The Midtown 2 building in Harrisburg
The board of a proposed charter school in Midtown filed a court petition on Friday to try to overturn the Harrisburg school board’s denial of its application.
The filing by the Pennsylvania STEAM Academy contains 1,844 signatures, far exceeding the 1,000 signatures required to appeal the denial, said Carolyn Dumaresq, president of the charter school board.
“We feel very confident that we have the sufficient numbers,” she said. “We are very pleased with the outreach and the response from the community.”
If the Dauphin County Court of Common Appeals validates the signatures and issues a decree, the matter will go to the state Department of Education’s seven-member Charter School Appeal Board, which will make a decision to affirm or overturn the school board’s decision.
Dumaresq said that she hopes that PA STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) will get on the state appeal board agenda in June or, at the latest, July. At the hearing, representatives from both the proposed charter school and the Harrisburg school district will get a chance to make their cases for and against, respectively, the PA STEAM application.
“I’m confident that we have a strong application and will get a fair hearing,” said Dumaresq, who served as state education secretary under former Gov. Tom Corbett.
In February, the Harrisburg school board voted down PA STEAM’s charter school application. So, for almost two months, school supporters have been gathering signatures at city events, the Broad Street Market and other gathering places.
One thousand valid signatures of city residents, 18 and older, were required to show sufficient community interest in the public charter school.
PA STEAM hopes to open in time for the fall semester with 120 students, grades K-2, in Midtown 2 at N. 3rd and Reily streets in Harrisburg. The 115,000-square-foot building is currently occupied by HACC, but the college’s lease expires in 2022, and it is slated to begin moving programs out of the building.
If they’re able to open, PA STEAM plans to expand on an annual basis, adding a grade level each year until it becomes a K-8 school. It also expects to grow horizontally, so that each grade level eventually would have 80 students.
Dumaresq said that the charter school plans to hold informational meetings in June and July for parents of prospective students. It also will begin to recruit faculty and staff, in the expectation that the state appeal board will rule in its favor.
“We’re proceeding as if we’ll get approved because the clock is running,” she said.
