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News and Updates

Click here for an archive of Whole Life Charter School News and Updates.

• • • •

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.

(submitted by Gary Sobolow, WLCS founder)

When I decided to create a Charter School, it seemed the entire world told me I was out of my mind. I guess I still may be. After nearly three years of riding this roller coaster, I have not given up and I don't think I ever will. So with this little introduction, here are the updates.

Members of the WLCS founding team consisting of myself, Dr. Galen Godbey, Dr. Portia Hunt, Mike Whisman of Charter School Choice and David Bromley of The Big Picture Company presented our application to and responded to questions from the Cheltenham School District Charter School Hearing Committee during two public hearings. These hearing were held on December 15th 2007 and January 16th 2008. Upon their consideration of our application the Cheltenham School Board decided to deny our application after the Hearing Committee recommended that the School Board do so.

Their denial of our application, while disappointing, was expected. We knew upon applying that the district had historically denied a previous application.

We have three choices at this time. We can quit, resubmit our application, or appeal the decision to the Charter Appeals Board (CAB) of the Pennsylvania Department of Education which had been created to protect existing Charter Schools and Charter applications.

Quitting is not an option. There are far too many children needing this school for that to be a consideration.

Appealing to the CAB is, in our opinion, very premature as the Cheltenham School District did bring up some concerns about our application that we can and will remedy before we resubmit our application to the Cheltenham School District. In other words, we are going with the third option and will resubmit our application within the next few months.

Prior to the resubmission, Mike Whisman of Charter School Choice will be carefully reviewing our projected finances. Mike has been working with us for over a year and has told me that he will continue on this project until we are operational. David Bromley from the Big Picture Company and I will be tightening up aspects of the application having to do with PDE standards with regards to the project based model we are proposing. David is also absolutely committed to this project.

I will be holding a number of open informational meetings for those interested in this school over the next few months. Meeting times and places will be listed on the home page of this web site.

We hope to open our doors in the Fall of 2008 and will continue to work towards providing an appropriate and positive education for those that need us no matter what the future brings. Please join us. Sign our petition now.