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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to deny applications to create two charter schools Thursday — despite board members’ positive comments about one of them.
The board adjourned to go into executive session and deliberate in private before voting no on the applications to establish Early College High School and Pan American Academy High School.
The votes dashed charter supporters’ hopes, at least for now, that the board appointed by Mayor Cherelle Parker would finally be ready to expand the charter sector. The school board hasn’t approved a new charter since it regained control of the district from the state in 2018.
The proposed Early College Charter School went down by a vote of 6-3. The vote against the proposed Pan American Academy — Pathways High School, was 8-0, with one abstention.
Board members said the primary reason they voted to deny Early College’s application was financial uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s threats to withhold federal funding, although they did not spell out those concerns.
“This was a very strong application. I am very close to wanting to approve it, but I don’t feel comfortable based on the funding piece,” said Board Vice President Sarah-Ashley Andrews. “I can’t gamble with our babies on that.”
On Pan American, the members said they objected to the applicant’s decision to apply for a new school rather than for an expansion of their existing K-8 school. They were also concerned about its funding and its high suspension rates of students, especially Black students.
The denials came as the district is engaged in a facilities planning process that is likely to result in several school closures. And in 2023 one charter school closed unexpectedly, and another one, West Philadelphia Achievement Charter Elementary, is now in a protracted fight with the district over $30 million the state says it owes the district for overenrolling students.
The application for Pan American Pathways High School was affiliated with K-8 Pan American Academy. The applicants sought to offer a bilingual International Baccalaureate program for grades 9-12 and focus on four pathways: health sciences, technology, business and human services.
The other denial was for Early College High School. Keshema Davidson, one of several founding Early College board members who are associated with Cristo Rey, a Catholic high school in the city, told board members in advance of the vote that a school was needed that would give students “the opportunity to succeed no matter their pathway” for either college prep or career and technical education.
After the vote, the Early College founders issued a statement saying they were “disappointed in the outcome of tonight’s vote” but said there is a “long road ahead.”
The city’s deputy chief education officer Sharon Ward was present for the votes. She told Chalkbeat after the meeting that Parker is “concerned about all students” regardless of where they go to school. During her 2023 campaign for mayor, while not explicitly calling for the charter sector to expand, Parker repeatedly said she wanted to see an end to the “competition” between the school district and charters.
Ward emphasized that the board, though appointed by Parker, is an independent body that “has to be guided by state law,” on this front.
Charter schools office flags enrollment, suspension stats
Peng Chao, the director of the district’s charter schools office, offered evaluations of the applications but no recommendations, as is the district’s policy.
He said Pan American’s K-8 school has a high student suspension rate, especially for Black students. Chao said that 17% of all students — and 34% of Black students — were suspended at least once, compared to 5% in other schools.
Chao shared data showing that third through eighth graders at Pan American scored far behind students in comparable schools and the district as a whole in standardized tests.
Meanwhile, Chao raised concerns about Early College’s planned reliance on foundation support, and noted that it had not yet identified its future principal and other leaders. He also raised concerns about whether it could meet its projected enrollment targets.
The last new charter, Hebrew Public in East Falls, was established in 2018 under the School Reform Commission, which governed the district when it was under state oversight for 17 years starting in 2001.
Over the past seven years the board has approved multiple charter renewals, adding some 2,600 seats to existing charter schools.
During that time the board has also denied several charter applications. Last year, it voted four times to deny the application of Global Leadership Academy, a K-8 school in West Philadelphia, to add a high school.
More than a dozen speakers, including several students, spoke in favor of the new charters. “It’s hard to watch friends from higher grades leave,” said Pan American student Yediel Huertas, supporting the addition of a high school.
Board member Wanda Novales was the founding principal of Pan American’s K-8 school and led the school from 2008 to 2018. Before that, she was a teacher and principal in the district. She abstained from the vote.
Brick-and-mortar charters in Philadelphia now educate about 64,000 students, compared to 118,000 in district-run schools.
Around 25 charters are now operating with expired agreements. Yet under state law, they can stay open even without a new signed charter. Pan American, citing concerns about accountability, failed to sign their charter renewals in 2018 and 2023.
The board is revising its process for authorizing charter schools, through an initiative called Project RiSE, in an effort to “reimagine charter school excellence by refining the performance framework.” But it has done so largely out of the public eye.
Earlier Thursday afternoon, several hundred people from Philly for Great Public Schools and the African American Charter Schools Coalition rallied in front of school board headquarters to support the charter applications.
Participants said that they want more choice for parents, especially of schools focused on the Black experience, but they also think that city schools should get more funding from the city and state.
“We need both public and charter schools,” said Stephanie Roberts, an artist who works with students.
Bureau Chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this story.
Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.
