Superior Court Justice Robert Cornetta shot down a legal bid by 15 Gloucester school district parents for a preliminary injunction that could have blocked the Gloucester Community Charter Arts School from opening for its second year.
But their attorney Ian Roffman said the parents' fight is far from over — and his clients welcome what looms as an accelerated time frame in pressing the larger lawsuit.
Roffman said the parents, whose primary suit alleges that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and State Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester violated state law when they approved the Gloucester school's charter in February 2009, are prepared to meet deadlines set by Cornetta as the trial moves forward.
Cornetta laid out specific deadlines in his decision to offer the charter school and the Gloucester Public Schools enough time to adjust, depending on the ruling.
All "discovery" and evidence for the trial must be submitted Sept. 30 of this year, with a hearing tentatively set aside for Dec. 8, with a tentative trial date set for Jan. 24, 2012.
"There remains a cloud of uncertainty over the continued operations of that school," Roffman said.
Roffman noted that Cornetta's decision last week, while denying the 15 parents' request for an injunction that could have brought revocation of the charter and blocked the school — which expects nearly 00 students at the end of next month — to reopen this fall — didn't touch on the merits of the parents' case against the state education officials.
Cornetta made no mention of the state board in his decision, and didn't disagree with Judge Richard Welch, who had denied the parents' first legal attempt. Welch's August 2010 decision states that the plaintiffs — the parents — presented considerable evidence that Board and Commissioner of Education had violated state law by granting the GCAS charter.
Welch's decision had shot down the parents' initial request because, for the first year of the charter, the school district was held effectively harmless; the city school district was reimbursed fully for the charter's operational costs.
The coming year, the plaintiff parents and Roffman say, is a different story.
While the city still receives partial reimbursement for the charter, the new school — which is adding a third and eighth grade for the coming year and projects to more than double its enrollment — will draw nearly $600,000 in Gloucester's Chapter 70 state aid, money that the city school parents and officials say would otherwise go to the school district.
The school, for fiscal year 2011 was budgeted for 65 Gloucester school district students; for 2012, that number jumps to 165.
Gloucester's school district expects the charter school to pull at least $1.3 million from state aid in the coming years. But school officials said the drain on state funding and on students isn't enough to justify closing a school or make other related staffing cuts.
In his ruling on the injunction request, Cornetta found that the parents filed their motion too late.
Their move came after area schools stopped accepting school choice applicants, and at a difficult time for the charter school staff to find other work. The balance of harm, Cornetta said, swung in favor of the charter.
He also rejected the Gloucester City Council's move to rejoin the lawsuit, on the grounds that they came in too late as well.
The listed plaintiffs are former City Councilor Jason Grow, Peter Dolan, 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 Zervos.
The listed defendants are state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; and the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School itself.
Colin Zick, attorney for the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School, said a judge only rules on what they have to. He said that, given that both judges have shot down the injunctions finding the school district would not be harmed to the extent that the charter school and its students would by closure, the plaintiffs have yet to show harm in court. Without harm, he said, there's no lawsuit.
Even though the state allegedly violated state law through its approvals, Zick said, the parent plaintiffs have to show harm for the lawsuit to win in or be heard by the court.
He added that Legislature has already set up a mechanism to deal with perceived "harm" from charter schools; the Board of Education, he said, will review the charter in five years — adding that, if the charter's going to be closed, the board needs to do it.
"The board voted," he said. "And they've had innumerable chances to change that vote,"
Zick said that, if the parents' lawsuit went forward, it would allow 15 school parents in any city to oppose a charter school.
Roffman, however, said the case isn't about the charter school, it's about the state board breaking the law.
"It's a trial about government abuse," he said. "State agencies are required to follow the law just like everyone else."
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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