YOUNGSTOWN Board: Charter school is illegal

The head of Lucas County ESC says it has the authority to approve charter schools anywhere in Ohio.
By RON COLE
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- City public school leaders want a judge to rule that a new charter school on the city's South Side was set up illegally.
The lawsuit filed by the board of education Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court asks Judge Robert Lisotto to order the state to stop funding Legacy Academy, which opened on Oak Hill Avenue in October.
The board names the school, the Lucas County Educational Service Center, the State Board of Education and the Ohio Department of Education as defendants in the lawsuit.
"At this particular time, the district is not taking on the whole charter school issue," Superintendent Ben McGee said this morning.
"We have a narrow focus on this and that is that that charter should not have been approved by Lucas County."
Background: Lucas County ESC is one of four entities in Ohio allowed to approve charter schools.
Charter schools are privately operated schools that do not charge tuition and receive about $5,500 in state funds for every student they enroll from the public school district in which they are located.
Youngstown has five charter schools: Four were approved by the state education department; Legacy Academy, located at Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church on Oak Hill Avenue, was approved by Lucas County ESC.
Although Lucas County ESC has approved about a dozen charter schools, Legacy is the first to be opened outside Lucas County, said Tom Baker, ESC superintendent.
Baker said the ESC has the authority to open charter schools outside Lucas County.
"We did it because we think we have legal grounds to do it," he added.
Basis for suit: The school board's lawsuit says Lucas County does not have that authority and asks the court to rule that the approval of Legacy Academy is illegal and to order that the approval be rescinded.The lawsuit also asks that the court bar further distribution of state funds to Legacy Academy and to order the state to give back to Youngstown all state funds improperly diverted to the academy and Lucas County ESC.
Bishop Norman L. Wagner, who leads Legacy Academy, said the school district's lawsuit misses the point of the academy and other charter schools.
"This isn't an issue of money, it's an issue of the destiny of the Youngstown children," he said.
"It's amazing that the school district would stop the funds to try to put 227 children in the streets."The school opened in October with pupils in kindergarten through the 10th grade in classrooms attached to the church building and in six adjacent modular classroom units.