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Philadelphia Whistleblower Sues Over Charter School Firing
A former administrator at the West Oak Lane Charter School sued the school yesterday, alleging she was fired after complaining that the school was giving students answers to questions on state achievement tests.
Jean McKay contends in the complaint that she abruptly lost her $50,000-a-year job in March, three days after she called the Philadelphia School District to allege misconduct involving the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment at the kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school.
The suit includes allegations that the school supplied students with test answers, provided lax security for the state-mandated exams, and gave at least one student a test sheet with some of the answer circles already filled in.
The charter school was founded in 1998 by a group including State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), who had no comment yesterday about the suit. State PSSA scores show the school's students have often struggled, generally performing below the school district's averages.
The civil suit, seeking more than $50,000 in damages, was filed by the Pennsylvania State Education Association on McKay's behalf in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.
"Administrators at West Oak Lane fired Jean McKay because she reported misconduct and cheating during the administration of the student PSSA examinations," said A. Martin Herring, an attorney who filed the suit. "In doing so, the school violated the state's whistle-blower law."
State law bars reprisals against public employees who report wrongdoing.
Although charters are independently run schools exempt from some state educational statutes, they are funded by taxpayers to provide alternatives traditional public schools.
The Philadelphia School District oversees the charters it approved under the state's 1997 Charter School Law. West Oak Lane, among the first to open, emerged as one of the city's leading charters. It was visited recently by U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige.
This school year, 612 children attend the school, on Stenton Avenue. Test scores in the 2002-03 school year showed that only 6 percent of the fifth graders were advanced or proficient in math, while 18 percent scored in that range for reading, according to state results released last month. Seventy-four percent of the fifth graders scored below basic in math; 48 percent were below basic in reading.
"The school and its legal staff are reviewing the suit," said Kim Turner, a spokeswoman for Evans. "He has no additional comment."
Natalie Habert, one of the attorneys representing the charter, said West Oak Lane's board had directed her to investigate allegations of PSSA cheating after the state Department of Education told the school in the spring that it had received cheating complaints - without naming the source - that implicated several administrators.
Habert said she had "not seen anything that would support" McKay's assertion that she had been fired for reporting allegations of testing irregularities. Habert also said that, so far, she had not found any substantiation for the allegations of wrongdoing by West Oak Lane administrators. The complete report will be presented to the charter's board next month, she said.
McKay was a veteran teacher in the William Penn School District in Delaware County when West Oak Lane hired her in August 2002. She is represented by the Pennsylvania State Education Association because she maintained her membership after joining the charter school. She declined to comment yesterday.
According to the suit, McKay was hired to teach fifth grade but almost immediately was named professional developer and given responsibility for providing training for teachers. She also was involved in testing and attended a PSSA workshop.
On March 25, McKay was monitoring a third-grade class that was taking the PSSAs, the suit contends. Another administrator entered the room and told the students to stop their work and check their answers. That administrator also reportedly entered another class, where she pointed to students' answers, shook her head, and gave assistance, prompting some students to change their answers, McKay said. The administrator also taught a lesson on telling time during a break in the testing.
The suit also contends that, unlike the strict practices used when West Oak Lane gave students the district's TerraNova standardized tests, the charter failed to take proper security measures with the PSSAs. Test booklets and answer sheets were not locked up.
When she expressed her concerns, McKay contends in the suit, administrators overrode her objections and ordered her to hand over boxes of completed exams to the janitor. McKay called a testing official at the school district.
On March 27, McKay learned that two tests that were scheduled to be given during a makeup session were missing, the suit alleges. The next day, when McKay gave makeup exams to students who had missed the original testing, a student complained that some of the circles on her answer sheet had already been marked.
The suit contends that later that day, Margaret Kenney, the school's chief administrative officer, told McKay that she was being fired because she had failed to order TerraNova tests in October for the kindergarten class. McKay notes that no tests for kindergartners were scheduled in October.
The suit contends that McKay was immediately escorted out of the building, and that when she returned to retrieve her personal belongings, "all her files, documentation and personal notes regarding the testing process were missing."
Alice Heller, director of the school district's charter schools office, would not comment except to say the state Department of Education is investigating because the case involves state tests.
Wythe Keever, a spokesman for the teachers' association, said the case was unusual.
"Our legal division has on other occasions represented members in cases involving violation of the Whistle-blower Law," he said, "but no one can recollect one involving allegations of improprieties or cheating on the PSSAs."
— Martha Woodall
Suit alleges school gave answers to state tests
Philadelphia Inquirer
2003-08-18
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