Tax Money Still Flows to Charter School that has no building and no teachers

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-bethlehem-vitalistic-charter-school-20120901,0,6137437.story

This is the second case in which tax money continued to flow to a charter school after they had laid off all of their teachers.

Excerpts:

"The classrooms walls are stripped bare and the desks are gone. The modular buildings are on flatbeds waiting to be towed. Empty crates are piled in the main hallway ... This is all that's left of Vitalistic Therapeutic Charter School of the Lehigh Valley at 902 Fourth Ave. in Bethlehem. The 13 faculty members and six administrators who survived previous layoffs were forced to vacate Monday after a Vitalistic-affiliated board of trustees sold it to pay down the charter school's debt and end a monthly $17,000 contract it could not afford.

Where Vitalistic has gone is unknown to the Allentown and Bethlehem school districts, which have had joint oversight of the regional charter school since 2001. But while the school may not have a new known address for students, most of whom have emotional, behavioral or physical disabilities, there is one thing it does have: Tax money

Under the 1997 charter school law, Vitalistic is entitled to receive local and state tax dollars as long as it has students on its enrollment books, and it does..

Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that a cyberschool, Frontier Virtual Charter High in Philadelphia, had mounds of unpaid bills and laid off its principal and all full-time teachers. But it still got $435,000 in the 2011-12 school year for students who never left despite not having teachers.".