A dispute between a charter board and Universal Companies has left two schools in limbo

The board of trustees overseeing two West Philadelphia charter schools run by Universal Companies hasn’t signed a new management agreement, a move the company warned could jeopardize the schools’ ability to operate after the agreement expires Thursday.

Meanwhile, the president of the board for Universal Bluford and Daroff charter schools said she was “baffled” to receive a letter earlier in June from Universal, announcing a termination of the management agreement.

The exact nature of the dispute between the board and Universal — the nonprofit founded by recording-industry legend Kenny Gamble that runs seven charter schools in the city — wasn’t clear. But it has brought new uncertainty to the future of Bluford and Daroff, both of which were already battling to stay open after the Philadelphia school board voted to non-renew their charters two years earlier. The charters were flagged for deficiencies, including in finance and organizational compliance.

“Our goal and our hope and our commitment is to have our doors open in 2022, for the 2022-2023 school year,” Deshawnda Williams, president of the Bluford-Daroff board, said during a Zoom meeting with school staff Friday. She said the board had instructed its lawyers to reach out to the management team’s lawyers to “come up with a plan of action.”

“Can we get people to come in to help with a transition at this time? It can sound far-fetched. But that doesn’t mean it’s out of reach,” Williams said. The board is expected to meet Wednesday night at Daroff.

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run. In Philadelphia, where charters educate about 70,000, or one-third of public school students, many of the city’s 85 charters are managed by private companies that contract with the schools to provide services.

As so-called Renaissance charters — former district-run schools that were converted to charters in hopes of spurring improvement — Bluford and Daroff were turned over to Universal Companies more than a decade ago. While Universal provides day-to-day operational services, the two schools also share one board of trustees that oversees them.

The current management agreements between the charters and Universal expire Thursday. In April, the company asked the charters’ board to review the agreements, Williams said during Friday’s meeting. She said the board was preparing “to say, ‘We do agree with this, we don’t agree with that,’” when Universal advised that it seek legal counsel.

The board asked to meet with Universal, but the company canceled a planned meeting, Williams said. Then on June 3, it got a letter from Universal stating that the company had withdrawn its proposal to renew the management agreement and would instead terminate the agreement on June 30.

That letter, according to Williams, cited “an irreconcilable disagreement with Universal Companies over the hiring, renewal, retention, contract renewal and compensation of personnel, hiring of outside service providers at Bluford and Daroff, without any input from Universal Companies.” It also accused the board of taking “repeated actions which materially interfere with the ability of Universal Companies to provide services under the management agreement” and violating Pennsylvania’s open public meeting and charter school laws.

“We were baffled. We were taken aback,” Williams said of the letter, adding that it was “our right as a board to negotiate” contract terms.

In a statement, Universal said that it and the board had been “unable to reach a mutual agreement” on extending the management arrangement.

“The consequence of this impasse on the students, teachers and other employees at both charter schools are the upmost concern of [Universal Education Companies] and [Universal Community Homes] and such concerns have been expressed to the Combined Boards of Trustees since April 2022,” the company said. A spokesperson declined to answer specific questions.

The board has failed to provide required notice to the school district of the expiration of the management agreement, according to a letter a Universal administrator sent the board last week.

And given that both schools have appealed the district’s decision to non-renew their charters — Daroff is awaiting a decision from Pennsylvania’s Charter Appeals Board — “the actions the board has recently taken have put both schools in vulnerable positions and may indicate to the state that the board lacks the capacity to effectively govern these schools,” the Universal administrator, Latoya Finney, said in the letter.

A lawyer for the board, George Gossett, did not respond to questions this week about the allegations from Universal or what the board had disputed in the management agreement.

The uncertain future for the charters has spurred both confusion and backlash, including among staff. Teachers didn’t find out until a June 16 board meeting that the schools’ management could be changing, said Antoinette Griffin, who teaches at Daroff.

“They’re making decisions that put our lives in jeopardy,” Griffin said of the board. She said she hoped the school district would intervene.

Joyce Wilkerson, president of the Philadelphia school board, said in a statement that if Bluford or Daroff don’t continue management agreements with Universal, “we would expect the charter school to provide additional information to the Charter Schools Office ... to ensure that there are sufficient supports and services available to students in preparation for the 2022-23 school year.”

Bernadette Peoples, whose daughter graduated from Universal Audenried charter and who has been a supporter of the charter network, said the Bluford-Daroff board appeared to be trying to “hijack” control of the schools.

“We’re not about to allow an ambush or a takeover for noneducators,” said Peoples, who said she met recently with Bluford and Daroff parents upset by the board’s handling of the situation. “This is not right.”