Tactic puts Chester Upland under Rendell's authority

After failing for more than 18 months to wrest control of the financially and academically troubled Chester Upland School District from a Republican-dominated board, the Rendell administration has used a legal maneuver to dissolve the board and put its appointees in place.

The chairman of the new empowerment board is Philadelphian C. Marc Woolley, director for strategy and planning for the Delaware River Port Authority.

Until yesterday, the district, which the state declared financially distressed in 1994 after several deficits, was overseen by a three-member financial-control board with a Republican majority. Yesterday, state Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak said the district, though still facing financial challenges, had a "sound financial structure" and was no longer financially distressed.

He added: "The law provides that a special board of control is necessary to reestablish a sound financial structure, and once that has been established, it has no further function." That law allows the secretary of education to decide whether a district meets the criteria for recovery.

Zahorchak said the empowerment board had virtually the same powers as the board of control but fell under the authority of a different state law, the Education Empowerment Act, which gives him the right to name all three board members in academically failing districts. Chester Upland had the second-lowest average score in Pennsylvania on state accountability tests last year.

Under the financial-distress law, the board chairman was appointed by the state, with the other two members selected by the Delaware County president judge, who is a Republican. Members could not be replaced unless they resigned, and since early 2003 two members had been Republican Party loyalists.

The chairman was Michael F.X. Gillin, a former county registrar of wills and a local Republican chairman. The other two members were Wally Nunn, a former Republican county councilman, and John Estey, Democratic Gov. Rendell's chief of staff, whom Rendell had recommended.

Gillin did not return phone calls seeking comment yesterday. Nunn, appointed only last month, said: "I don't know enough about what has happened to comment." Estey said in a statement that he supported the move.

As recently as January, Zahorchak, who was appointed as a temporary receiver over Chester Upland by a Commonwealth Court judge in the fall, reported that the district was projected to run a $2.3 million deficit this year and might soon be face a "financial crisis."

In other court filings, the state Education Department also warned that high debt payments could create severe financial problems in a few years, and that payments for the 37 percent of the district's students now in charter schools had created a financial strain. About 4,300 Chester Upland students attend regular schools, and 2,500 are in charter schools.

Yesterday, Zahorchak said the projected deficit for this school year had been cut to $570,000.

"The financial situation is not a healthy one," he said, but the controls he put in place since becoming receiver have "led me to the conclusion that a sound financial structure has been reestablished."

Zahorchak pledged that the new board "will shepherd in a new era of high-quality academic achievement. . . . It's all about children, children, children."

Woolley, 38, the new chairman, is a former acting general counsel for the Philadelphia Housing Authority. The other members are Juan Baughn of Concord Township, until recently the Education Department's liaison to the district, and Swarthmore resident Kathy Schultz, a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education faculty member. For several years, Baughn ran eight Chester Upland schools for Edison Schools Inc.; Edison has since left the district. All three are registered Democrats.

In 2003, a federal lawsuit said Woolley had directed a housing department lawyer to violate federal rules by extending contracts to favored Philadelphia law firms that made political contributions, including Rendell's old firm, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll. The matter was settled in 2005 for an undisclosed amount of money. Woolley and his wife contributed several thousand dollars to Rendell's 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Education Department spokeswoman Sheila Ballen said the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development had reviewed the housing authority matter, and "there was no finding that Mr. Woolley engaged in any improper activity or wrongdoing."

Charles Warren, leader of a Chester Upland parent and community group that had long called for the ouster of the Gillin board, called the change "a breath of fresh air for the district."

He said he would "reserve further opinion" until he found out how the new board stood on key issues, such as whether it plans to keep Superintendent Gloria Grantham, a move he favors.

Zahorchak said the board "will, I think, work with the current administration very well." And Grantham said yesterday: "I welcome any change that will lead to continued academic progress by the children."