Mount Airy charter school's officials upbeat after hearing

At a Philadelphia School Reform Commission hearing yesterday, district officials detailed the financial, management and academic problems that they said warranted the closing of Renaissance Charter School in Mount Airy.

But after the hearing was recessed for the day, officials from Renaissance said they believed they would be able to persuade the commission to keep the school open for its 212 students in grades six through eight.

"I'm confident that we will be able to pull this together and do great things for our kids in the future," said Alana Walls, the chief academic officer, who was hired by Renaissance on Jan. 30 to work on getting the school a new five-year charter. Walls, who helped found the Freedom Academy charter school in Camden, plans to testify when the hearing resumes next month. She said she would outline recent improvements at the charter, which opened in 1999.

She said part of the school district's criticism of the charter's operation was based on a one-day visit by a three-member review team.

"This is . . . their perspective of being in the school one day in a five-year period," she said.

The hearing was scheduled after the five-member School Reform Commission unanimously voted in April to begin the process of revoking Renaissance's operating charter.

Yesterday's daylong proceeding was handled in a manner similar to that of a civil trial before commission Chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn and commission member Martin Bednarek. Alicia Peterson, an outside lawyer, presided.

Catherine Balsley, executive director of the district's charter-school office, and Sharon Bembery, the office's lead administrator, outlined the 10 reasons the charter office had recommended closing Renaissance. They said the students' test scores were low (only 32 percent of eighth graders were proficient in reading in 2007 and 18 percent in math); the school had failed to show academic improvement; and it did not meet the state law's requirement of having at least 75 percent of its teachers certified.

In addition, they said the charter had experienced high turnover among teachers, chief academic officers and board members and had a history of filing incomplete or late annual reports, audits and financial statements required by state law.

Balsley said that the charter office's recommendation to close Renaissance was based not on a single major problem but on "a combined list of reasons."