Schools

Residents Concerned Over Charter School's Mailings

Several readers are reporting a potential bias in Young Scholars' applications process.

"There is (sic) no criteria. We cannot do that, because this is a public school."

Those were the words of Melih Demirkan, a board member, when he spoke during .

"(Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania) will be for primarily Baldwin-Whitehall students,” Demirkan also said in March, noting that the tuition-free public charter school would only enroll students from outside of the if it could not fill its classrooms with exclusively B-W students.

Find out what's happening in Baldwin-Whitehallwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

He also said that, other than a student being a Baldwin-Whitehall resident, students would not be given preference for selection.

Young Scholars is accepting admissions applications on its website from all eligible parents and is listing open house sessions.

Find out what's happening in Baldwin-Whitehallwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

However, several readers have sent the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch news tips claiming that mailings from Young Scholars to their homes over the past few weeks may show a bias toward potential applicants. Readers are claiming that they have received mailings inviting them to apply for their children to enroll at Young Scholars even though some of their neighbors with eligible children have not received them.

The concern is if Young Scholars is targeting specific students given that receiving an invitation to apply to the school through the mail is a more direct method of communication than a posted application on the school's website.

(You can view Young Scholars' mailing as a PDF below the photo gallery toward the top of this page. Those documents are also available on the school's website.)

Young Scholars will open this coming fall in with plans to enroll 20 students per grade level in kindergarten through fifth grade (120 total students).

Part of the aforementioned mailing reads, "As a public open-enrollment charter school system, YSWPCS welcomes all students who meet state age and health requirements. YSWPCS is an open-enrollment charter school. Students who will attend K thru 5th grades for the next school year from all districts can apply for enrollment."

"Students will have to apply," Demirkan said in March. "If there are more than 120 applications (for this coming fall), then there will be a lottery process ...

"Any student who is enrolled in any school district in the greater Pittsburgh area can apply."

Christina Gruber, a resident with a daughter entering third grade in 2011-12, said that she has received application materials from Young Scholars through the mail but that some other residents on her street that also have eligible children have not.

Megan Winowich, a resident with a son entering third grade and a daughter entering fifth grade, said that she has not received any materials from Young Scholars either.

Despite Gruber and Winowich's claim that some eligible Baldwin-Whitehall residents have not received Young Scholars' mailings, some readers from outside of Baldwin-Whitehall have informed the B-W Patch that they have.

For example, Krissy Rothaus, a resident with a son set to enter fourth grade in the , said that she indeed has received application materials from Young Scholars through the mail.

Young Scholars will be funded by taxpayers from the school district(s) that it gets its students from.

Baldwin-Whitehall School District Superintendent Dr. Lawrence C. Korchnak told attendants at that Young Scholars planned on submitting its list of accepted students to the B-W school district on April 15 but is now pushing that date back to May 15.

Korchnak said that he anticipated 30 students in his proposed 2011-12 B-W school district budget leaving his district's schools to attend Young Scholars, but if that number ends up being higher, he would have to adjust district spending some way to offset that.

If less than 30 B-W students attend Young Scholars, he would then have more money to spend on other district business.

Young Scholars did not return a phone message from the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch asking for comment about its applications process as of 5:37 p.m. on April 13.


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