In a half-full auditorium at East Hill MS Dec. 16, Lehigh Valley Academy (LVA) CEO Susan Mauser represented the regional charter school in its application for a new charter. However, no new educational programming is specified in the application; in effect, the only change LVA proposes is to move its K–12 operations to a planned 200,000-square- foot campus on nearly 200 acres in Bethlehem Township. Sixty acres would be occupied by the initial phase of construction; more than 100 acres is reserved for future development on the Alloy 5 Architecture plan shared with the media.

More than 1,800 students currently attend LVA’s Valley Center Parkway campus, where LVA’s lease will expire in August 2023. LVA says its planned expansion is to mitigate the risk of higher rental costs by purchasing land and constructing its own building. The site targeted by LVA is on the north side of Route 22, between Hecktown Road and Farmersville Road. (Moravian Academy’s Upper School campus is on the south side of this portion of Route 22.) The new facility will accommodate 1,950 students, according to the LVA website, which Mauser confirmed at the hearing. More than 1,000 LVA students are residents of BASD.

State law requires that privately-run, taxpayer-funded charter schools seek school board approval to amend their charters – in this case, to change the location of the school. LVA is a regional charter school obliged to ask both BASD and Saucon Valley School District (SVSD) for any changes.

An additional wrinkle to the process is that LVA, whose charter expires in December 2021, is pursuing a new charter request rather than a charter change request. At the Nov. 25 BASD board meeting, Superintendent Dr. Joseph Roy asserted that LVA is pursuing a new charter because a change request – which would be one way for LVA to request authorization to relocate its campus – is not appealable to the Pa. Charter School Appeal Board (CAB), but new charter requests are.

BASD cannot vote on the new charter request until 45 days after the Dec. 16 public hearing, but must vote by 75 days after Dec. 16. The 75-day countdown for BASD will end Feb. 29, 2020.

LVA presented its charter renewal plans to SVSD Dec. 10. Asked for comment on how the two districts would harmonize potentially disparate responses to the new charter application, SVSD solicitor Mark Fitzgerald responded, “As for whether [SVSD] would be in a position to approve consistently with Bethlehem, I cannot answer that for the district. I will say that when a charter school proposes to move locations, how the process is to be effectuated is unclear. What adds an additional layer here is this is a regional charter school with two authorizing institutions.”

All board members except Emily Schenkel were present at the meeting, in addition to the district superintendent, board secretary Stacy Gober, and Allison Petersen of The Levin Group. Petersen, who is representing BASD in the matter of the new application, presided over the meeting.

State law requires that school districts assess charter applications according to several criteria, including:

1) The demonstrated sustainable support for the charter school plan by teachers, parents, other community members and students, including comments received at the public hearing;

2) The capability of the charter school in terms of support and planning to provide comprehensive learning experiences to students pursuant to the adopted charter;

3) The extent in which the application addresses the information required by the law;

4) The extent in which the charter school may serve as a model for other public schools.

Petersen said the board will have a second public hearing, likely in January, prior to voting on the new charter proposal.

CEO Susan Mauser, attorney Kevin McKenna and LVA board president Martin Smith represented LVA. Mauser presented material to address the four requirements of state law listed above. She noted that LVA currently has a waiting list of 609 students, and alluded to LVA parents and teachers in the auditorium. She referred to LVA’s continuous operation over the past 18 years, including three charter renewals, as evidence that the company has appropriate plans in place to provide learning experiences for students.

Mauser offered LVA’s offering of International Baccalaureate (IB) programs as a differentiating factor for the school. Other items cited by Mauser include a longer school day and a longer school year.

The IB program at LVA is divided into grades K–6 (primary years), grades 7–10 (middle years), and either the IB Diploma Program (DP) or the IB Career-related Program (CP) in grades 11–12. LVA students have not thus far been required actually to take the IB exams, although Mauser said that beginning in 2020, all students will be required to take the IB English exam. If the new charter is approved and LVA builds a new facility, grade 6 will be moved into the “middle years” program.

During the board’s question period, Petersen noted that the application repeatedly references a “new charter school,” and asked whether a corporation had been formed for the new charter school. Mauser replied in the affirmative, and McKenna said it was “the same one.” Petersen asked whether the operations of the new school would come under the articles of the existing company, and McKenna confirmed that she was correct.

Petersen asked about the programming in the proposed new charter schools, and what would be new vis-à-vis the current school. Mauser said that LVA would replicate the current programming in the new school, and said the future location of the school was the only reason LVA was filing a new charter application. Petersen again asked if any new curriculum was being proposed, and Mauser confirmed that none was; Petersen singled out Project Lead the Way as having been taught at LVA since 2018.

Mauser confirmed that LVA’s charter will end in December 2021, and McKenna confirmed that July 1, 2020, would be the effective date of the new charter, if granted. McKenna said that the school would surrender its existing charter if a new charter were granted.

Petersen brought up a letter sent by LVA to BASD counsel King, Spry dated Oct. 8, 2019. McKenna said that the letter asked whether BASD “would be amenable to a change in location” of LVA, and asked for a response from King, Spry within 10 days. Petersen asked whether any amendment request is still pending, and McKenna said the letter was not an amendment request, but a request for information on the position of the BASD board regarding a location change.

During the public comment period, more than a dozen parents and teachers from LVA offered comments on behalf of the charter school. Brenna Howard noted that she attended BASD schools and taught in BASD prior to taking a job at LVA in 2008. She called LVA a “world-class education” and noted that her brother was in the first class to graduate from the Charter Arts Academy.

Dianne Lawson, one of the founders of LVA, said it would be a “horrible thing” to “throw LVA in with every other charter school.” Lauren Parkinson, who graduated from LVA in 2016, said the world perspective of the charter school, like doing projects on global warming in fifth grade, was really important to her. Although she has traveled to Cuba, she is earning her B.A. from Lafayette College in Easton.

Ann Cornelis, a Korean native who grew up in Belgium, said her third-grade daughter enjoys attending LVA. The father of an LVA student voiced his support for LVA and for “school choice” in general. A local resident who grew up in Elizabeth, N.J., said she was glad she experienced diversity in her own education, and asserted that LVA is an appropriately diverse setting for her son. Amanda Hildenbrand, a former Freedom student who also attended a charter school that is now closed, said she was glad her son could stay at LVA, although her family moved from one Lehigh Valley municipality to another. Six other LVA parents offered positive comments about LVA, and another LVA parent asserted that BASD Superintendent Dr. Roy “attacks charter schools on Twitter.” Several of the parents noted that their children have attended LVA since kindergarten.

Petersen recessed the hearing and told the attendees that the district will inform the applicant and the public of the date for the second public hearing.