PA Parent and supporter Jim Carmine lends his voice in support of bringing an Imagine charter school to Penn Hills, PA.
“Liberto seems to have forgotten, we are talking about Our Kids, Our Money, Our Schools!
Look, this is mere political subterfuge. If our children continue to leave the traditional public schools at the rate they now are leaving, the school board will still lose that money, but instead of the money staying in Penn Hills WHERE WE NEED IT, the money spent to educate our children, our money, will fly out to Wexford or Braddock or one of the neighboring districts that already have existing charter schools. For example Propel’s new charter school is growing wildly, and it is taking Penn Hills students. My child for example is in Propel. In a word, this is a specious (fake) argument. The “very big problem” is our Penn Hills students are already fleeing our traditional public schools and going to charter schools. So it only makes sense that if Imagine will pay to build or fix a building this keeps both OUR money and the new building in OUR district. To stop Imagine from giving so many Penn Hills parents exactly what we want would be reckless. Keep our money home to educate our children. The traditional public school board is losing students and money because of Penn Hills parents’ lack of confidence in how they are running this district. This entire ‘moratorium’ nonsense is a political ploy by Jack Wagner to help his Democratic buddy become governor. You have to admit, it is pretty suspicious that this moratorium nonsense comes up as soon as Onorato starts trailing so badly. Please, politics is just politics and this is politics. Support OUR public schools, and that includes OUR public charter school.
‘Richard Liberto, the district’s director of business affairs, said the loss of several million a year in revenue could be ‘a very big problem’ because the district must pay for the construction of new school buildings. That requires about $5 million a year to pay off $130 million in bonds.'”
Letter published on October 14, 2010 by the Pittsburgh-Tribune Your Penn Hills.