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Instead of fighting to stay open, the troubled Hope Charter School will work with the Philadelphia School District during the next academic year to make sure its students have smooth transitions to new schools in the fall of 2013, officials said Friday. Herbert Wilson 3d, Hope's board president, told the School Reform Commission about the decision during a special SRC session devoted to charters. The SRC also renewed operating charters of five other schools and gave four permission to add a total of 1,621 students.

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission approved one-year contract extensions Thursday night totaling $23.3 million for all the alternative-education providers that ran programs in the district in the academic year just ended, including one that has been caught up in a federal investigation. That provider, Delaware Valley High School, a for-profit company, will be paid $3.6 million to continue to operate its disciplinary school for 300 students on Kelly Drive and an accelerated program in Southwest Philadelphia for 200 teens and young adults who have dropped out of school or are at risk of doing so. Commissioner Feather O. Houstoun abstained from the vote because she said she had not received detailed information on the contract extensions.

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission approved one-year contract extensions Thursday night totaling $23.3 million for all the alternative-education providers that ran programs in the district in the academic year just ended, including one that has been caught up in a federal investigation. That provider, Delaware Valley High School, a for-profit company, will be paid $3.6 million to continue to operate its disciplinary school for 300 students on Kelly Drive and an accelerated program in Southwest Philadelphia for 200 teens and young adults who have dropped out of school or are at risk of doing so. Commissioner Feather O. Houstoun abstained from the vote because she said she had not received detailed information on the contract extensions.

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted unanimously Friday to allow Franklin Towne Charter High School to add 250 students but not before questioning administrators about the charter school's practice of charging new students a $45 fee. Administrators from the Bridesburg school said the fee — charged after new students have been admitted — pays for supplies and a special identification card. The school is at the Frankford Arsenal Business Center, and the management company charges the school $25 to create and program each magnetic badge that allows students to enter the property.

It was an uncomfortable meeting. In Harrisburg, the Philadelphia Democratic House delegation had gotten word that the School Reform Commission was shopping legislation that would give it the absolute right to cancel union contracts and set salaries and benefits. It was a surprise and a revelation. The SRC has long maintained in public that never-used powers written into the 2001 state takeover legislation gave it sufficient authority to impose terms on unions. Its members have used the shadow of such powers to squeeze the unions in times of extreme financial distress, such as now - the district has assumed $150 million in labor concessions over the next five years without showing how it will achieve those savings.

The School Reform Commission voted Friday to turn Creighton Elementary into a charter school run by Universal Cos. Inc. In doing so, it rejected a proposal from Creighton teachers who wanted to turn the school around themselves. Officials said they were interested in the plan, but were ultimately unconvinced the teachers could effectively overhaul the school beginning in September. The Northeast K-8 school's advisory council had initially selected the teacher-led proposal as its first turnaround choice, but some members have switched camps in recent weeks.

Over the objections of hundreds, the School Reform Commission adopted a $2.5 billion 2012-13 budget at a wild Thursday meeting interrupted frequently by chanting angry audience members. No one - activists or officials - likes the spending plan, which leaves many schools without full-time nurses or police officers and which banks on extra city money that may not come through. Still, "in this circumstance, we have little choice," Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen said.

With the School Reform Commission poised to adopt a $2.5 billion budget Thursday, hundreds are organizing to protest what they say is a spending plan that shortchanges students. Philadelphia School District leaders say the SRC's hands are tied, that a bad economy and poor fiscal policy by prior administrations have left the school system on the verge of financial insolvency. They say the 2012-13 budget is the best they can do for now, that it's a painful but necessary step on the way to setting things right.