Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia school board on Thursday voted to nonrenew a city charter school \u2014 despite multiple ongoing lawsuits to attempt to halt the action.<\/p>\n
The board voted 7-2 to nonrenew Philadelphia Montessori Charter School, the first step on a long road that could ultimately lead to closing the K-4 school in Southwest Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Sarah-Ashley Andrews, school board vice president, said the school\u2019s students \u201chave shown consistently low academic performance in math and English language arts. Its third and fourth graders have consistently lagged behind their peers in demographically similar schools, school district schools, and other Philadelphia charter schools serving the same grade levels. And student academic growth has not kept pace with state expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb READ MORE: A Philadelphia charter is suing the district again, trying to block a nonrenewal vote<\/a><\/p>\n Philadelphia Montessori has had five different leaders since 2020. In 2024-25, the last school for which data are available, 18% of students met state standards in reading and 12% in math.<\/p>\n School leaders say the school is improving and serves an important role as the only public Montessori school in the city. They have objected to what they say are shifting and arbitrary standards for charter schools.<\/p>\n Board members Crystal Cubbage and Whitney Jones opposed the vote to begin the nonrenewal process. Cubbage, who said she had \u201cmixed feelings\u201d and initially was in favor of the nonrenewal, said she wanted more clarity on the school\u2019s struggles<\/a>.<\/p>\n Philadelphia Montessori has been aggressively attempting<\/a> to block such action<\/a> in court. State and federal lawsuits are pending, with school lawyers asking judges this week to block the board\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n Amanda Wilson, the school\u2019s executive director, asked the board to hold off on the nonrenewal.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no emergency,\u201d Wilson told the board. \u201cThere is no deadline requiring a vote before the courts have had the opportunity to weigh in on the significant legal issues surrounding this charter renewal process. Those issues are now pending in both state and federal court, and they deserve to be resolved before any action is taken. If this board proceeds today and the courts later determine that the school district\u2019s process was unlawful, everyone loses.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynn Rauch, the district\u2019s general counsel, said \u201cboth the state and the federal court issued rulings that do allow us to proceed with the vote today.\u201d<\/p>\n School board president Reginald Streater said it was appropriate to move forward with the Philadelphia Montessori matter, \u201cexercising our responsibility and duty to ensure that schools throughout our district are meeting their responsibilities to children, families, and taxpayers by demonstrating a high-quality academic experience for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n The school, which educates 228 students in an Island Avenue building, will continue to operate during the nonrenewal process \u2014 the appointment of a hearing officer, a formal hearing with witnesses and evidence, a report from the hearing officer, and, finally, another school board vote on how to move forward.<\/p>\n The nonrenewal process can take years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min The Philadelphia school board on Thursday voted to nonrenew a city charter school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,107219],"class_list":["post-250745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-school-district-montessori-school-suit-charter-nonrenewal-vote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}