On Christmas Eve we mailed a check for $250.00 to Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA), one of Pennsylvania’s largest cyber charter schools.

We filed a Right to Know request in September to learn how much taxpayer money CCA spent on advertising during a three-year period and how CCA spent this money.

In October, CCA partially granted and partially denied this request stating, “CCA must deny your request, insofar as it seeks records which would contain or reveal legally protected trade secrets and confidential proprietary information.”

We appealed this denial and received a 13-page Final Determination from the Office of Open Records on December 23rd.

On p. 12, it states that the OOR has generally held that a charter school’s marketing strategy cannot be withheld and cites Hacke v. Pa. Cyber Charter School, OOR Dkt. AP 2017-1684, 2017 PA O.O.R.D. LEXIS 1773:

“However, the OOR cannot conclude that the Charter School engages in a trade or that the Charter School’s marketing plan is the type of information from which economic value can be derived where the primary activity of the Charter School is providing the essential governmental service of education and its ‘competitors’ are primarily other local agencies.”

The OOR determined that CCA is required to provide us with copies of marketing plans in addition to other materials requested within 30 days of receiving our payment. At $.25/copy, we expect to receive about 1000 pages of information. We will share what we learn with you.

Will you make a donation today to help us recoup this $250.00 and help ensure we enter 2020 in a strong position to get charter school reform across the finish line?​

CCA can appeal this decision to the courts and pay their high-priced, taxpayer-funded lawyers to defend keeping how they spend taxpayer money a secret. We will learn what they decide to do in January.

It is wrong that Pennsylvanians’ property taxes fund multi-million dollar cyber charter school advertising campaigns. It is unacceptable that charter schools can deny taxpayers access to information about how they spend this money.

Charter schools are supposed to be public schools whose responsibility is to educate our children. They are not supposed to be private businesses that waste millions of dollars in precious taxpayer money on marketing plans and trade secrets—at the expense public school students.

Education Voters of PA is ready to lead efforts for real reform PA’s charter school law in 2020.

Will you make a donation to help fund our efforts to reform PA’s charter school law to create financial transparency and accountability and finally end the excessive profiteering that has occurred in the charter sector?

 We have a lot of work to do and are ready to hit the ground running in January. We look forward to continuing to work together in the New Year!