PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The School District of Philadelphia is investigating allegations that Franklin Towne Charter High School in Bridesburg rigged its admissions lottery to prevent some students from getting in.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the charter fixed its lottery to block students from 17 ZIP codes from enrolling — at the direction of former Franklin Towne CEO Joe Venditti, who resigned in February.
It’s a situation that the head of the Philadelphia School District’s charter schools office, Peng Chao, says he’s taking very seriously.
“We do take these issues seriously. I think we’ve been on the record before as to enrollment issues at charter schools broadly, where we have taken them very seriously,” Chao said.
But he says it’s too soon to talk about possible sanctions.
“I think at this point, it’s still premature to put out there any specific potential sanctions or interventions that might be put in place by the school district. It really, truly is too early to tell.”
Franklin Towne spokesman Ken Kilpatrick says the school is planning to hire an outside firm to handle future enrollment lotteries.
“We’re looking at several reputable agencies — external agencies — that manage lotteries for charter schools,” Kilpatrick said.
Current Franklin Towne CEO Brianna O’Donnell, in a statement, said the school has also hired a firm to do its own investigation into the charter’s enrollment process.
“There’s an outside independent group that’s doing an investigation. We do not yet have the results of that investigation yet,” O’Donnell said. “It’s still active and ongoing.”
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