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Gardiner, the charter school’s founder, was CEO through the 2005-06 academic year. But during the ensuing summer vacation, he stepped down. The Philadelphia Academy board of trustees selected Gardiner’s close ally, O’Shea, a former city policeman with a high school diploma, to replace him. O’Shea essentially became the guy in charge of the school’s two campuses at 1700 Tomlinson Road and 11000 Roosevelt Blvd.
Now, with Philadelphia Academy Charter the focus of investigations of its financial practices and hiring policies, Sperling has the task of directing the school’s mission of educating kids.
In retrospect, Sperling now feels that perhaps it wasn’t just friendship or professional respect that prompted Gardiner to hire him two and a half years ago. Gardiner, a former public school principal in the city, likely recognized the glaring need for a legitimate educator in Philadelphia Academy’s senior administration.
The charter school has that legitimacy now as Sperling, 55, embarks on his first summer as its CEO. O’Shea and Gardiner recently were deposed from their roles with Philadelphia Academy in the midst of a School District of Philadelphia investigation into their alleged misuse of school funds and conflicts of interest in school-controlled contracts, along with alleged nepotism in their hiring practices.
The board of trustees, formerly led by president Rose DiLacqua, is being dismantled to pave the way for new membership.
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Philadelphia Academy serves about 1,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and receives public funding via the school district on a per-student basis.
According to Sperling, despite the negative publicity and upheaval surrounding the scandal — which included questions about salaries for O’Shea and Gardiner in excess of $200,000 each — interest in the school among prospective students and teachers remains at an all-time high.
Though the reform process remains in its infancy, the CEO is confident that Philadelphia Academy will survive and thrive as one of the city’s top-performing charter schools.
"I am extremely optimistic," Sperling said during an interview last week. "Once I can get the school year closed, policies developed, our staff in place and our academic policies in place, I think within two years we’re going to be the best charter school in the city."
The school already has a big head start in that direction despite its recent administrative problems. In the last year and a half, Sperling notes, attendance has improved "dramatically," standardized test scores have shown "gradual" improvement and the school received its certification from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
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The performance of Philadelphia Academy’s students and the quality of its teachers were never subjected to doubt even as a steady stream of news reports spotlighted the high salaries collected by Gardiner — who was a consultant to the school after stepping down as CEO — O’Shea and members of O’Shea’s family.
"All of the articles (they) kept printing, they were all negative, but they kept touting our educational program," Sperling said of the media coverage.
He thinks that message hit home with the community; Philadelphia Academy has received between 300 and 400 student applications for the coming school year to fill about 186 slots. The grade school on Roosevelt Boulevard is slated for 66 new kindergarten students, while the high school on Tomlinson Road has room for 120 new freshmen.
The actual number of available spots is less than half that, however. Siblings of existing students have priority in the selection process and will claim much of the kindergarten allocation. At the high school level, about 70 of the graduating eighth-graders, plus some additional siblings, are expected to enroll in ninth grade.
Under charter school guidelines, available slots must be filled by a lottery.
Sperling has seen a similar influx of resumes from instructors hoping to fill teaching vacancies.
"It’s clear those people believe there’s something good going on here," he said.
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On June 18, the School Reform Commission ensured that there would be a "next year" for Philadelphia Academy when it conditionally approved a five-year renewal of the school’s charter.
Citing the school district’s ongoing investigation of the school and its former chief executives, the SRC in April had postponed renewing the charter. By law, charters come up for renewal by their host district every five years.
Many of the SRC’s 13 itemized renewal conditions involve the reconstitution and training of the board of trustees, as well as the school’s disassociation with Gardiner, O’Shea and their families.
Other requirements include the adoption of and adherence to code of ethics and conflict of interests policies, along with the hiring of new firms to serve as the school’s outside counsel, independent auditor and financial manager. Also, Sperling and the school’s other senior administrators will be subject to formal performance reviews after next school year.
The investigation into Gardiner and O’Shea continues. It is being conducted by the school district’s inspector general, who has not issued a final report to the SRC, according to a district spokeswoman. The investigator has declined public comment on the probe.
While O’Shea has no known association with the district, Gardiner is a signatory on at least two active contracts with the city’s public schools, said Barbara Farley, the district spokeswoman.
The contracts pre-date the Philadelphia Academy investigation. One is with the district’s Office of Specialized Services. Gardiner’s Philadelphia Academy Services firm supplies short- and long-term special-education services to youths at Friends Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard and other children on a case-by-case basis. The contract is set to expire on June 30.
Gardiner is further involved with a firm that provides services during the summer to children who have shown "regression" educationally or behaviorally. The contract is up at the end of this summer, Farley said.
In addition to the district’s investigation, federal authorities reportedly have taken up their own probe of Gardiner and O’Shea. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to confirm or deny those reports.
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Sperling, who stepped in as acting CEO in April and was affirmed as the permanent replacement to O’Shea last month, has his own agenda for the coming months.
"A lot has changed administratively, planning-wise," he said. "We’ve done new contracts with everybody. We’re non-union. What we’ve tried to do is look at each teacher’s salary, what their job is at the school, how long they’ve been at the school, and building some sort of pay scale."
Sperling wants to standardize pay for teaching assistants, clerical staff, counselors, psychologists, sports therapists, bus drivers and all of the other professionals who work for the school.
"We’re doing it for one year now, but we’re looking forward to next year when we want to do multi-year contracts for experienced teachers and build in bonuses or other incentives," he said.
The CEO plans to allow faculty to create a series of committees to address topics izzzncluding discipline, curriculum, school climate, peer mediation and admissions.
"My style has always been to empower the teachers," he said.
This summer, Sperling also plans to rewrite the core curriculum for all grades and help the grade school further develop its comprehensive technology program.
"When this business came up, a lot of what was going on here screeched to a halt," Sperling said. "We’re now down from eight administrators in two buildings to four."
Because of the nature of the business, it was neither practical nor feasible to fill the administrative voids before the end of the academic year. Sperling has no plans to fill two of the vacancies, however.
Instead of hiring a chief academic officer to replace himself, he has opted to appoint one principal for both schools. Coordinators in each building will report directly to the principal. Further, the position of chief operating officer will be eliminated.
A COO is suitable for growing schools that need more space and facilities, but Philadelphia Academy has no plans to get bigger, Sperling said. Rather, the emphasis now is on getting better.
"I truly believe that anything that’s been wrong here can be fixed," he said. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com