The Gillingham Board of Trustees voted unanimously to terminate the contract of Devin Rushanan on Thursday night.
Rushanan was the athletic director and a middle school history teacher at the charter school and is the son of the board's president, Mary Rushanan.
Mary Rushanan was not present at the meeting Thursday and when called after, she said she had no comment.
Devin Rushanan could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
When the topic was brought up at the meeting, Lori Quinn, vice president of Gillingham's board of trustees and director of public relations and marketing, appeared to have a hard time calling for the motion, which also brought tears to the eyes of some of those in the audience.
There were about eight parents and teachers in attendance.
Solicitor Mark G. Morford of Latsha, Davis, Yohe & McKenna, Exton, Chester County, said the board had no further comment.
In other business, the board responded to comments made by the Pottsville Area school board at its March meeting Wednesday.
Pottsville Area School District Superintendent Jeffrey S. Zwiebel said Wednesday that while the district previously used state subsidy to send a child to charter or cyber charter school, the state gave the district a bit of reimbursement and with the district's having been giving more and more state subsidy to send children to charter school recently, the state stopped giving such reimbursement two years ago.
In a roll call vote, the Gillingham board decided to send a letter to lawmakers in Harrisburg to do something about it and board President John F. Boran said they were "calling for reform of the commonwealth's charter and cyber charter school funding formula."
Reading from the letter, Boran had also said that "now 100 percent of the burden of charter school tuition falls to local taxpayers."
In the 2012-13 school year, the Pottsville Area School District paid $7,545 in state subsidy per elementary student in grades kindergarten to 6; and $8,386 per secondary student in grades 7 to 12, according to newspaper archives, and Zwiebel had said that the district must also pay the same subsidy for each student who enrolls in charter school.
Zwiebel did not know how many charter school students were part of the Pottsville Area School District, but knew how much was spent to educate them over the past few years:
- In the 2008-09 school year, there were $320,561.33 in charter school expenditures and the state reimbursement to the district was $60,107.01.
- In the 2009-10 school year, there were $577,901.80 in charter school expenditures and the state reimbursement to the district was $84,690.40.
- In the 2010-11 school year, there were $515,867.19 in charter school expenditures and the state reimbursement to the district was $119,723.77.
- In the 2011-12 school year, there were $1,714,430.23 in charter school expenditures, but there was no state reimbursement.
- In the 2012-13 school year, there was an estimated $1,600,000 in charter school expenditures, but there was no state reimbursement.
On Thursday night, Quinn said that there are 80 students at Gillingham that live in the Pottsville Area School District.
Fifty-five of them attended Pottsville Area, while the rest had previously attended other school such as those that started in kindergarten or were in private schools, cyber schools or were home schooled.
During the meeting, the board had a conversation with its business manager, Michael Whisman from Charter Choices, an independent educational consulting and advisory firm that offers back-office and administrative support to charter schools.
Whisman was on speakerphone to answer some questions to clarity the issues and statements the school district made.
Whisman said that Boran's statement about 100 percent of tuition for charter schools falling on local taxpayers is not correct and it's only about 80 percent, while the rest comes from federal and state funding.
He also said that charter schools, which are public, only receive a portion of a school district's per-pupil expenditures and that while the average cost to educate a regular education student in the Pottsville Area School District is about $10,200, Gillingham is only receiving $9,300 for each student.
After the meeting Thursday, Quinn said that they want taxpayers to know "that they're not on the hook for an extra $10,000 per student."
"It's not over and above what they normally would pay and Pottsville has had time to make the budgetary adjustments because they are educating less students," Quinn said. "They're educating 55 less students, so their budget would be reduced accordingly if they had done things the way they're supposed to do it. That's basically why we brought it up tonight."