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Jodie Salansky, a Luzerne County 4-H member, receives top honors at All-American Dairy Show

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Kenneth Osiecki joins Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company

BEAR CREEK TWP. &#8212; The Bear Creek Community Charter School has voted to withdraw from participation in the lawsuit between the PA Coalition of Charter Schools and the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).Charter schools began the legal action after the PDE decided in 2015 it would no longer help charter schools recoup money owed from sending schools by redirecting state reimbursements. Charter schools are funded with tuition paid by a student&#8217;s home school district because the district is responsible for educating the student.Prior to the 2014-15 school year, when a school district was in arrears on its tuition payments to a charter school at the end of the school year, the PDE would pay the past due amount out of the subsidy paid to the sending school. In 2014-15, PDE stopped this reconciliation process, leaving a number of state charter schools short of funds. The lawsuit was begun to force PDE to resume the process.At a meeting Thursday, the Bear Creek school board of trustees voted to discontinue participation in the lawsuit. School CEO Jim Smith said the school no longer has reason to bear the cost and time burden of pursuing the suit because all its sending schools are up to date on payments. Smith added the legislation was recently enacted as part of the state budget process to require PDE to redirect funds to cover missed payments.Smith said other schools will continue the suit because they are still owed money for the years PDE was not redirecting funds. The schools that send students to Bear Creek Charter all made their payments after they were informed PDE would not reconcile past payments, Smith said.The Wilkes-Barre Area School District sends the largest number of students to the Bear Creek charter school. Smith also updated the board on a meeting he had earlier in the week with that district&#8217;s new superintendent, Brian Costello. Smith termed the meeting &#8220;lengthy, positive and productive,&#8221; and said the two talked about ways to foster collaboration between the charter school and the public school district going forward.&#8220;There are a lot of good things happening in Bear Creek and a lot of good things happening in Wilkes-Barre Area, too,&#8221; Smith said. &#8220;They just don&#8217;t all get in the news.&#8221;In other business, the board approved the 2015-16 Charter Annual Report and the new job profile for the position of facilities manager.While the board of trustees meeting was going on, more than 300 people were on the school grounds for a special Bear Creek Night entitled &#8220;Fall in Love with Learning.&#8221; Student and parent participants enjoyed a number of educational activities as well as a campfire with storytelling and a pumpkin decorating contest.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>Janine UngvarskyFor Times Leader</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach the Times Leader newsroom at 570-829-7242 or on Twitter @TLnews.</shirttailMeta></div>

Bear Creek Community Charter School withdraws from participation in lawsuit