"The district has no intention of contracting their services," Gallard said. "We are not going to go into the reasons."
District sources, however, said the Philadelphia School Reform Commission decided to stop doing business with all entities connected to Gardiner, O'Shea and their families after investigators for the district and the school uncovered evidence of fiscal wrongdoing. The district has provided information from its probe to federal authorities.
The Philadelphia Academy Services contract expired June 30.
The district has had annual contracts with the nonprofit since shortly after Gardiner founded it in 2002 to provide educational and mental health services to district students. In August of that year the SRC awarded the nonprofit a contract for up to $825,000 to provide therapeutic support for approximately 50 district students with severe emotional and behavior problems.
Albert S. Dandridge 3rd, Gardiner's attorney, declined to comment today.
The district's formal notification about the contract's nonrenewal was sent one week after lawyers from Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll L.L.P released a report saying their internal probe of the charter found "substantial evidence of wrongdoing" by Gardiner, a former public school principal who founded the popular charter in Northeast Philadelphia, and O'Shea, a former police officer who replaced Gardiner as CEO in 2007.
As The Inquirer reported in April, a web of charter and business entities enabled Gardiner and O'Shea to earn more than most school superintendents in the region.
