Chester Upland School District

With Delaware County's beleaguered Chester Upland School District nearing insolvency, some parents are moving out of the city or placing their children in other schools. Ieasa Nichols Harmon, the mother of three children and until last month a school board member, moved to Wilmington two weeks ago, wary of what might happen after Wednesday. When the district's 508 employees collect their paychecks, there will be only $100,000 left in the bank, with no immediate prospects for an infusion of cash.

Citing technical shortcomings and financial hardship, the Chester Upland School District has denied the application of a proposed charter school that wanted to start with 200 elementary school students this fall and build up to 1,500 after five years. The 3-0 vote against the proposal of the Learning Connection Charter School took place at a Board of Control meeting last night. The board has run the Chester Upland School District since it was declared financially distressed in 1994.

An effort by residents of Upland Borough to secede from the troubled Chester Upland School District and merge with neighboring Penn-Delco schools has been rejected by the state's acting secretary of education. Such a transfer would have no "significant benefit to the children directly involved," the acting secretary, Jane Carroll, said in a letter last week to Delaware County Judge Joseph T. Labrum Jr. Labrum has oversight of a petition filed last April by the Concerned Citizens for the Education of Upland's Children, the group asking for the transfer of control of the Main Street Elementary School in Upland.

Two Chester leaders urged Delaware County Council yesterday to intervene in the turmoil permeating the Chester Upland School District, saying two politically connected members of its Board of Control were hampering any progress in the district. "We are facing a crisis in our schools," the Rev. Horace Strand of the community group Citizens United to Save Our District told the council. In particular, he blamed Board of Control members Donald F. Tonge and William J. Jones. They recently blocked the appointment of well-known Chester lawyer Monica J. Washington to the key post of district personnel director.

A top Chester-Upland School District administrator has taken an indefinite leave of absence just days before school starts - the fourth administrator to leave the embattled district in six weeks, school officials said yesterday. Harold M. Swiggett, who served as assistant to the superintendent, gave notice Friday that he was taking an indefinite leave, and was off the job Tuesday. "That leaves the school board and the superintendent of schools" as the only administrative structure remaining in the district, said Stephen Wesley, the former Chester-Upland assistant superintendent who quit July 31. For more than a year, Chester-Upland Superintendent Anthony Iacono has been the target of parent protests about his administration of the district, which consistently has scored at the bottom of the state's academic ranking.

Federal court testimony yesterday about the state of the Chester-Upland School District described a district continuing to slide toward collapse - and a political rift that has derailed the latest effort to upgrade its schools. John J. Tommasini, chairman of the state Board of Control that manages the district's finances, issued the day's most dire prediction. "The state can't fix the Chester schools. Chester has to fix itself. If Chester can't fix itself, then it probably won't be a school district," said Tommasini, who has been the state's representative in the district since June.

Edison Schools Inc. will get paid more and do less as it takes on a second year of managing nine schools in the financially ailing Chester Upland School District. Thomas Persing, chairman of the Board of Control that oversees the district, said yesterday that a tentative agreement had been reached between Edison and the district that calls for the company to be paid $4.4 million this school year - up from the $2.4 million the district had budgeted for Edison last school year. Because of several setbacks and start-up problems, Edison ended up owing the district money last year.

  A group of well-mannered kindergarten students navigate a brightly decorated hallway of the Chester Community Charter School as principal Christine Matijasich looks on. "Don't forget: Fingers on lips, hands on hips," Matijasich says as the children file by quietly. The charter school, it seems, is an island of order in a sea of troubles, surrounded by the struggling Chester Upland School District, which remains on life support through June. Backers hold it up as the epitome of charter success, a school that outperforms the district where most of its student live.

Lawyers for the state Department of Education began their defense Tuesday in a federal special-education lawsuit brought by the Chester Upland School District, saying that no law had been violated and that the district had done too little to solve its own problems. In testimony last week and Monday, Chester Upland's lawyers sought to show U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson that the district faces a large funding shortfall in providing legally required services for its 735 special-education students.

First of two parts. To many in the impoverished city of Chester, the Chester Community Charter School is a beacon of hope. The state's largest charter school, it boasts safe hallways, new facilities and energetic teachers. It outperforms the city's regular elementary and middle schools on state tests. But there's another side to the school's operation that Pennsylvania Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak and Barbara Nelson, a top aide, say raises questions about whether the school is spending too much of its budget on administration and too little on teaching.

Lawyers for the state Department of Education began their defense Tuesday in a federal special-education lawsuit brought by the Chester Upland School District, saying that no law had been violated and that the district had done too little to solve its own problems. In testimony last week and Monday, Chester Upland's lawyers sought to show U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson that the district faces a large funding shortfall in providing legally required services for its 735 special-education students.

  A group of well-mannered kindergarten students navigate a brightly decorated hallway of the Chester Community Charter School as principal Christine Matijasich looks on. "Don't forget: Fingers on lips, hands on hips," Matijasich says as the children file by quietly. The charter school, it seems, is an island of order in a sea of troubles, surrounded by the struggling Chester Upland School District, which remains on life support through June. Backers hold it up as the epitome of charter success, a school that outperforms the district where most of its student live.

The crisis facing the Chester Upland School District is what happens when politicians are more interested in getting their way than in solving a problem. The fault lies as much in Harrisburg as in Chester. Privatization. Charters. State control. Increased funding. Austerity. None of these glib solutions to the problems of urban schools has provided Chester Upland's 7,000 students with what is available in most Pennsylvania school districts - an education that prepares students for college or the job market.

Officials from the Chester Upland School District and the Chester Community Charter School asked Education Secretary Ron Tomalis for $13.2 million Thursday to keep their schools open, pledging to make spending cuts in return. Chester Upland, overwhelmed by payments to charter schools, state budget cuts, and a remaining deficit from last year, ran out of money in January. Chester Community Charter, which depends on Chester Upland for most of its funding, is owed about $9.9 million and is also running out of money, officials said.

Back in the early 2000s, when I was teaching at Villanova, I spent several months studying the hapless efforts of an out-of-state, out-of-touch, for-profit company, Edison Schools, to manage the Chester Upland School District. One day, standing outside a Chester charter school, I tried to greet children coming off a bus. They refused to talk or even wave, looking straight ahead like warriors with thousand-yard stares. Once safely inside the school, though, the same kids were cheerful and happy to talk to a strange white dude.

At the urging of a federal judge, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis will meet with Chester Upland School District stakeholders to determine how to keep the schools open until June. Chester Upland, overwhelmed by mounting payments to charter schools, state budget cuts, and a remaining deficit from last year, ran out of money in January. Last month, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ordered the state to advance the district $3.2 million, to keep it open. At a hearing Wednesday before Baylson, attorneys representing the state, the school district, the Chester Community Charter School and parents and students agreed to present their views and financial information to Tomalis by Feb. 10. The education secretary will issue a report outlining a way forward by March 10. Tomalis said Thursday that no date has been set for the meeting.

Sara Ferguson grew up in Chester, and, like her mother, aunt, and grandfather, chose to be a teacher there. For 21 years, she has taught at Columbus Elementary School, and often it seems each year is worse than the last. Program cuts, staff furloughs, and claims of mismanagement are routine for the Chester Upland School District. Nearly half its 6,625 students have flocked to charter schools, many during the time the state ran the district. No superintendent lasts more than a few years; no turnaround plan ever takes root.

This was the week that teachers in the bankrupt Chester Upland School District were supposed to go without their paychecks. But thanks to some eleventh-hour legal strong-arming, they'll be getting paid. That's good news, even though the teachers - you know, those lazy, pension-grubbing, benefit-greedy fat cats - were determined to teach without a paycheck for as long as it took. "They'll have to lock the doors for me not to show up," said Robert Downs, who teaches second and third grades at Columbus Elementary School.

A federal court judge ordered Tuesday that the state keep the bankrupt Chester Upland School District afloat for a few more weeks by advancing it $3.2 million. That will be enough to pay teachers for now; the biweekly payroll for the district is about $1 million. The district has only about $100,000 in the bank and owes other creditors; it would not have been able to meet its payroll Wednesday without additional money from the state. The Corbett administration has refused requests to provide more funds for the district.