PSEA president encourages Chester Upland to listen to the community and reject charter school expansion plans

For further information contact:
Chris Lilienthal (717) 255-7134
David Broderic (717) 255-7169

HARRISBURG, PA (May 7, 2021) – PSEA President Rich Askey today made it clear that educators, support professionals, and community members in Chester Upland School District oppose private providers’ plans to convert some of the district’s schools into charter schools.

During a public meeting held on May 6, three charter school providers publicly submitted their charterization plans to community members for the first time.

“The meeting last night in Chester Upland clearly showed that these charter school proposals are wrong for the Chester Upland community and that the people who live and work in this school district just don’t want to sell off their community schools to private companies,” Askey said.

School staff members and others have pointed out that:

• Student performance in Chester Upland’s traditional public schools is comparable to and, in many cases, better than the charter schools bidding to take them over.
• One charter school proposal includes a plan to purchase a school building at a price more than $1 million below its market value.
• Under state law, Chester Upland is currently required to pay charter schools $43,588 for each student with special needs that the charters enroll — $17,082 more than the estimated cost of educating them.

“This is a bad deal for Chester Upland’s students and for the community,” Askey added. “We just can’t allow the Chester Upland community’s public schools to be handed over to private charter companies.

“We hope that the community continues to speak out about this, just like they did during last night’s meeting. We need to put students and parents in Chester Upland first.”

Askey is a Harrisburg music teacher and the president of PSEA. An affiliate of the National Education Association, PSEA represents about 178,000 active and retired educators and school employees, student teachers, higher education staff, and health care workers in Pennsylvania.