Students, parents, and teachers rally to “Save Pencader Charter”

DOVER—For the second time in two days, a community rallied to try to save a Delaware charter school on the brink of extinction.

On Wednesday night busloads of students, board members, and teachers from Pencader Charter High School crowded into the Cabinet Room of the Townsend Building. They ringed the walls, filled every seat, and flowed into the hallway to have their voices heard at the last public hearing before the Delaware Department of Education decides whether to revoke the school’s charter.

The hearing was a final step in the state’s formal review of the New Castle-area high school, which has been plagued by deep financial and leadership problems. Last month the state’s Charter School Accountability Committee recommended that the Delaware Department of Education (DOE) revoke Pencader’s license. Delaware Secretary of Education Lillian Lowery will issue her recommendation to the state Board of Education at its July 21 meeting, when the board will issue a final decision.

A “Save Pencader Charter” campaign on Facebook helped rally more than 150 people to Wednesday night’s hearing, which ran overtime as more than 35 teachers, students, parents, and administrators urged the Department of Education to keep the school open, at least for a year of probation.

The turnout was a sharp contrast to the 20 people who attended a public hearing Monday night for Claymont’s Reach Academy for Girls. Both charter schools are on the same review path, awaiting next week’s decision on their future.

Reach got some good news on Wednesday, however: The school confirmed that Secretary Lowery has recommended a one-year probation for Reach Academy instead of closure.

Pencader, a general education high school that also focuses on business and financial education, enrolls 589 students in grades 9 through 12. This year the school graduated 137 out of 142 seniors, including 133 accepted to college and four who enlisted in the military.

“It is clear that Pencader has done an exceptional job in preparing students for the future,” said Harrie Ellen Minnehan, who took over as president of the board of directors in April.

But Pencader’s academic success has been overshadowed by years of financial problems, including a $1.6 million deficit at the start of the 2010-2011 school year.

This is Pencader’s third formal review by the DOE in the school’s six-year history. Following previous reviews, the Charter School Accountability Committee allowed Pencader to keep its doors open. But this time school’s substantial debt led the committee to recommend that the school be closed.

Minnehan acknowledged that the Charter School Accountability Committee had “a legitimate concern regarding the shortfalls.” In the past, school leaders “never paid attention to finances” and did not accurately track spending, she said. But she believes that the school, which has replaced its board and leadership, has moved toward greater financial responsibility. She noted that the school has cut its deficit to $667,000.

“[A]n entire new budget format has been established. These problems will not reoccur,” Minnehan said. “We have reversed the direction of what was a destructive deficit. And we have oversight of daily accounting procedures.”

Additionally, the school has secured $900,000 in loans and lines of credit, said board member Shawn W. Klapinsky. “We took out three loans,” he said. “We got loans from everyone we asked for. It shows how viable school is. We got $900,000 of loans available to us at the drop of a hat.”

Klapinsky, an accountant, doesn’t believe the school will need or use all of the funds available to it. The focus will be on eliminating debt as quickly as feasible.

“We completely eliminate this deficit in a three-year time frame,” he said.

While school board members worked to explain how the school has improved its finances, Pencader’s students, parents, and teachers talked about how the school has positively changed their lives and how they worry about finding placements in other schools if Pencader closes.

Esther Wyatt explained how her daughter Tina, a sophmore with autism, attention deficit disorder, and anxiety disorders, has thrived at Pencader. She spoke about how Tina became integrated into the school body and gave speeches and sang in public.

“If Pencader is closed she will lose the community she has worked so hard to find,” Wyatt said.

Jennifer Rockhold, entering her senior year, said she worries about where she will go to school if the school closes. She previously attended Newark High School, but she was not permitted to attend dances or participate in some labs because of her allergy to latex, which caused her to be hospitalized twice while at Newark. She switched to Pencader, which changed its policies and procedures to allow her to participate in activities. Pencader went out of its way to accommodate her, Rockhold said—even changing its theme for the homecoming dance to not include balloons.

“Pencader has done a lot for me personally,” she said. “I really want to support Pencader because they really support me.”

If Pencader closes, its students would have to attend schools in the Christina and Colonial school districts. Elizabeth Scheinberg, a member of the Christina School District Board of Education, urged the committee to keep the school open because she believes that Christina will not be able to meet the needs of Pencader students.

“If student’s success is to be the pinnacle priority, we must admit the reality: Pencader’s business offerings do not innately streamline with Christina’s academic offerings or electives, nor can we offer Christina’s Pencader students a seamless transition into a comprehensive high school that performs on par or better than Pencader,” said Scheinberg.

Ray Arzinger, a ninth-grade social studies teacher, told the committee he worries about the safety of teaching in a public school and about how safety concerns will affect his teaching style.

“I enjoy teaching in a school that’s a safe environment,” he said. “We are one of the only schools that doesn’t have a police officer. This allows me to teach in a much more open, different way.”