BEAR CREEK TWP. — Bear Creek Community Charter School has joined a growing number of charter schools launching legal action against the state Department of Education regarding state actions in charter school funding.
Specifically, Bear Creek CEO Jim Smith said, the department has stopped the “redirection” of money owed to charter schools from districts. Charters are public schools free of many state regulations, and they receive money from a district for each student within that district enrolled in the charter.
The idea is to send state education money for the student to the charter school through the district, but if a district does not send its per-pupil payment to the charter, the state can send part of a district’s subsidy directly to the charter school.
Smith said students from eight area districts attend Bear Creek, and that most districts have been sending the money. But he noted three districts — Dallas, Hanover Area and Wyoming Valley West — do not send money directly, leaving the transfer up to the state. When the state stopped the redirection, those three districts already owed Bear Creek $104,000 from last year.
Smith said the amount was substantial enough that Bear Creek had initially considered filing action on its own, but that was unnecessary when the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools spearheaded the current action. The move quickly netted support from 20 schools by Friday, with five more joining Monday, and more likely to join, Smith said.
Smith said the schools are jointly funding the effort, but that he doesn’t know how much it will cost. “It depends on how the Department of Education reacts,” he said.
The charter school coalition has also filed legal action in an attempt to join in a lawsuit filed earlier by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. The PSBA has sued the state in an effort to get federal money meant for school districts released. The money is funneled through the state, and Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has insisted it cannot release the funds until a state budget is in place.
Wolf, a Democrat, has sparred since July with the Republican-controlled legislature over a budget that should have been passed by June 30. The battle has dragged on long enough for Wolf to be legally bound to propose a budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year even though none exists for this year.