To some, ice skating class gives too warm a welcome

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http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-4skati...0,1646411.story

By Steve Esack | Of The Morning Call

January 25, 2009

On the banks of the Lehigh River in south Bethlehem is a public school classroom that may be unlike any other in America.

It is on ice.

Every weekday at the Steel Ice Center, students from the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts spend two hours working on turns, jumps and spins as music pumps through the speakers.

''We are the only public high school in the United States that provides figure skating,'' said Superintendent Tom Lubben, who founded the school.

But finding enough skaters to fill the taxpayer-funded program has been harder than landing a triple axel.

Today, more than five years after the Bethlehem school opened, just 17 of its 420 students are enrolled in figure skating.

To reach that number, Lubben and skating director Bill Fitzpatrick acknowledge they have altered audition standards and shifted students into the skating program after they failed auditions for increasingly competitive spots in the school's dance, theater, music and visual arts programs.

Now a growing number of people, including a former skater and her father and former board members, are questioning whether the skating program is the best use of the $135,536 the school gets from the skaters' home school districts.

''It's horrible and it's a total waste of taxpayer money,'' said Wendy Cole of Hellertown, a founding member of the school who fought against the skating program in 2005 before resigning her seat in protest.

At the very least, critics say, the practice of admitting students with limited skating skills could violate the school's mission of providing a comprehensive education program ''for students with proven, exceptional talents.''

''It diminishes the standards of the rest of the programs and that's a slippery slope you get into,'' said state Rep. Karen Beyer, R-Lehigh, who has a ninth-grade daughter in the school's visual arts program.

Lubben and Fitzpatrick admit to allowing students who have little more than recreational skating skills to join the program. ''That's absolutely true,'' Lubben said.

But they defended the practice, saying there's more to skating than the ability to execute a camel spin or spiral.

''I'm looking for what we call the 'passion,''' said Fitzpatrick, a judge for the U.S. Figure Skating Association who has worked at local, state, national and world levels.

Three years ago, Lubben apparently was looking for more. In a 2005 article on the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools Web site, he wrote: ''The program is not designed for beginners, but for students who have established a strong track record in figure skating.''

Lubben and Fitzpatrick said they aren't bothered by the program's low enrollment, and envision it growing to 40 students. They feel so strongly about the program's merits that they hope to franchise it to charter schools in other states.

For students who want to be a part of the program but can't afford skates, Fitzpatrick provides them at no cost through the nonprofit Figure Skating Foundation Inc., which he runs.

''We are providing a service,'' Lubben said. ''If a hockey player wants to come and learnÂ…we will welcome him with open arms.''

Lubben was particularly interested in getting skating listed in the school's 2002 charter. He credits skating instruction with helping his daughter overcome a learning disability and go on to skate professionally.

Andy Swantak, board president from 2003 to 2006, helped launch the skating program but said he did not know standards had changed. Swantak said skating was supposed to operate like the school's other programs, with students expected to demonstrate ''proven ability'' before a three-judge panel before being accepted.

In figure skating, athletes prove their ability by passing a series of skills tests sanctioned by the U.S. Figure Skating Association. Skaters work their way up nine test levels from beginner to the Olympic-caliber senior level.

Swantak has a son who is a competitive figure skater and attends Moravian Academy, so he is familiar with the sport. He said by the time they reach high school, most serious skaters have at least attained the ''pre-preliminary'' level, which requires freestyle skaters to perform four types of jumps and a three-revolution spin.

He believes pre-preliminary, the next step up from beginner, should be the school's minimum standard of acceptance into the charter school.

''You couldn't audition as a dancer and if you didn't make it say, 'I'll throw on some skates,''' Swantak said.

Funding questioned

When the charter school opened in 2003 at 675 E. Broad St. in Bethlehem, it had 298 students, three of whom were skaters. Board minutes show the students had a curriculum tailored to their ''specific and current level of skating.'' Each was allowed to work with a private coach during school ice time provided that the skater's parents paid the coaching fee.

Two months after the school opened, Swantak led a board movement to halt new skating admissions because he felt the program lacked structure, board minutes show.

Fitzpatrick, who has judged skating competitions and skills tests, was hired for $2,000 in September 2004 to recommend improvements. A month later, he and Lubben presented a curriculum that graded skaters on effort and initiative, skating skills and performance.

Apparently satisfied, the board voted in April 2005 to expand the program for the 2005-06 school year. It hired Fitzpatrick, who has a bachelor's degree in political science from Moravian College and experience as an office manager and Bethlehem Steel salesman, as the full-time director for $22,000. His salary is now $44,000.

The board also agreed to hire an instructor of theater on ice. It budgeted $20,000 for ice time and $10,000 for a small bus to ferry students from the school to the Steel Ice rink on E. First Street. (Today, the program also funds five part-time positions: two skating coaches, an off-ice ballet instructor, fitness trainer and an off-ice drama teacher.)

Cole said she couldn't believe what her fellow board members were doing. At the time, the school was operating with a $65,000 deficit, budget documents show.

''I was so angry,'' said Cole, who cast a ''no'' vote. ''We didn't have books for those kids, we didn't have necessities for teachers. We didn't have anything done and they wanted to start a new program.''

Soon after, Cole resigned. But she continues to question the program's cost to taxpayers.

''I'm sorry but I don't think a student who is in high school needs a personal [fitness] trainer,'' Cole said. ''It's privileging the privileged.''

Under state law, public school districts are required to help fund sanctioned charter schools by turning over their per-pupil state subsidy. They are paying about $8,471 for regular students and $17,568 for special education students to attend the performing arts high school.

For the current school year, 39 public school districts -- including Allentown, Bethlehem and Jim Thorpe -- are collectively paying $135,536 for the school's 16 in-state skating students. (A student from New York pays out-of-state costs.) Salaries, rink rental and other fees cost the performing arts school $104,568, records show, leaving less than $2,000 per student to cover the costs of teaching them math, history, science and English.

Bethlehem Area School Superintendent Joseph Lewis said the charter school does good work, providing a strong foundation in the performing arts that regular schools cannot afford. But he questioned whether the skating program is a justified expense if it doesn't have strong enrollment.

Likewise, Jonah Liebert, assistant director of the nonpartisan National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University, said successful charter schools offer programs that parents want the most.

''You have a limited budget, so it's a waste of resources if you don't have the market,'' he said.

Ability vs. access

In 2005, Kristina Ferrara of East Rockhill Township auditioned for the performing arts school's skating program. A freshman, she had been skating since age 10 and was at the preliminary level, the third rank.

Ferrara said the program experienced growing pains, but she enjoyed it her first two years. Things changed in her junior year. She said the school allowed four students who failed the dance audition to join the skating program even though they had no apparent skills.

''They were letting in anybody and these were people who didn't have their own skates,'' said Ferrara, who is now a senior at Pennridge High School and is no longer skating competitively because of an injury. ''That's one of the reasons I left.''

Lubben and Fitzpatrick . said the students that were admitted had some ability to skate and they passed skating auditions.

''That's absolutely true,'' Lubben said. ''However, we cannot really, as a charter school, deny access if we have space.''

But shifting students into the skating program appears to run counter to the school's bylaws.

In the school's 2008 annual report to the state Department of Education, its bylaws state that students who fail auditions for their artistic major must be placed on waiting lists and allowed into the school ''in the event of an opening at that grade and major level.''

Swantak said Lubben and Fitzpatrick have created a dual enrollment process. While other programs have high standards of admissions and three judges at auditions, Fitzpatrick is the sole judge of who gets into the skating program.

''It just doesn't cut the grade,'' said Swantak.

Fitzpatrick defended his audition process. He conceded he is the only judge at the auditions, but said he is qualified to assess a skater's talents after 22 years in the sport, including a stint as chief referee at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship in Philadelphia in 1998 that featured Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski.

''What I do in all cases is craft curriculum based on a skaters' goals and skills sets,'' he said. ''Some are in the more beginning level and some are more advanced.''

Paul Ferrara, Kristina's father, and Janet Tremor, her private coach, said the performing arts school's program was compromised by the admission of unskilled students. The more advanced students were required to take basic skills lessons with the unskilled students, reducing the time they had to work on tougher skills, said Tremor, who worked with Kristina Ferrara during school hours.

Junior Kristen Loerch, one of the program's advanced skaters, said she enjoys the camaraderie the different levels of skaters bring to the program.

''There are some kids at the beginning level, but they usually have some ability,'' said Loerch, 16, of Allentown, who has been skating half her life. ''It's about dedication, and Bill Fitzpatrick supports everybody.''

Her father, Bob Loerch, agrees. ''This has been a good course for her. I have no complaints,'' he said.

Lubben and Fitzpatrick said they have no plans to change the skating enrollment policy. They have the backing of at least one board member.

Leonard Perrett, who heads the board's curriculum committee, said he didn't know Lubben and Fitzpatrick were admitting students to the skating program after they had failed auditions in dance.

But he said each artistic area in the school has students of different levels. The school's goal, he said, is not to train Olympic champions or Oscar winners.

''Not everyone is Michelangelo,'' he said. ''If a person has the desire to skate and all they can do is go across the ice on skates, we hope by the end of four years they progress.''