State Hears Lake Worth Classical Academy Appeal

State Hears Case for

Lake Worth Classical Academy

Overrules School District on Curriculum – Affirms Phonics, Classical Curriculum

School District Sends Team of 5 to Tallahassee to Fight

The Lake Worth Tribune                 March 20, 2015

The state’s Charter School Appeal Commission met in Tallahassee on Monday, March 16, for a hearing on the appeal of the Lake Worth Classical Academy, proposed to open in Lake Worth in August of this year with 72 children in Kindergarten through third grade.

The appeal was presented by Margaret Menge, editor and publisher of The Lake Worth Tribune, on behalf of the school founders, accompanied by accountant Gary Scott of School Financial Services.

Appeal Commission members present included two charter school representatives and two representatives of school districts. The board was chaired by Lois Tepper, assistant general counsel for the Florida Department of Education, representing the state’s Commissioner of Education, Pam Stewart.

Menge began by telling the board of the 74 percent of 10^th graders not reading at grade level at Lake Worth High School, and the need for a model of academic excellence in the city of Lake Worth. She went on to describe the city as a historic, seaside town where families know one another, but where, when children reach school age, they are scattered, with many middle class families commuting to schools in other cities and children building their lives in other communities.

She pointed out the case of two new classical charter schools – Mason Classical Academy in Naples, Fla. and Savannah Classical Academy in Savannah, Ga., which use the same curriculum proposed for the Lake Worth Classical Academy – with intensive phonics used to teach reading, a focus on classic literature and history, and the teaching of Latin. Both schools have long waiting lists for limited available spaces for the 2015-2016 school year.

The School District of Palm Beach County, in its defense of the denial of the application for the Lake Worth Classical Academy, talked of recent closures of charter schools that had been turned down by the school district, but that had appealed and whose appeals were successful.

The application for the Lake Worth Classical Academy, submitted in August of 2014, was 158 pages in length with more than 30 additional pages of budget spreadsheets and 40 pages of other attachments, including letters of support from Charter School Capital, promising to provide working capital, and School Financial Services, agreeing to provide accounting services pro bono during the entire start-up period and through the school’s first year. Also included was a letter from the First Congregational United Church of Christ at 1415 North K Street, expressing support for leasing the church’s educational building to the school, with a credit given for half the capital improvements to the building.

At its November 2014 meeting, the Palm Beach County School Board voted to deny all new charter schools for 2015. The district had received 22 applications for new schools: All but six withdrew after receiving notice that district staff would recommend denial of their applications. The six applications that were submitted to the School Board were together under one listing on the consent agenda for the board’s Nov. 5 meeting. The board voted unanimously, with one vote, to reject all of them.

The state’s charter school law requires that school districts approve all charter applications that meet the requirements of the law.

Menge filed the appeal in mid December. The school district had 30 days to file a response.

Representing the school district in Tallahassee on Monday was Laura Pincus, the district’s deputy counsel; Bruce Harris, the district’s senior counsel; Jim Pegg, the director of the charter schools office for the district; Heather Knust, the district’s budget director; and a second budget staffer.

The first vote was to determine whether the applicant was denied due process under the law. The Charter School Appeal Commission voted that the applicant was not denied due process. The next vote was on the issue of whether the school district erred in denying the school based on the curriculum section of the application. The commission sided with the school, voting 3-2 after hearing an impassioned defense of the language arts program proposed to be used, The Riggs Institute’s “The Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking” and a strong argument for using intensive phonics to teach reading, as recommended by the 1985 federal synthesis of reading research, “Becoming a Nation of Readers.”

The third vote was on the issue of whether the district erred in denying the application based on the management section, where the district had said the applicant underestimated the percentage of ESE (special needs) students and the staffing that would be required to serve them. Again, the commission sided with the school, this time unanimously, saying the school had correctly estimated the percentage of ESE students and had budgeted sufficient staff.

On the last issue, the budget, the applicant explained that because of the district’s denial of the application, the school had not been able to apply for the Charter School Growth Fund grant identified as the seed money needed to open. She said that with a denial, it had not been possible to raise capital. The commission voted unanimously with the district, thus deciding to affirm the district’s denial of the school based on the budget section alone and to recommend to the State Board of Education that the district’s denial of the school’s application be upheld.

The school founders have the option to resubmit the application this year to open the school in 2016.

--- copyright Lake Worth Tribune, Inc. ---

Szerdi's Parting Shots

Szerdi’s Parting Shots:

Voters Were ‘Gullible’

My Opponent was Deceitful and

The Trib Contributed to my Defeat!

By Margaret Menge

The Lake Worth Tribune        March 20, 2015  

Outgoing City Commissioner John Szerdi took the opportunity of his last commission meeting on Monday evening to rail against the voters, whom he said were fooled into voting for his opponent, and said he “really didn’t realize how gullible people can be.”

He complained that a small minority of people turned out to vote, and that the voters had voted based on ‘words’ and not ‘deeds.’

But the voters weren’t the only ones who took hits from the one-term District 4 commissioner, who was defeated by first-time candidate Ryan Maier on March 10 by 57-37 percent.   .......continued below

John Szerdi, center, flanked by Commissioner Andy Amoroso and attorney Christy Goddeau, delivers an unusual last speech at City Hall on March 16. (photo by Margaret Menge)

Szerdi, after congratulating Maier and Commissioner Christopher McVoy, who was re-elected with 64 percent of the vote last week, quickly moved into blame mode, saying: “I have to admit, though, having a newspaper up there the way it popped up there before an election was very effective” and saying “scaring of people” that the beach was going to be privatized also worked against him.

For a moment, it appeared as though Szerdi, an architect and contractor, was going to turn introspective, saying at 62 years of age, he was not too old to learn from his mistakes. But he took a different direction altogether:

“I learned that well-timed deceitfulness can be leveraged to divide our city,” said Szerdi, reading from written remarks. “I do take solace in the fact that there’s no true satisfaction in learning by deceit. But I will always have faith that the truth will prevail.”

More than 80 people had come to the City Commission chambers for the special meeting on Monday night, and many were forced into the hallway and the conference room next door, as three rows in the chambers had been reserved on the left side for Szerdi supporters and three rows reserved on the right side for supporters of both Maier and McVoy, and these all quickly filled.

Szerdi smiled often while reading his speech, and got laughs from the audience when his cell phone rang in the middle of it. He checked the number, and then continued:

 “I really didn’t realize how gullible people can be,” he said. “It does remind me of a Bob Marley song: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.”

A decrescendo whistle was heard in the audience after the “gullible” comment and someone murmured “Can you believe this?” after the reference to the Bob Marley song.

Szerdi went on to say that “some people” have “spoken and written whatever it takes” at the expense of his reputation.

In wrapping up, he sounded as though he was still campaigning, talking about being “part of the concerted effort” to bring investment into the city, and his support for more than 50 local ordinances to help support the city’s effort to clean up abandoned properties.

“I’m a founding member of the cottages of Lake Worth,” he continued, “which is to promote one of the city’s most valuable and charming resources we have. This in itself will continue to fill the city with more residents to patronize our businesses and create jobs.”

But the parting shots continued after this, with the Bible used as quiver.

“In closing, please indulge my reference to Proverbs 29:8,” he said. “People who make fun of wisdom cause trouble in the city. But wise people calm anger down.”

“So I hope that the actions of the past few years are perceived as wise,” he said, “and that the continued elevation of the city’s financial resources through private investment and new projects, and that our existing homes and businesses will quiet the anger that I heard during the election. This is why our city will not go backwards.”

With that, he pledged to stay involved in the city, using his “experience and expertise,” thanked his supporters, and said “God Bless, Lake Worth.”

He rose from the dais after his speech, and walked out of the chamber before Maier and McVoy took the oath of office.

---   copyright Lake Worth Tribune, Inc. ---