Planet Abacus Charter
School is ready for students

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

Officials at Planet Abacus plan to notify parents whose children have been accepted into the charter school this week.
The school is moving into the vacant building of the former St. Leo School at 6649 Tulip St. At first, the school will house only kindergarten through fifth-grade classes, but officials plan to expand to accommodate students in sixth through eighth grade beginning next year. The curriculum will focus on math, science and technology.
Chief Executive Officer Joan Chalker could not say as the Times went to press what area of the Northeast the bulk of the students will come from. School officials originally said they would give preference to students from nearby Hamilton Disston School, which houses almost 1,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
"We’re still going through the process," Chalker said.
Parents have expressed interest in enrolling their children in the charter school. They say that local public schools are overcrowded and that the cost of Catholic education has grown too expensive.
Meanwhile, other residents are annoyed that St. Leo’s parish never included them in a discussion to lease the building to the charter school. The Catholic school closed in 2005 because of low enrollment. Church officials and local groups have been using the building only for meeting space.
The School Reform Commission originally approved Planet Abacus for its charter in early 2006. The school was to be located in either Southwest Philadelphia or Northern Liberties.
A brief controversy ensued after the school’s founder, June Brown, who had served on the 11-member panel that reviewed the charter school submissions, voted down an application for Northern Liberties Charter School, whose charter had also been denied the year before. That school’s organizers accused the school district of being political in rejecting their application but favoring Brown’s and called on city and state officials to investigate the process by which new charter schools are approved. NLCS did not reapply this year.
The commission later delayed the opening of Abacus and six other new charter schools for financial reasons. In April, the SRC approved five-year extensions for Abacus and 12 other charter schools that were up for renewal.
Brown also operates the Ad Prima Charter School in West Philadelphia and the Laboratory Charter School, which has campuses in Northern Liberties and West Philadelphia. The offices for all schools, including Planet Abacus, are located in Bala-Cynwyd.
For more information on Planet Abacus, call 610-617-9121 and press 7. ••
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com