ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Allentown School Board is set on Thursday to consider the application of a new charter school, even as existing charter schools have waited to have their enrollment caps lifted or the board to renew their charters.
There is not expected to be a vote.
- Allentown School Board will hold a public hearing Thursday evening on Lehigh Valley STEAM Academy Charter School's request to open location
- Existing charter schools already have long wait lists because Allentown School District has capped enrollment at the same numbers for years
- The charter schools say the tension is because the district wants to keep the funding that follows the child to the charter
The Lehigh Valley STEAM Academy Charter School has petitioned the school district for authorization to open on S. 12th Street.
Long-time Pennsylvania educator Carlos Lopez is among the founders of the school. A former Allentown School Board member, Lopez helped found Roberto Clemente Charter School and sits on the board of directors of Lehigh Valley Dual Language Charter in Bethlehem.
He said the school would fill a need in the area by providing K-8 students hands-on learning experiences in science, technology, engineering, art and math—or STEAM.
“This is important because it provides parents in the Allentown School District one more choice in the Allentown School District that may be a better fit for their child,” Lopez said. “In terms of providing high-quality educational opportunities and learning experiences in a small environment.”
It’s not clear whether the board will approve the application, especially when there’s a lot of demand for more spaces in the city’s current charter schools. The supply of space is artificially low because parents and the charter school leaders said they have waited years for school board members to raise the enrollment cap on the number of students who can attend those schools or renew their authorizations.
Lopez said he expects the school board to try to delay or decline the Lehigh Valley STEAM Academy Charter School’s application. But he added the Acting Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks’ past public support for school choice was a hopeful sign. The school district has 75 days from the hearing to approve or deny the application.
The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
Executive Education Academy Charter School Chief Executive Officer Bob Lysek said there are about 1,000 parents on the school’s wait list for their kids to attend there, with more than 900 of those students coming from Allentown.
The center serves K-12 and currently has about 1,360 students. Allentown School District has capped the number of its students who can go there. Because it’s the petitioned school district, it’s the only one that can restrict the number of local students can enroll.
Charter schools are publicly funded and privately run. They need a written order, a “charter,” to operate. The state’s law was created and approved by Gov. Tom Ridge in 1997 to boost innovation in education and give families options other than traditional public schools.
While they’re privately operated, they do get much of their funding from taxpayers, since the school districts send tuition money to the charter school for each student who enrolls.
That's a main source of tension between the district and the charter schools. The district must approve charter schools and every child who leaves the district to go to them takes tuition money with them.
Lysek said that because of the issue of money, student enrollment is a source of friction at times between the school district and the charter school.
“If a student does decide to come to our school and we have space and they are enrolled, the dollars that the district uses to educate that child in Allentown will follow the child,” he said.
The district pays about 75% of the cost per-pupil to the charter school. For most students, that comes out to about $10,782 each year. For special-needs students, the district pays about $27,276 a year.
“They do take over 20% and keep that amount of money,” Lysek said. “That is used for transportation and support services to the charter network that they serve.”
Lysek said every year, Executive Education Academy Charter School has negotiated in vain with the Allentown School District to raise the cap by 50 or 75 students, offering to do so over a five-year period.
“It’s very frustrating for me and my team to reject parents on a daily basis because they’re looking for choice and a better option for their children."Bob Lysek, chief executive officer of Executive Education Academy Charter School
“It’s very frustrating for me and my team to reject parents on a daily basis because they’re looking for choice and a better option for their children,” he said. “We’ve presented several options to the district over the years, again not to hit them over the head in any kind of way, but to do so in a tactful, spread-out type fashion.”
Parent Amber Clark said she moved her daughter Olivia, now in fifth grade, to Arts Academy Charter Elementary School when she was four years old because she liked the small class sizes and the focus on the arts.
Clark and her daughter have repeatedly shown up at Allentown School Board meetings, sometimes lugging reams of paper to demonstrate the amount of paperwork they have given the district so they can get their charter renewed and the enrollment cap lifted by 50 students.
Clark said they’ve been urging the board to act since 2019 and only board member Patrick Palmer has ever responded to her.
Clark said there currently are 110 kids on the waitlist, including some of her friends’ children.
“They see my daughter and how she’s thriving and they’ve been wanting to get in,” she said “But because they’re in Allentown, they’re maxed out. People have been on the waiting list for years.”
Executive Education Academy Charter School is up for renewal in 2023. Lopez and Lysek said the district’s financial struggles and leadership turmoil also have contributed generally to the strain between the board and the charter schools.
Lopez said he believes it’s unfair that charter schools have less money to educate the student leaving the school district, but he understands the cost to the district of supplying transportation and picking up other required expenses.
