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The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is reviewing a complaint against the Somerville Public Schools filed by the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association that alleges school employees coerced and intimidated parents and misused public funds to spread misinformation about a proposed charter school in the city.
To read the complaint, click here.
The complaint involves the Somerville Progressive Charter School, a 425-seat school for kindergartners through eighth grade that would focus on students for which English is a second language. It is among five charters up for consideration by the state.
A public hearing on the proposed school is scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at Somerville High School.
“It seems the Somerville school district has been using very questionable methods to oppose this charter school proposal,” said Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, which filed the complaint Thursday. The group advocates for charter school education options throughout the state.
“[The Somerville school district] obviously had a very well planned out campaign,” he said. “It’s been their clear plan to do everything they can to use their public funds to spread misinformation about the charter proposal to the Somerville community.”
Somerville Superintendent Anthony Pierantozzi said that although he hadn’t seen a copy of the complaint, he refuted the claims, saying no one has contacted him to lodge similar concerns with his office. The allegations claim that parents were intimidated and coerced to sign a petition against the proposed school at parent-teacher conferences while their child’s teachers were present. Kenen said public school teachers have traditionally opposed charter schools because of their labor policies. Three parents complained to him, Kenen said.
“That’s what got us very upset, when we had parents contact us saying they felt intimidated.”
Pierantozzi said the charter proponents were given equal access to parents at Parent-Teacher Association meetings to lobby for the school.
But Selena Fitanides, a founding member of the charter group, said she had been denied entrance to the meetings, and that the School Committee is spreading falsehoods about the charter’s financial impact on the remaining district schools.
“We were unaware of the viciousness, the tactics,” Fitanides said. “The tone really surprised us. We’re continued to be shocked to the level that those in the city have stooped to.”
Kenen and his group also say that the Somerville School Committee spread misinformation about the financial impact on the district of the proposed charter that were printed with school funds and distributed to students in classrooms. It also said the School Committee attempted to intimidate two of the proposed charter’s founders by contacting their employer, Tufts University, which pressured them to remove their names from the charter application, the complaint said.
‘‘The notion that we could bully Tufts, I wouldn’t know how to do it if I wanted to,” said Adam Sweeting, chairman of the Somerville School Committee. “That just did not happen.”
Pierantozzi said the district is following a preemptive legal opinion, given verbally by a state Ethics Commission attorney Dec. 2, that affirms the School Committee’s right to argue against the charter and to use public money for the advocacy, he said.
The school department, in a fact sheet posted on its website, said the charter at full capacity would cost $4.79 million that would have otherwise funded the city’s public schools. The loss could lead to slashing 75 teacher jobs, the closure of one of the city’s eight elementary schools, or cutbacks to enrichment programs and after school activities, the fact sheet states. Further, it states that in the first five years after the charter opened, it would divert more than $15 million from the public schools.
But the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association said the state would reimburse the district for hosting a charter, and that in the first 10 years after the charter opened, the city would collect more than $10 million in additional aid from the state.
Pierantozzi contends relations between the district and charter officials have so far been professional. “Obviously this is a heated debate, but from what I’ve been made aware of, everyone on both sides has behaved in a civil and respectful manner,” the superintendent said.
Pierantozzi said he has tried to stay “as objective as possible,” but he expects to testify against the charter at the state hearing next week.
“Certainly my position will be that this second charter school in the City of Somerville will have a deleterious impact on the public school community,” he said.
