Both sides in an ongoing lawsuit by 15 Gloucester School District parents aimed at shutting down the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School will be pushing for a quick decision when they head back to court next week.
The parents, state and charter school will present motions for summary judgment in a 2 p.m. hearing set for Dec. 7 — Pearl Harbor Day — in Lawrence Superior Court.
The hearing marks the latest milestone on the case's road to a trial date tentatively slated for January.
Judge Robert Cornetta set the path to a January hearing after he dismissed the parents' request last summer for a preliminary injunction that, if allowed, could have stopped the charter school from operating for a second year — which it began in September.
Colin Zick, attorney for the charter school, said that none of the three parties — the parents, as plaintiffs, nor the charter school and the state's education leadership, as defendants — have brought many new arguments to the table.
"I don't think any new ground is being broken," Zick said.
The motions for summary judgment will ask Cornetta, who'll hold the hearing and trial, to rule on the case as a matter of law.
In the plaintiffs' case, he's being asked to rule that state Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education illegally approved the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School.
In the defendants' motion, he's being asked to rule that the parents don't have standing, and that the charter's approval was granted within legal bounds.
If the defendants' motion is granted, the case stops in December, said Zick. But if their motion is denied, the case, said Roffman, moves forward to trial in January. According to Cornetta's July decision, the trail is set to go to a trial hearing on Jan. 24, 2012.
Roffman said he and the 15 parents are looking forward to the quick trial.
"We're looking for a decision that will help protect the kids in the Gloucester Public School District," he said.
In addition to Dolan, plaintiffs — all parents of children currently in the Gloucester School District — are Jason Grow, Erika Andrews, Diane Bevins, Hugo Burnham, Kevin Clancy, Jane Cunningham, Josephine Curtis, Martin Del Vecchio, Fredericke Grotjahn, Jonathan Hardy, Shelley Morgan, Denise San Paolo, Leora Ulrich and Maria Zervo.
Both motions for a preliminary injunction to shut down the school were denied in Superior Court — the first, last year by Judge Richard Welch; the second this past summer by Judge Cornetta.
Cornetta denied the parents' challenge because he found that the injunction they were seeking would harm the charter school, its students and their parents more than the 15 city school parents and plaintiffs who claim that funding the charter school's continued operation harms their own children's education.
Cornetta added that the parents' lawsuit came too late to address for the 2011-2012 school year.
Cornetta's decision, however, did not address the initial point of the parents' lawsuit — that the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education allegedly violated state law when they approved the charter school's charter. His initial ruling addressed only the harm that would be dealt to the charter school if the court had granted the injunction.
Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevengdt.
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