The fallout surrounding the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School threatened to leave a large mark on the charter-expanding education reform bill passed by the state Senate last week.

But when senators finally signed off on the measure last Tuesday night, the proposal that would have had the largest echoes here — including, potentially, creating an avenue to revoke the Gloucester charter — did not take the next step toward becoming law.

State Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, who has been a leading figure in questioning the state's approval of the Gloucester charter, filed 10 amendments to the reform bill, many of them born from the debate that has raged here for the past year.

Five of them passed, including a measure that will require the state Education Department to make public all recommendations and evaluations of charters proposals. The commissioner of education's recommendation of the Gloucester charter against the advice of his own charter office staff — an issue made public only after the fact — has been a source of ire for local charter opponents.

But senators rejected on voice vote an amendment to the bill that would have made procedural violations by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education when it reviews applications a cause for charter revocation.

Procedural bungling and accusations of official impropriety are at the center of local efforts to have the state invalidate the charter granted in February to a group planning an arts-focused school for kindergartners through eighth-graders.

Questions about the way the state conducted its review and approval of the Gloucester charter have risen to such a level this year that the state Inspector General has launched an investigation on the matter.

But the laws and regulations that define the state's charter school system, as they exist now, only provide for the revocation of a charter granted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for violations committed by the school itself.

Last Tuesday, citing the lack of legal grounds to go back on the vote, the Board of Education voted not to revoke the Gloucester charter.

Another amendment, also rejected, would have given the Education Board the option to reconsider any charter it has granted for up to six months after it is first approved.

In its discussion of the issue Tuesday, Education Board members referenced the potential disruption to the process if a revocation or reconsideration precedent is established in the Gloucester case. If Tarr's amendment had passed, opponents of charter schools in districts across the state would have likely launched appeals based on procedural mistakes by the state.

The Senate also rejected a Tarr amendment that would have required a study of "the inequities resulting from the past and current applications" of the state funding formula that determines levels of state school aid to cities and towns.

Unfairness of the funding formula, a pillar of the state's mechanism for paying for education, has been a standing complaint of Tarr and scores of other lawmakers for years.

Other rejected amendments were a measure to set standards for the length of school bus rides and another changing the effective date for setting special education tuition rates.

Successful Tarr charter school amendments include a measure requiring the Education Board to offer written findings "confirming" that an approved application met all the criteria, and another laying out rules the board must observe if it is to waive one of its own regulations. The board's after-the-fact waiver of the requirement that one of its members attend a public hearing in the host community of each charter applicant has been another bone of contention in Gloucester.

Tarr also had an amendment passed requiring instruction on proper etiquette for displaying the U.S. flag.

Of course Tarr was far from the only senator to have amendments rejected. There were 95 amendments filed to the bill, only 34 of them adopted.

The bill has now moved to the state House of Representatives, which is not scheduled to meet in formal session again until January.

The House will likely bring further changes to the bill and provide an opportunity for Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester, to offer her own charter provisions.

Patrick Anderson may be contacted at 978-283-7000 x3455 or panderson@gloucestertimes.com.