Ailing psychologist gets cyber charter $urprise

After the Daily News wrote about Beth Grimm, who is fighting breast cancer, she finally received a check for work she did for the troubled Frontier Virtual Charter High School. She says she's still owed more money.
After the Daily News wrote about Beth Grimm, who is fighting breast cancer, she finally received a check for work she did for the troubled Frontier Virtual Charter High School. She says she's still owed more money.
BY DAVID GAMBACORTA, Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: April 12, 2012

A SURPRISE was waiting for Beth Grimm in the mail on Monday - a check from the Frontier Virtual Charter High School.

It had been about a month since Grimm, a school psychologist who's battling breast cancer, had asked the Philadelphia-based cyber school when she would be paid for evaluation reports that she did earlier this year on students with possible learning disabilities.

The 55-year-old Lancaster resident had received no answer to the numerous emails she'd sent to John Craig, the school's founder and chief executive.

Craig laid off Frontier's teaching staff March 9, after months of paying the teachers half their salaries.

On Friday, the Daily News wrote about the school's seeming indifference to Grimm, who recently had a mastectomy and faces several months of chemotherapy.

But on Monday, Grimm said, a check for $1,235 from the school was in her hands.

"I was very, very surprised," said Grimm, noting that Frontier still owes her $654 in back pay.

"It's kind of crazy when you have to keep pushing and begging for back pay. It seems to me that the school is not a well-oiled machine."

The state Department of Education launched an investigation last month into Frontier, which is receiving $435,520 from the School District of Philadelphia to educate 54 city students.

Last week, a spokesman for the department said that the cyber school had caused the investigation to lag by not fully cooperating.

Parents of Frontier's students have told the Daily News that their teens have sat around for much of the last month without teachers.

It's unclear when the state investigation will wrap up, or how the school will make up the lost class time.

Contact David Gambacorta at 215-854-5994 or gambacd@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @dgambacorta.

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