{"id":2073,"date":"2013-08-19T13:00:41","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2013-08-19T21:46:46","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T01:46:46","slug":"graystone-academy-finally-announces-its-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"Graystone Academy finally announces closure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days after losing another appeal, school said students must register elsewhere<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong>,<\/span>\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Graystone<\/a>

Graystone Academy Charter School in South Coatesville, which lost its charter, will not open during the 2013-14 school year, its web site said.<\/p><\/div>\n

The promised public response last week from\u00a0embattled Graystone Academy Charter School\u00a0regarding its future never materialized, but the school web site \u00a0finally changed its message on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cGraystone Academy will not be opening on Aug. 26, and we will not be open for operations during 2013\/2014 School Year.\u00a0 All students and families must register in their new school as soon as possible.\u00a0 If you have any questions, please contact the main office at (610) 383-4311.\u00a0 We thank you for all of your commitment and support over the years,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

A Commonwealth Court judge on Thursday denied the school\u2019s bid to stay the revocation of its charter pending an appeal. The school had said it hoped to resume classes while attempting to persuade the appellate court that the Coatesville Area School District erred in its November 2011 decision to revoke Graystone\u2019s charter, a decision affirmed on July 30 by the Pennsylvania Charter School Appeals Board.<\/p>\n

But Commonwealth Court Judge Robert \u201cRobin\u201d Simpson, who heard about an hour of argument on the issue during a teleconference on Tuesday, issued a 10-page opinion in which he denied the request. Without a stay, the school could not reopen since it had no charter, a situation that affected more than 200 students. Attorneys said an appeal to the state Supreme Court was an option, but not one likely to succeed given the evidence.<\/p>\n

In the opinion, Simpson wrote that Graystone failed to dispute three key findings by the appeals board: nine material violations of its charter, \u201csubpar student performance scores,\u201d and \u201clate-filed audit reports.\u201d The judge agreed with the school district that \u201cany one of the three primary findings\u201d constituted grounds for charter revocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cArguably, granting a stay would subject the students of the charter school to another year of substandard education and delay their educational advancement,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Graystone said he expected a statement from the five-member board on Thursday \u2013 and then Friday. Then he stopped returning telephone calls and responding to emails.<\/p>\n

A statement from the Coatesville Area School District said all Graystone students and parents would be contacted in the coming days and informed of this final ruling by the appellate court, and it said the district would work with them to ensure that each student was timely enrolled and appropriately placed for the 2013-2014 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Coatesville Area School District welcomes these students with open arms and looks forward to long-term productive and successful academic relationships and outcomes with these returning members of the Coatesville family,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Anyone with questions regarding enrollment is invited to contact the CASD solicitor, James E. Ellison, at 484-889-1921, a district statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Days after losing another appeal, school said students must register elsewhere By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times The promised public response last week from\u00a0embattled Graystone Academy Charter School\u00a0regarding its future never materialized, but the school web site \u00a0finally changed its message on Monday. \u201cGraystone Academy will not be opening on Aug. 26, and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[187,1619,1484],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-coatesville-area-school-district","tag-commonwealth-court-judge-robert-robin-simpson","tag-graystone-academy-charter-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}