A Message from the CEO

Dec 2, 2011

CAP Begins Process of Reevaluation of Academic Program, Hires National Consultants; Parents Invited to Join Effort

As we all know, Community Academy of Philadelphia, Charter School's charter is still pending. This is a situation that we want to resolve as quickly as possible. During the time since the last vote by the SRC, CAP has taken action to meet the issues raised by the SRC and to stay steadfast to our mission to serve all our students and families, including the neediest of Philadelphia's youth many of whom do not fit well in the traditional public school or what has become the traditional charter school. We don’t have to address our successes in this blog, because everyone accepts them: four AP courses in the high school, 80% attendance in 2-4 year colleges for the class of 2011 with 6% enlistment in military; significant growth among special education students on PSSA, PSSA-M and PASA, as well as, college attendance; proven grown in elementary school PVASS reading over three years; the safest school in Philadelphia, and increased parent involvement.

We do, however, accept the legitimate complaint that low PSSA scores, though a single indicator of a one-day high stakes test, are a poor reflection of academic performance. We have, therefore, put in place last year a program of changes designed to make improvements not just in test scores but in teaching, learning and service to our students and families. These included MAP testing, RtI (Response to Intervention), PLCs (Professional Learning Communities), a consultant's report on realigning the 5th and 6th grade math curricula to PSSA testing, a push to increase parental involvement at all levels, and completion of the PowerSchool Initiative to provide real time access to students' grades for parents through the website. These changes and many more were enumerated in our charter renewal documents submitted December 15, 2010, that were 84 pages of questions and answers and over 1,700 pages including the appendices.

We realized that this was not enough and our Board required more rapid changes. The CAP Board mandated a plan that included long-term systemic change and short-term immediate, directed change, as explained below:

A. Based on the 2010 School Value Added Report (PVAAS) from PDE, CAPCS grades 3-8 reading 3-year growth standard was "green,” defined as, "There is evidence that the school has meet or exceeded the Growth Standard." Within our PVAAS scores, however, a particularly significant poor performance was seen in grade 5 math and reading and weak performance in grade 6 math and reading, which we were aware of the year before and this confirmed. We have taken no pride in the scores as a whole, because all scores are low. We have begun a specific, targeted program to address the worst scores first with a rapid response team approach followed up by a move outward to address all the scores. We have identified the elementary math program as the first to get a rapid response, because it is the foundation of any chance for improvement in the high school, and the high school reading/literacy/higher-level thinking program. We can do this because the PVAAS revealed a generally "green" score in the elementary reading program as a good foundation.

B. Therefore, Community Academy of Philadelphia, Charter School, has contracted with Dr. Chris Moersch, to provide his LoTi model in an intense program to improve our elementary school PSSA scores in mathematics this year. This program will be expanded in future years to elementary sciences and upper school math. To assist us with implementation of the program, the Atlantic City School District through the intervention of Dr. Moersch's good will are providing Dr Ray Allen, AC Director of Assessment, as a resource to CAP. Dr Ray Allen has meet with us and shown us how the AC schools addressed math in their lowest performing schools and has committed to helping CAP. Evaluation of this program is simple, by August 2012: 1) CAP MUST SEE IMPROVED SCORES IN THE MARCH 2012 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PSSA'S (Objective), 2) THE TEACHERS MUST REPORT THAT THE WALK-THROUGHS, LESSON PLANS, MATERIALS, AND PRE- AND POST- TESTS PROVIDED BY LoTi IMPROVED THEIR TEACHING (Objective & Subjective).

C. CAPCS has contracted with Dr. Nancy Clair, a nationally known educational consultant, to evaluate and provide actionable plans for the high school literacy program addressing current PSSA scores, as well as, preparing to move us toward the Keystone exams, PA’s new high school exit exams. Her work also will be expanded in the future into the middle school to assist our robust reading department to attack literacy issues in the middle grades. While working in the upper school, it should be noted that her mandate is not limited to literacy in the English or intensive learning classes (language arts components), but also includes higher-level thinking across the curriculum, including humanities and social studies. Dr. Clair was instrumental in introducing SchoolWorks to the Philadelphia SD in 2000-2005 and is a senior evaluator with the Massachusetts Department of Education and SchoolWorks, also, having evaluated charter schools in CA, NY, MI and PA.

D. CAP administration is requiring that all CAP administrators and teachers be on-board with the need for reform and plans a reorganization of the internal structure of the school in 2012-13. These changes are critical to our continued success, and we believe that they are what you want as our CAP family. Every once in while, it is critical for any organization to reevaluate how things are done.

CAP's school-wide accreditation was renewed by the Middle States Association of College and Schools based on our performance, mission, and plans in the Spring of 2011. We are excited about our plans and our new partners. We hope that you as parents and guardians will join us in the reevaluation. Please join Wendy Williams, Board Vice President and Parent Represent to the Board on the Parent Advisory Committee (PAC). You can contact Miguel Concepcion, Parent and Community Liaison at mconcepcion@communityacademy.org or by calling the school (215) 533-6700, to find out when the PAC meetings are being held and how to join.

CAP Begins Reevaluation of Academic Program
Dec 2, 2011 - Download PDF (32KB)

Oct 26, 2011

CHARTER APPEALS BOARD SAYS CAP STAYS OPEN AND SRC MUST VOTE AGAIN ON FULL FIVE-YEAR CHARTER

Yesterday, the Charter Appeals Board (CAB) voted to not accept our appeal that our charter was renewed in February 2011 by a 2-1 vote of the SRC, because they said they did not have jurisdiction. The CAB’s opinion was that they only can review “revoked” charters, and that the School Reform Commission’s (SRC) position that they took “no action” was not a “revocation” of CAP’s charter. In fact, the SRC argued that because we are still open, it is proof that they did not intend to revoke our charter by these votes, they were unable to take action, because of the unique situation that occurred at the SRC due to resignations and abstentions while voting on CAP’s charter renewal.

The Charter Appeals Board (CAB) appears to believe that this means that our charter renewal is still “pending.” Therefore, the SRC must vote again when a full five-member board is in place, and that there is no reason for the CAB to rule on our request to overturn the SRC lawyers decision that the two 2-1 votes in February and April did not mean our charter was renewed at that time. As of today, the SRC remains with only three members out of five and waits two appointments from Governor Corbett.

All school district, city, and state officials from whom we have heard have stated that there is no intention to close CAP, but we are caught in the strange bureaucratic nightmare that doesn’t seem to end. Please keep the pressure on your elected officials and contact the mayor, city council, your state representative, and state senator; let them know how important CAP is to you!

CHARTER APPEALS BOARD SAYS CAP STAYS OPEN
Oct 26, 2011 - Download PDF (32KB)

Oct 18, 2011

Community Academy Remains Safest School In The Inner City And A Call To Action!

As our parents and students know, Community Academy is designed to provide a safe learning environment for our students from grades kindergarten through senior year. To achieve this for over thirty years, CAP has created a smart system of security, student discipline, and emotional, family and social supports that work together to create a unique school climate in a public school setting. CAP’s school environment is often compared to the climate in a private school.

Most people: parents, community leaders, SDP counselors, the local police, etc., consider CAP to be the safest school in Philly. The Number One reason stated for at-risk referrals to CAP is “Safety.” It is also often stated by all applicants applying including a “Good Education” and “Good Learning Environment.”

We partner with Temple University in training our security staff to create the safest possible school climate and surrounding area. We have an in-house emotional support team for conflict resolution, therapy, clinical intervention, and even have our own psychiatrist one day a week.

All this with a robust discipline code that falls within state law, and an active special education and school psychology team to make sure we are following all the special education and 504 guidelines. Using these tools, we have fewer out-of-school suspensions then most other traditional public or charter schools with less than a hand-full of expulsions in 13-1/2 years as a charter school.

This year the PA Department of Education has declared our neighboring schools: Edison, Fels, Frankford, Kensington Business, Lincoln, and Northeast High Schools as “Persistently Dangerous” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, in addition, Sayre, South Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion High Schools and Shaw Middle School were also named. This is important, because CAP’s reputation draws from all over the city!

Though not named this year these neighborhood schools were named as “Persistently Dangerous” last year: Olney East, Olney West, Clemente, Douglas, as well as, FitzSimons, Gratz, Overbrook, Roxborough, and Vaux, Furness High Schools, and Vare Middle School.

As Kristen Graham reported on Philly.com on10/17/2011: “Of course, as The Inquirer has reported over the past year, violence has been widely underreported in the district, though officials say they are taking steps to fix that.” As you know, things are worse than the horrors of this report.

Yet, one SRC member, Mr. Dworetzky, held up our charter, because he said our safety record was not relevant. One SRC member, Mr. Dworetzky, ignored the SDP administration’s recommendation that our charter be renewed. That SRC member, Mr. Dworetzky, moved to California, but hasn’t resigned from the SRC, the board that governs Philadelphia’s schools. That is a disgrace. The SRC still continues to fight our charter renewal before the Charter Appeals Board, even though a majority of the SRC members voted in favor of renewing our charter.

It is time that this nonsense stopped. The mayor is doing his best to reform the SRC and get things at the SDP under control, but we cannot let CAP be forgotten. Now is the time to contact the mayor, your city council person, your state representative, and senator. Let them know, that you need the SRC to renew CAP’s charter. It is time for action. We shouldn’t have to continue like we are now with no new charter and the strange legal status that our charter is not revoked.

We are not in danger of closing, but we also don’t have a five-year charter. What we have is a legal technicality, where the SRC never made a decision, so our charter just keeps on going. However, for the sake of all of us, let’s get this resolved. Contact the politicians and tell them your kids’ school needs to stay open for another charter term!

[Next Blog: PA Department of Education releases results that show that CAP has shown significant growth on the PSSA over three-year period in valued-added resulted. Also, read the 2011 CAP Annual Report when you get a chance; it was sent home with students. It’s great reading. If you didn’t get one, and you want a copy, just email me.]

CAP Remains Safest School!
Oct 18, 2011 - Download PDF (196MB)

Sept 14, 2011

Welcome back to our 32nd year of bringing quality education, security, and service to the families of Philadelphia!

Everyone at CAP is back and excited about our new year. It’s hard to believe that it’s our 32nd year, but in 1980, we began as a small high school at 48th and Spruce streets. In 1981, we moved to West Kensington at 2820 North 4th street, added middle grades of 7th and 8th and off we went.

Today, we are Middle States accredited school-wide and nationally recognized for excellence with a rate of students attending college* greater than all the School District of Philadelphia neighborhood high schools except one (Northeast HS, which beat us by a mere 8%; the next closest to us were Rhodes HS and George Washington HS, which had 7% lower college attendance rates!). We are proud to be Philly’s best comprehensive school with the best safety record, academic record, attendance record, and college attendance record in the city, and we have the waiting lists to prove it.

* As reported by the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, Guide 2011

As school year 2012 begins, we are proud to welcome the Upper School Class of 2015: [Pictured above is freshman homeroom H24 Class of 2015]

The newly minted 8th graders are ready to become the leaders of the elementary school:
[Pictured above is Principal Bittinger’s 8th Grade Honors English Class]

And we welcome the Littlest Bruins of them all, the 2012 Kindergarteners of L23, the CAP Class of 2025!

Welcome back to our 32nd year!
Sept 14, 2011 - Download PDF (196MB)

July 20, 2011

Quality education and real reform not politically bullied education!

Parents, Students, Families and Friends:

Below is the text of the “Strengths and Weakness” section of the 2011 Annual Report to be submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the SDP Charter School Office at end of July 2011. It is a summary of our 2011 school year and a position statement on our mission and our commitment to quality education and real reform not politically bullied education.

Mr. Proietta

Community Academy of Philadelphia Charter School’s 31st graduating class of 2011 had 130 graduates, garnering over $672,380 in scholarships and grants, with 76 percent of students attending a four-year college/university, 2% two-year programs, and 6% entering the military in the fall. Another six will enter the work force. Full four-year scholarships were awarded to two students, including the first ever Drexel “Liberty Scholarship” for $210,000; the other was a $125,360 scholarship to LaSalle University. Other partial scholarships were awarded to Temple University, East Stroudsburg University, Penn State University, and others. Students also were awarded the Horatio Alger Scholarship, Ronald McDonald House, Bunton Waller’s, and Comcast Scholarships. The Academy class of 2011 graduated with a 99.8 percent senior year graduation rate with only one retention.

All members of the class of 2011 passed our internal Minimum Competency Tests and senior projects [oral and written components are a graduation requirement [1 student had to complete in summer school)]. There are over 250 upper school students in accelerated, college-preparatory English courses and about 200 students in the advanced, college-preparatory math classes. One hundred and twenty students are enrolled in high school remedial classes. 11 students took the AP calculus class, 10 students took AP Biology, 21 students took AP US History, 8 students took AP Spanish, and 12 AP English. Successful (College-level) Advanced Placements (AP) scores (3 or above) were scored in US History (a 3 & a 4), English (2), and Spanish (a 3 and a 5). AP Calculus and biology each had a 2. For the first time in SY2010, CAPCS had a junior score a “3” on an AP test (US History AP). In SY 2011, the Middle School introduced honors Language Arts and Mathematics for the eighth grade and will add science in SY2012.

Last year’s graduating class, the 30th graduating class of 2010 had 92 graduates, garnering over $263,550 in scholarships and grants, with 80 percent of students attending a two or four-year college/university in the fall. Scholarships were garnered to LaSalle University (2 full), Temple University, Wilkes University, Rosemont, Penn State, West Chester University, Holy Family University, as well as others; several members of the class attended trade schools, joined the work-force, or enlisted in the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. These outcomes, as well as the 2011 outcomes, put to the lie the AYP one-test-fits-all nonsense of NCLB and “Race to the Top.” Our total 1981 to 2011 graduates, many of whom would not have graduated from high school without CHS/CAPCS, have well surpassed the 2,100 mark.

In SY 2011, the Community Academy of Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania Charter School (CAPCS) completed its fourteenth year as a charter school, tenth year as a K-12 school, and its 31st year as a middle and high school serving both a general population and at-risk/high risk youth in Philadelphia. Our overall K-12 attendance rate for SY2011 was 91.81 percent up 3.5 percent from SY2010. Our enrollment, Average Daily Membership (ADM), in SY2011 was 1209.

In the Spring of 2011, our Pre-K to 12 accreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA CESS) was reviewed and was renewed for an additional five years. We also became in 2010 the only school district in Pennsylvania recognized by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) as an Hispanic Serving School District (HSSD).

Community Academy is proud of its reputation as a safe school. In SY2011, CAP experienced zero (0) expulsions, two (2) incidents of fighting that combined represent a rate of 0.16 per 100 students, two (2) incidents of weapons possession (no guns) for an incident rate of 0.16 per 100 students, one (1) incident of harassment at an incident rate of 0.08 per 100 students. One of the weapon’s possession incidents was mitigated by the Kensington rapists fear. There were two (2) suspensions out of school for possession of drugs. For an urban school this is a huge point of pride.

Community Academy (CAPCS) is divided into three divisions, the Lower School (day-care, nursery and pre-K to 4), Middle School (5-8), and Upper School (9-12). In addition, school-wide support services are provided by our ten-member Emotional Support Team (EST), Lisa’s Place Health Services, day-care, special education department, including our two in-house school psychologists (one bilingual), ELL co-coordinator, and in-house reading support team. Regular reading and math pullouts are provided in the lower and middle school. In grades K-12, the reading program provides differentiated instructions with six PA certified reading specialists, allowing students to work in reading-level appropriate groups, resource room, and pullouts.

All our Title I bilingual teachers’ aides have successfully completed the paraprofessional test and are highly qualified for the job in accordance with NCLB. Teacher retention was high with the Upper School posting 91%, the Middle School 90%, and the Lower School 100% retention rates. Retention rates for EST, special education, and the reading department were 100%.

During SY 2011, CAPCS instituted school-wide MAP testing to provide teacher’s with more data regarding individual student progress, introduced Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to empower teachers, particularly in the lower grades, to attack deficits in reading and math through collegial discussion of best practices, and created curriculum checklists to help align CAP’s curriculum more closely with the skills tested in the PSSA’s. The Lower School implemented Response to Intervention (RtI) in both math and reading to assure increased progress of students to attain proficiency though identification and action to address deficiencies at the earliest stages. With this new program in place for just one year, 47% of 3rd graders scored proficient or above in math and 55% did in reading.

CAPCS offers a continuum of services for all students, so that most students’ needs are met on site at our school. The extensive special education department has collaborated with members of administration, emotional support team (EST), reading department, and health services to ensure that each IEP is implemented successfully. CAP contracted with the Delaware County IU to evaluate all special education programs and classroom modifications in SY2009. In Spring of 2011, CAP completed its cyclical compliance review by the PA Department of Education for special education services which found no substantial non-compliance, a significant compliment to our Special Education Department. For SY2011, SPED maintained 150 IEP students (12.4% of ADM), 23 students with 504 plans (behavioral), and handled 45 new Core Team Referrals. In SY 2012, SPED has added a behavioral specialist for the Lower and Middle Schools.

All school programs have available the assistance of the Emotional Support Team (EST). In SY 2011, the EST was made up of 3.0 clinical counselors (MAs, 3 LPC), 2.5 social workers (0.5 LSW, 2 CLSW), 1.0 certified school counselor (MS) and 2.0 certified school psychologists, and 1.0 paraprofessional (AS), as well as, a medical team including a psychiatrist (MD) one day per week, a full-time certified pediatric nurse practitioner (MSN-CPNP), and a certified medial assistant (AS). In addition, the EST (excluding our nurse and visiting nursing students in Lisa’s Place) made 6,293 contacts with students of which 690 (57% of ADM) were unduplicated students. EST had 1,009 meetings with parents and received 1,396 new referrals in AY 2011. Our psychiatrist provided 79 consultations, including 71 meetings with parents (43 [3.5% of ADM] unduplicated). 222 (18% of ADM) students attended 6 EST groups (affect management, social skills, book club, life skills, teen parent support group, self-esteem). In addition, EST provided Classroom Guidance and Anti-Bullying Workshops in the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools providing 106 sessions to 692 (57% of ADM) students. 185 (15% of ADM) conflict resolutions were facilitated. The EST also made 214 (17.7% of ADM) referrals to outside agencies.

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

AYP is no fair measure of CAPCS. It is time that the educational establishment in America stood up to the bullies in the US Department of Education. At every level from the war in Iraq, the attorney general scandal, Hurricane Katrina, and countless idiocies, the previous Bush Administration shot from the hip and ignored common sense and logic. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is no exception, and yet, the Obama Administration has followed through with the core absurdities of this misguided and failed program, which a 2007 Washington Post series headline encapsulated as: “The Unforeseen Path to Cruelty.” As a critical website reports: "Public disgrace, humiliation, torture and punishment are scientifically proven to improve motivation, reading skills and test scores." NCLB is cruel because it is an unfunded mandate that unfairly ignores the crisis of special needs and inner city youth while putting a plastic face of false reform. NCLB has become a multi-billion dollar welfare-state for test makers, book publishers, accountability experts, new levels of administrators, and consultants. The disaster in the Philadelphia School District in 2011 can be traced right to the doorstep of trying to meet the federal requirements of NCLB and ignoring the common sense solutions of our own hometown needs. How much Pennsylvania taxpayer money has been wasted on “doing efficiently that which should not have been done at all?”

NCLB has done nothing but given a false vision of what makes a good school, ignores the efforts of the innovators (in contrast to the charter school laws, the independence of which has been destroyed by NCLB), encourages cheating, and wastes the taxpayer’s money on tests, administrator’s paperwork, unproven supplemental services, whole new government departments, and lost opportunity for innovation. It has destroyed a decentralized educational system that made America great and replaced it with a European-style central government bureaucracy more suited for France or the Soviet Russia than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As professor Peter F. Drucker is quoted in the ASCD Newsletter: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." We have been forced to waste the past ten years chasing the dream of a right-wing, plutocracy bent on revenge against any educational system that promotes the kind of thinking, critical citizenry envisioned by Thomas Dewey. However, the most important factor affecting our test scores is based on the racist and nonsensical AYP formula versus CAPCS’ commitment to its mission to serve the students of the inner city: at-risk, high-risk, and economically disadvantaged students of Philadelphia: a population to which NCLB only gives lip service. NCLB ignores the social and emotional lives of students necessary to achieve well. It has all but destroyed the love of learning and the fine arts in education. It has ignored the role of the family and provides no money for home visits or attendance. It punishes, but doesn’t support. The Community Academy refuses to “teach to the test” or use long discredited “get rich quick” strategies like those reported by a “bragging” DC schools spokesperson: “One principal established a 10th-grade academy to provide intensive preparation for students taking the test. Another introduced a Saturday "Kickball Quiz Bowl," offering iPods and movie passes to students who correctly answered sample test questions. And one constantly apprised students of their pre-test scores, hoping to make them responsible for improvement.” (Washington Post 7/11/2008 B01).

The challenge for CAPCS is to stay true to its mission to provide a complete education to its urban and at-risk population without succumbing to the pressure to become only a test-giving machine. We do not cheat on admissions; we take all comers. We have a reputation for dealing with children and families in distress, and therefore, those are the families who come to us. We offer a full-range of services, and there are only so many hours in the day. We offer the courses and experiences that an inner-city child needs to become a full person, not just what the failed makers of NCLB think they should have.

Our challenge is to exist in a screwball, fantasy world were the emperor has no clothes. We have succeeded for 31 years, and NCLB has failed to meet any of its own standards for 10 years, yet we are measured against those failed standards. In recent weeks, three states, Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota have refused to follow NCLB guidelines, and the cheating scandal that has engulfed over 60% of Atlanta schools and spread to Philadelphia, New York and DC has shown a light on the cruelty of the high stakes testing gamble where money doesn’t just talk, it screams. Yet, states like Pennsylvania still refuse to call out the insanity that is the fundamental basis of this absurd law and misguided policy.

CAP has real success, yet we are judged against impossible goals that only an omnipotent God could achieve, such as, 100% literacy and 100% HQT teachers. We have real success, but are measured against unscientifically-tested concepts like, “Are certified teacher’s better than non-certified teachers?” …And scientifically refuted claims, such as, extended day and Saturday school will improve test scores. …Or promises not kept, such as, the USDE spokesperson at a PDE meeting in Pittsburgh in 2002 who promised, “NCLB will not interfere with any State’s Charter School Law.”

For the Community Academy, CS, the academic year 2010-11 was a good year. We were heartened by the progress shown on the new MAP tests, the PLCs, the curriculum checklists, and the adjustment to our curriculum that will align us with the PSSA tests in the future. However, Community Academy remains steadfastly committed to its original mission to offer a safe, quality education to all city kids and their families, including at-risk and high-risk students and their families. CAP is committed to put into place a robust effort to increase test scores, as those test scores reflect increased learning and reflect on increased outcomes. We are committed to addressing the whole child, and believe that doing so is the only way learning can take place. We are committed to not wasting time and resources on the untested and wasteful and to always remember: There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

Submitted July 31, 2011

Joseph H. Proietta EDM
President and CEO

John M. FitzSimmons MD MBA
Chair of the Board of School Directors

Quality education and real reform not politically bullied education!
June 20, 2011 - Download PDF (77KB)

June 17, 2011

SRC Defeats Dworetzky’s Attempt to Take Away CAP’s Charter; Charter Appeal Board Will Rule of CAP’s Appeal That Its Charter Was Approved for Five Years in February

From: Mr. Proietta

To the Parents, Guardians, Students and friends of Community Academy:

On Monday, June 13, 2011, SRC Commissioner Joseph Dworetzky tried to sneak “walk-on” resolutions to CAP’s charter and put up our charter for bids to any other organization to take our buildings and students! Your children could have been forced to go to a school run by a for-profit or some other “favored” group the SRC would pick to run CAP.

Fortunately, our friends stood by us. With the unwavering help of SRC Commissioner Johnny Irizarry, Denise Armbrister, and 7th District Council Member Maria Quiñones-Sanchez this knife in the back resolution was defeated. We at CAP could never express our gratitude enough to these real public servants of the people.

Thanks to their efforts, our appeal to the Charter Appeals Board (CAB) will go forward, in which we have asserted that the vote in February approving our charter renewal for five-years was valid and the SRC lawyers were wrong in stating that it had to be unanimous.

Below is my testimony at the hastily called June 13th SRC meeting:

I speak in opposition to SRC RESOLUTIONS 19 and 20 that were presented without warning to Community Academy as “Walk-On” resolutions at the hastily called planning meeting last Thursday. These resolutions call for the non-renewal of the charter of the Community Academy of Philadelphia, Charter School. They were introduced by Mr. Dworetzky.

The “Walk-On” Resolution SRC 19, given with less than three full business days notice to this voting meeting, states: “WHEREAS: the … (‘SRC’) has completed a comprehensive review of the Charter School.” Disingenuously, it omits that this review resulted in a recommendation of APPROVAL of the charter. It omits that after the first positive vote by the SRC, which its solicitor called a “NO ACTION,” the Academy invited the single “NAY” voting commissioner to visit the school and enter into a dialogue. After which, the SRC was presented with a second report from the Charter School Office (CSO) affirming that the Community Academy’s plans for improving test scores were workable. These were the same plans that had just been reviewed and approved by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools who had voted in April to continue CAP’s K-12 accreditation and were also approved by Intermediate Unit 26 and the PA Department of Education in our School Improvement Plan. Yet the “NAY” voting commissioner voted the same, even when Community Academy, at the recommendation of associate superintendent Diane Castelbuono, agreed to have an independent third party, such as PATTAN or the DELCO IU, come in after a year and evaluate our progress and make recommendations as we went along.

The Resolution further states four (4) “proofs” of lack of academic performance; however, these are either overstated or are matters covered earlier in the IU 26 and PA Department of Education approved School Improvement Plans. Though a statement like “The Charter School’s PSSA proficiency scores are consistency lower than the state performance target,” sounds good; well so are the Districts and most urban schools! The SDP is in the Eighth year of Corrective Action II and with budgets of billions of dollars a year! When the resolution adds: “lower than…the District average:” they include Masterman, Central, Girl’s High, Bodine, and the other super-magnetic schools. In fact, Community Academy consistently outperforms the regular comprehensive schools our students would attend if they were not at CAP. When it comes to at-risk populations, our target population for 31 years, according to the recently released 2010 PDE Schools’ Report Card, CAP performs better than most charter schools, as an example, The Boys’ Latin graduating class lionized in the newspaper a week ago, whose graduation was celebrated by the Governor, Mayor, and Chair of the Senate Education Committee scored 4.1% proficient in math 1/5th of CAP’s score and 18.4% proficient in reading about half of CAP’s. Overall, Boy’s Latin, which did not achieve AYP in 2010, therefore, the graduating class of 2011 scored 20.4% proficient in reading and 8.6% proficient in math, both scores significantly less than Community Academy. Does the Commissioner who sponsored this resolution and has praised Boy’s Latin publicly at SRC meetings, or the governor and the mayor, believe these scores fairly reflect on that school as they do on CAP? Or should the SRC look more deeply at what these scores mean and are they a true reflection of the academic success of those kids just one year later? What about KIPP Prep, which also did not make AYP, or the many other super-achieving charters that do not have a subgroup for special education students with IEPs. Because of our diversity, CAP has 16 academic subgroups to meet, more than most charter schools.

In a timely manner, Community Academy submitted an 85-page Charter Renewal Application that included additionally over 1700 pages of attachments and weighed 77.8 lbs. We submitted to a financial, student record, and special education audits by the SDP, a 2-1/2 day visit by a contractor from the District, and visits from the Charter School Office (CSO) to verify employee records and clearances. All of this was filtered down to a two-page PowerPoint presentation at the February meeting, the result of which was a recommendation to RENEW our charter. It is clear that the SRC commissioners were NOT fully informed of our responses to the application’s questions; our explanation of our commitment to our mission, and our pledge to the Philadelphia School Board granting our first charter in 1997 and expansion in 2001 to not abandon the mission of The Community High School and maintain at least 30% high risk students in our school. This has and will continue to have a continuing impact on our scores, though we are committed to make robust efforts to raise scores in the next charter.

However, what other charter school has a Psychiatrist in residence one day per week, two full-time school psychologists (one bilingual-Spanish), three licensed clinical counselors, two licensed social workers, a school counselor, a certified conflict resolution facilitator, and two career counselors...a nurse’s office with a certified school nurse who is also a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and with a licensed medical assistant…an eight-member special education department and an ELL leader who is nationally recognized as one of the best in her field? CAP has been called one of the safest, if not the safest, school in America by Temple University, and in conjunction with Temple University each summer teaches other schools, as well as, community health and retirement homes, how to maintain campus safety.

The resolution SRC 19 also references “substantial grounds” for “non-renewal”; but The Charter School Law states a requirement of “one or more material violations,” which the Charter School Office (CSO) must not have found in its exhaustive investigation of Community Academy’s renewal application, because the CSO recommended APPROVAL.

What is most disheartening about this particular resolution is its reference to “after two prior votes, a conditional renewal of the School did not receive sufficient affirmative votes for approval.” The Commissioner knows very well that Community Academy has provided SDP legal council with legal precedence and rulings that indicate that the February vote did in fact pass our charter. …And the Commissioner knows that he has been served with notice prior to his “Walk-On” submission of this resolution of our application of original jurisdiction to the Charter Appeal Board (CAB) to rule on the February vote. However, in what appears to us at Community Academy self-serving, the commissioner is attempting to circumvent our due process rights by slipping this resolution into today’s agenda, when he knows that the Charter Appeal Board will be appointing a hearing officer this week to review the February and April votes.

I ask the commissioners to not muddy the waters. It is impossible to justify a change in vote if nothing has happened since the last vote. We have requested an independent third party, the Charter Appeal Board (CAB), to solve this very unique problem. It is no one’s fault that a seat was vacant and the chairman had to recuse himself. This has never happened before and will probably never happen again. There has been enough animosity. Please defeat this resolution and let the CAB decide the issues at hand. Thank you.

SRC Defeats Dworetzsky’s Attempt to Take Away CAP’s Charter
June 17, 2011 - Download PDF (61KB)