Walter Palmer Charter School Heads To Court In Last-Ditch Effort To Stay Open
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- A Philadelphia charter school heads to court today in a last-ditch effort to secure enough money to stay open.
The Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners charter school could close any day now, if it can't convice a judge to order an infusion of cash from the school district. Founder Walter Palmer claims the district owes his school nearly $1.4 million.
"They have frustrated us to the point where we're not functioning as a school fully should function," he said. "In terms of padlocking the doors and that sort of thing, we don't know where that is."
The district says it doesn't have to pay, because Palmer enrolled hundreds of students above the cap of 675 it agreed to. District spokesman Fernando Gallard says letters and robocalls are going out to parents.
"What we want to be able to do is, provide them with the options," he said. "And also show them that we have many traditional public schools that are performing extremely well."
1300 students attend Palmer's Northern Liberties and Frankford campuses. The district has set up three meetings for Palmer parents:
Monday 9/29 at the Ludlow Elementary School at 4pm.
Tuesday 9/30 at Ludlow Elementary at 8:45.
Tuesday 9/30 at Frankford High at 5:30 pm.