Franklin Towne students would be ‘collateral damage’ if Philly school board tries to close the charter, some advocates say

Franklin Towne Charter High School, the Northeast Philadelphia charter accused of manipulating its lottery to exclude certain students, should remain open, a Philadelphia charter advocacy organization says.

The school could ultimately close if the school board votes Thursday to revoke its charter — though it’s in no immediate danger: If the board votes yes, a hearing would follow, along with another board vote. That could then result in years of appeals, during which the school would continue to operate.

Still, a revocation would mean Franklin Towne students would become “collateral damage,” said Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, which advocates on behalf of the city’s 83 charter schools.

The Thursday vote comes after an Inquirer article in May detailed accusations that Franklin Towne’s former chief executive officer fixed the January lottery to shut out students from certain zip codes for the 2023-24 school year. An Inquirer analysis found that there was an astronomically small chance — 1 in 1,296 trillion — those results happened naturally.

» READ MORE: A Philly charter school manipulated its lottery to keep kids out, a top administrator says

Other students were allegedly excluded because they, or older siblings, exhibited academic or behavioral problems. And some because they came from another charter school that would require paying for their transportation.

The district’s charter school office conducted an investigation similar to The Inquirer’s and found several zip codes from which no students were accepted in at least three out of the four years reviewed.

Any deliberate exclusions run counter to Pennsylvania’s charter law, which requires equal access to the publicly funded schools.

While Philadelphia Charters for Excellence said it condemns “any discrimination, profiling or cherry-picking of students,” it said the nonrenewal vote would harm students.

“With less than two weeks before the first day of school, any additional corrective action(s) must not come at the expense of the 1,295 Philadelphia public school students currently enrolled,” the group said, calling on the board to reject the revocation and institute a probationary period for the school.

Charter advocates noted that Franklin Towne has new leadership, with former dean of students Brianna O’Donnell replacing Joe Venditti as CEO after Venditti resigned abruptly in February.

Anne Clark, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said she visited Franklin Towne after The Inquirer report in May and believed that O’Donnell and principal John Dougherty “had a clear understanding of what needed to occur in the lottery system.”

Since the reports of lottery manipulation surfaced, Franklin Towne has joined Apply Philly Charter, a centralized lottery that most Philadelphia charters use. The school also told families that it had hired an external agency to conduct an investigation into the allegations.

If the board revokes Franklin Towne’s charter, “that would be a nightmare for those children,” Clark said. “Because it is a wonderful school.” She added that she was “really impressed with how diverse the school was — in many ways more diverse than a lot of charter schools.”

Franklin Towne had been called out by the district in years past because its demographics are not reflective of the city’s: 54% of its students are white, 23% Hispanic, 12% Black, 8% multiracial, and 2% Asian. The Inquirer analysis found the school’s January lottery particularly disadvantaged Black residents.

The African American Charter School Coalition, a group that represents a number of Black-led charters, indicated its support for the sanctions.

The group “abhors any discriminatory and biased behaviors, and supports swift and just accountability for any entity engaged in such action,” it said in a statement. “The charter school movement was created in part to provide choice to disenfranchised and disadvantaged students. Any school taking that choice from minority and disabled students is unconscionable.”

AACSC, however, has been locked in conflict with the board and the charter schools office, accusing both of racist and discriminatory practices, and saying the board targets Black-led charters while giving grace to others. In Franklin Towne’s case, the school had already been flagged by the charter office for improprieties around accepting and educating students with special education needs.

The board has ordered an independent investigation of the coalition’s allegations, which was expected to be completed last year but has not yet been released.

The coalition questioned the move to revoke the charter of Franklin Towne, a white-led charter, now — noting that the district was “rapidly” moving to close a white-led charter while the report into alleged bias against Black-led schools was “nearing completion and release.”

“We are still waiting for the Board to address the glaring bias and inequities in the charter evaluation and oversight process that continues to negatively impact Black founded and led public charter schools,” it said.

Others cheered the Franklin Towne actions.

Susan DeJarnatt, a law professor at Temple University who has researched charter schools, said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the district’s move.

She noted that the former state-appointed School Reform Commission had allowed Philadelphia charters with exclusionary enrollment practices to remain open.

”I’m glad to see they’re taking this seriously, because it is really unfair. It is not fair to the families who think they’re getting a fair shot at these schools,” DeJarnatt said.

The notice of revocation before the board cites Section 1729-A of Pennsylvania’s charter school law, which says that a school board “may choose” to revoke a charter if it violates any provision of the charter law. If the board does revoke its charter, Franklin Towne will have the right to appeal — a prospect school leaders noted in a message to the community Monday.

”Whether or not they have a winning argument, they can still drag it on for years and years and years,” DeJarnatt said.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, a Philadelphia-based advocacy organization, said the board is moving in the right direction against Franklin Towne.

“The district should swiftly revoke the charter since it’s clear the school violated the spirit and letter of the law,” Cooper said. “Anyone arguing students need more charter options in Philadelphia has to be appalled by the school’s reliance on intentionally discriminatory enrollment policies.”