A charter school has raised a new issue with its case against the Philadelphia School District, challenging as unconstitutional the portion of Pennsylvania law under which the boardFranklin Towne, a high-performing charter in Northeast Philadelphia that educates 1,300 students, sued the Philadelphia School District in October, asking a judge to force the school system to replace the hearing officer assigned to hear the nonrenewal case.
School board members, when they voted to begin revocation proceedings, called out the school’s “blatant racist practices that they have been on alert for for quite some time, and just chose to ignore” and said the alleged rigging was “analogous to cheating, and it’s illegal.” District and board officials have called out Franklin Towne for its demographics not reflecting the city’s. The school enrolls a higher-than-expected percentage of white students.
A top Franklin Towne official told The Inquirer that former Franklin Towne chief executive Joseph Venditti fixed the lottery to keep out students from certain zip codes — most of which are majority-Black — and schools and siblings of some students with academic and behavioral challenges. Venditti has since left the school.Field was put on administrative leave from his position as chief academic officer five days after The Inquirer story about his allegations was published.