{"id":453069,"date":"2025-12-17T11:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453069\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T11:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:08:11","slug":"charter-schools-push-out-problem-kids-philly-principals-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453069\/","title":{"rendered":"Charter schools push out problem kids, Philly principals say"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trickle begins in the fall, some principals say: students with a history of behavior or disciplinary problems or other issues show up in Philadelphia School District schools, often from city charters.<\/p>\n

Students switch schools after the start of the school year for many reasons \u2014 and changing schools is fairly common in Philadelphia. <\/p>\n

But at times, it seems like some students are offloaded from charters because they\u2019re tough to educate, according to interviews with a dozen district administrators. In district schools, administrators can\u2019t remove students for such issues. <\/p>\n

Advocates at the Education Law Center have noted that trend, as has the head of the district\u2019s principals union \u2014 all of whom call it concerning, especially in a school system with large numbers of needy students and not enough resources to educate them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn October, in November, in December, that\u2019s when we see the counseling out, the threats of expulsion that say<\/a> \u2014 \u2018We\u2019re going to expel you, but you can go to a district school and then you won\u2019t be expelled,\u2019\u201d said Margie Wakelin, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center-PA.<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Students of color involved in fights are threatened with expulsion at this Philly charter<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Cassandra St. Vil, chief executive officer of a group that represents a large number of Philadelphia charters, said she is not aware of any data to support those anecdotal claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, opponents of charter schools have tried to use this message and yet there has never been any evidence to back it up,\u201d said St. Vil, of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence. \u201cAnd conversely, we hear from charter school leaders the exact same thing, that students come to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

District data show that over the past three years, the number of charter students transferring to district schools increases every month \u2014 in the 2024-25 school year, for instance, 161 students transferred from brick-and-mortar charters to district schools. By June, it was 843 students, bringing the total number of charter-to-district movers for the year to 5,040 students \u2014 8% of the charter sector. <\/p>\n

Charters educate more than 64,000 Philadelphia students; there are about 114,000 in district schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this is not an issue across the entire charter sector, the district is looking at the data, and working with the Charter Schools Office,\u201d Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, said in a statement. \u201cThe district is working to analyze enrollment trends across all sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robin Cooper, president of Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, Teamsters Local 502, said many district schools get a stream of students beginning in the fall, after district schools\u2019 budgets are locked in on Oct. 1, then another in the spring, just before state testing. (Students\u2019 scores count for the schools they attended on Oct. 1, even if they switch schools after that date.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not sending the kids who get A\u2019s, the good kids, they\u2019re sending you the kids who might have problems,\u201d said Cooper, who was a longtime district principal herself before assuming the union presidency. \u201cIt negatively impacts your climate, and the charter is getting the money for the student.\u201d<\/p>\n

One district principal, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said they recently stopped in a hallway to talk to a student who had just transferred to the district school from a charter.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018They kicked me out for fighting,\u2019\u201d the principal said. \u201cHere, we can\u2019t kick a student out for fighting. I said, \u2018Welcome to our school.\u2019 I\u2019m in the business of growing children.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Students \u2018counseled out\u2019 of charters<\/p>\n

Charter schools \u2014 which are publicly funded but privately managed, though authorized by local boards of education \u2014 have transformed Philadelphia\u2019s educational landscape since they first came to Pennsylvania in 1997.<\/p>\n

Charters are funded by per-student payments from the school district, but are only paid for the number of days enrolled.<\/p>\n

By law, charters are open to all students, and most operate on citywide lotteries – though some are neighborhood schools.<\/p>\n

A 2017 Education Law Center analysis of the enrollment of special education students in Pennsylvania charters found that \u201cwhile a number of individual charter schools equitably serve all students, the charter school sector taken as a whole generally underserves these vulnerable student populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anecdotally, <\/b>district principals say in some cases, they see students with behavior problems or learning differences accepted to some charters, but then <\/b>some of them <\/b>are \u201ccounseled out.\u201d That means they\u2019re <\/b>not officially expelled or forced to leave, but strongly encouraged or pressured to do so after a disciplinary issue crops up.<\/p>\n

In district schools, the bar for expulsion is much higher \u2014 for incidents such as using a weapon, or threatening mass violence.<\/p>\n

Wakelin, of the Education Law Center, said she <\/b>recently spoke to a parent whose child has a significant disability. The parent had multiple conversations with the charter <\/b>school about the child\u2019s needs. We\u2019ll help, she said the school kept telling the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then very recently, the charter school said, \u2018You know, you might be better served in a district school that has more resources for a student with autism,\u201d said Wakelin, who declined to name the school in question.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s no secret\u2019<\/p>\n

After the start of the school year, another district principal said, they see a bump in charter transfers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see an increase every year,\u201d said the principal, who like other <\/b>current and former district administrators who spoke to The Inquirer, asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. \u201cIt\u2019s not talked about, but in the schools, it\u2019s no secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

When new students transfer in, an administrator often asks why they left their old school.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them say it\u2019s because they were kicked out of whatever charter school they were at \u2014 they got into a fight, or whatever,\u201d the principal said. \u201cAnd most of the times, it\u2019s things that we can\u2019t move students for in the Philadelphia School District.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrence Jones, longtime chief executive officer of the Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School in Southwest Philadelphia, said there\u2019s \u201can urban myth\u201d that charters offload problem students to district schools and then benefit financially for doing so. (There\u2019s a common perception that charters get paid for students based on their Oct. 1 enrollment counts, and keep the money if students go elsewhere, but charters actually get paid for the number of days students are enrolled.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gain that you could potentially get for dropping those kids, financially and other funding, would be less than you held onto those students,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n

But a third district principal called the issue a particular challenge for neighborhood schools, which already typically tend to have higher concentrations of children with complicated needs. Public schools often get needy students mid-year, but no additional funding. Their budgets are projected in the spring, but finalized in the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just not fair,\u201d said the third principal. \u201cWe\u2019re not getting their best kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

That principal is currently experiencing what they call \u201cthe season when we get charter kids,\u201d they said. \u201cThey send them to us for discipline issues, uniform violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A sword that cuts both ways\u2019<\/p>\n

The practice engenders deep frustration, principals say. <\/p>\n

\u201cPublic schools can\u2019t turn kids away. It\u2019s not like the charter world where you can say, \u2018No, I\u2019m full, have a nice day.\u2019 In public school, you take the kid, crowded or not, and figure it out,\u201d said a fourth principal.<\/p>\n

St. Vil, of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, which represents 64 schools, disputes that characterization. She noted that nearly 80% of the city\u2019s charter students are Black or Latino, and many have special needs or are English learners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese schools are achieving real success stories for students who too often haven\u2019t thrived in one-size-fits-all settings,\u201d said St. Vil.<\/p>\n

Jones, of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School, said that while there may be some isolated instances where a charter counsels out a student with difficulties, \u201cit\u2019s a sword that cuts both ways,\u201d he said. Students sometimes come to charters from district schools with inadequate special-education plans, he said.<\/p>\n

Parents enrolling their children at Richard Allen have told him that they were told his school \u201ccould provide better services,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI asked, \u2018By who?\u2019 And they said, \u2018by staff at the former school, the district school.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trickle begins in the fall, some principals say: students with a history of behavior or disciplinary problems…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":255658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,207861,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-453069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-school-district-charter-schools-behavior","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115734597493706181","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}