Hatboro-Horsham Rejects Good Earth Charter Application

HORSHAM, PA -- Hatboro-Horsham’s school board has unanimously rejected the application of Good Earth Charter School.

Good Earth Charter was hoping to open a Waldorf-Methods School in the district.

According to The Intelligencer, district solicitor John T. Dooley compiled a list of problems with Good Earth’s application before the board vote:

• Failure to demonstrate they’ll be nonsectarian in all operations
• Failure to demonstrate a comprehensive learning experience for students
• Failure to identify a suitable physical facility where the school would be located
• Failure to provide an adequate curriculum
• Failure to provide a contract with a business firm
• Failure to submit sufficient evidence of suitable funding
• Failure to demonstrate sustainable support of the charter school by teachers, parents other community members and students

Board members said the decision was reached after months of careful review and inspection, the report states.

The board added that they contacted a professor of religious studies, Dr. Candy Brown, to help evaluate the Good Earth curriculum, and found that it included religious lessons, something not allowed in public schools.

Good Earth said in a statement that they “vehemently” disagreed with the ruling and implications made in the school board hearing, especially those by Brown.

They said that the determination that Good Earth is sectarian was based entirely on the published work of the Waldorf founder, Rudolph Steiner, who wrote in the early 20th century. Those writings, Good Earth maintains, do not uniformly inform Good Earth’s mission or curriculum.

“Dr. Brown opined that because Rudolph Steiner held certain religious beliefs, that a charter school seeking to employ some of Mr. Steiner’s educational methods must also be religious in nature,” Logan Renard-Randazzo, one of the founders of Good Earth Charter School, said in the statement. “This is truly not the case. Had Dr. Brown observed the operations of any of the 60 Waldorf-inspired public schools across the nation, perhaps her opinion would be different.”

Good Earth said they would appeal the decision.

The school is a K-8 school that seeks to inspire children based on exercises that spark their imagination. The cirriculum is arts-based and is rich in the humanities, arts, sciences, history, and culture.

View the charter application here.