The state board that, with little public debate, approved the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School last winter appears at City Hall tomorrow to face the local leaders who have called that process a political "charade."
No vote on the issue is expected tomorrow, and the most people are expecting is a sense of whether the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education intends to abandon calls to revoke the Gloucester charter or pursue them further.
The most important opinion may come from a lawyer retained by the board to analyze the legal basis for nullifying a charter before the school ever opens its doors.
David Kerrigan, of Southborough-based firm Kenney & Sams, represented the state board when it pulled the charter for the Roxbury Public Charter School.
According to the state Department of Education, Kerrigan has been asked to answer questions, including: "What are the board's procedural options, consistent with state law?" — and "What is the legal standard required to justify the revocation of a charter, specifically, for material misrepresentation?"
Gloucester charter opponents have looked hopefully at the consultant's marching orders as an indication that the board intends to pursue revocation, even though the Department of Education has denied it.
After Kerrigan, the stakeholders in the charter debate will also speak.
Gloucester Schools Superintendent Christopher Farmer, who has described what he considers falsehoods and distortions in the charter school application since last fall, said yesterday he will make his case tomorrow that those statements represent "material misrepresentations" worthy of revocation.
State officials yesterday did not have a full list of those expected to speak in the 30 minutes allotted to "Gloucester officials." But based on previous hearings, they could include state Sen. Bruce Tarr, state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Mayor Carolyn Kirk.
Meanwhile, parents and teachers calling for charter revocation have planned a rally outside City Hall before the 1 p.m. meeting.
The founders of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School itself, largely quiet since the controversy reached a fever pitch this past summer, are planning a vigorous defense of their school, regardless of whether the state botched the approval.
"We are going to use this as an opportunity to talk about the school, have some fun and tell people about the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School," said Kate Ruff, a member of the charter school board. "We will leave the rest to our lawyer."
The lawyer is Colin Zick of the Boston law firm Foley Hoag, who yesterday said he does not intend to offer a point-by-point defense of Farmer's revocation case until the state board moves in that direction.
But Zick said the Farmer's treatise on the charter application does not include any items that would meet the legal standard for material misrepresentation anyway — only differences of opinion and the interpretation of certain pieces of information.
"It doesn't address what the standard for material representation is," Zick said. "There is no public dispute about the data. We look at data and have differences of opinion on the same set of facts. That's not material misrepresentation."
The Gloucester Community Arts Charter School was opposed by virtually every Gloucester elected official, Farmer, a large swath of public school teachers, and many local parents because of the $2.4 million in estimated annual state aid that's expected to be diverted from the district to fund the charter school.
Tensions rose when all 11 members of the Board of Education failed to attend a public hearing at Fuller School on the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School application in November, flaunting state regulations the panel retroactively waived.
When the Board of Education voted 6-5 in February to approve the charter school, with debate quickly cut off so a member could catch a plane, the complaints in Gloucester turned into outrage.
A lawyer standing in for Secretary of Education Paul Reville, Gov. Deval Patrick's top aide on education, cast the tie-breaking vote.
For the next several months, challenges by city leaders to the approval process were met with explanations and assurances from state leaders that the rules had been followed, then the first attempt by the Education Department to quiet the uproar with a public hearing at Gloucester City Hall.
But in August, Gov. Deval Patrick called for the charter to be nullified — apparently based on local lobbying — and in September, an e-mail unearthed by the Times showed Reville had asked Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester to approve the charter merely to avoid alienating opinion makers.
That revelation — with subsequent calls for the charter to be revoked, for Reville to be fired, and for an investigation launched by the state Inspector General — prompted Education Board Chairwoman Maura Banta to offer up tomorrow's meeting.
Since the controversy erupted, the nine members of the board other than Reville and Banta, whose numbers include representatives from organized labor, the business community and parents, have been virtually silent. Calls to several members for comment about the charter school have either produced no comment or not been returned.
The agenda for the meeting tomorrow, a subject of intense interest to both sides in the debate, includes down-to-the-minute scheduling.
Introductions will be given 10 minutes, as will a "brief history" of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School, which does not yet exist. Only 15 minutes will be devoted to Kerrigan, the attorney, to brief the board on its legal options.
Gloucester officials get 30 minutes, the charter school gets 30 minutes and the board will then have 20 minutes for "discussion and review of procedural options." Banta has reserved five minutes at the end to comment on "next steps."
One thing missing from the agenda is any mention of possible compromise measures that could ease the financial burden of the charter school on the city or make it otherwise advantageous for the existing school system to welcome it.
Before his compromising e-mail was published, Reville, sat the governor's bidding, had been trying to broker a solution to the local grievances, such as making the charter school one of Patrick's proposed Readiness Schools.
Whether the board signals any substantial action on the charter tomorrow or not, the state education world and both sides in the larger ideological battle over charter schools will be watching.
A proposal by Patrick to expand the number of potential charters in the state is awaiting action in the state Legislature, and Massachusetts is gunning for a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top grants, of which receptiveness to charters is a criteria.
While declining to speculate on exactly what kind of statewide challenges and legal ramifications might result if the board tried to revoke the charter, Zick, the charter school's lawyer, said it could certainly have a destabilizing affect on the charter process.
"In any context, when a decision is made that opens up challenges, you open up uncertainty," said Zick, "and that is not good for process."
Patrick Anderson can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, or via e-mail at panderson@gloucestertimes.com
IF YOU GO
What: Hearing on Gloucester charter school, conducted by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
When: Tomorrow, 1 p.m.
Where: Kyrouz Auditorium, Gloucester City Hall.
Agenda: Equal time for charter backers and opponents, board discussion, legal outline. There is no scheduled time for comment from the general public.
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