals
Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > October > 26
Friday, October 26, 2007
Colin Powell charter school to close
The Colin Powell Leadership Academy, a charter school that is the target of a lawsuit by Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, will close at the end of the semester on Jan. 17.
Parents will be given the names of other schools, both charter and those in the district, that have a state report card rating of “continuous improvement” or better at a meeting this afternoon. More than 200 kids attend the school.
Colin Powell’s sponsor, Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, said the school’s three-member governing board, which runs its day-to-day operations, resigned and ERCO was not able to operate the school the rest of the academic year. Phyllis Brown, legal counsel for ERCO, said the governing board had failed to submit an improvement plan for the school and left the sponsor with too many problems to address.
“If board members had not resigned and left ERCO in this position, there were plans to demand the school provide a plan to address the academic emergency but there were no plans to close school in middle of the year,” Brown said.
Dann sued the school last month, arguing it failed to live up to its obligations to educate children and citing its low test scores over the past five years while the school consistently has been rated in “academic emergency,” the lowest of five state report card rating categories.
Less than a month after Dann’s action, the governing board parted ways with Colin Powell’s founder William Peterson in what was described as a mutual decision.
Brown said ERCO has been concerned about Colin Powell school’s troubled academic record and was pressing the governing board to make improvements even before Dann’s lawsuit. She said the suit had no impact on ERCO’s actions but “probably played a role along with other things” in the governing board’s resignation.
Last summer, ERCO has a similar situation with City Day Communit School when it dismissed the governing board and replaced it with new board members. The school continued to operate.
But Brown said the issues with the Colin Powell school are different.
“That was a totally different situation,” she said. “In this case we have school in academic emergency and on probation. The board was required to submit a precise improvement plan to get out of academic emergency. It is unfeasable to do what we did with City Day and bring a board in and expect them to get this to us. They already are past their deadline. It doesn’t seem feasible to bring new board in at this point.”
Operating the school until the end of the academic year also was not an option for ERCO, Brown said.
“We’re not in business of running schools and making board decisions,” she said. “If it were a month or two months to the end of the year that might have been feasible.”
Permalink | Comments (48) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
