SHENANGO VALLEY

A Sharon man has lost his two-year struggle to start a charter school in the Shenango Valley.

Commonwealth Court on Monday upheld a decision by a state appeals board denying Joseph A. Dyll’s application to begin the Shenango Valley Regional Charter School.

Mark Longietti, former Sharon school board solicitor, said the unanimous decision favored the local school districts and "vindicated the ruling of the school boards." He said it proves the charter school application had "serious flaws" as the boards originally thought.

"I feel sadness," Dyll said.

He said he can "recount countless stories of parents’ grief" who wanted the charter school. He said "nearly 5 percent of the entire adult population of Mercer County," or 1,000 people, signed a petition in support of the school. Dyll said apparently that isn’t taken into consideration by the courts.

Charter schools are independently run schools, usually organized around a theme and funded with public tax dollars, yet exempt from some state regulations. Charter schools are, by law, supposed to offer something to students the public schools cannot.

Dyll said he is not planning on appealing the latest decision before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Dyll said he is uncertain if he will try to start a new charter school elsewhere. He said he would have to find people to volunteer to serve on a board.

Sharon City, Hermitage and Farrell school districts denied Dyll’s request to approve a charter school in February 1999. The districts denied the charter school application for a variety of reasons including school financing, administrative roles, salaries and school buildings that were not handicapped accessible.

The school would have been housed in Dyll’s home -- Sharon’s Stevenson mansion -- and possibly the former Curtis Elementary School in Brookfield. It would have served students in kindergarten through fourth-grade.