Stephen Catanzarite said organizers of the proposed Baden Academy Charter School "don't feel deterred at all" by the harsh review of their plans by Ambridge Area School District administrators Monday.

He said he has also long expected the Ambridge school board, which was scheduled to vote last night, to deny the charter school's application.

What Mr. Catanzarite -- executive director of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School and the leader of the Baden charter school effort -- said he did find disappointing was the lack of communication with the district.

"A lot of the things they brought up are things we have addressed or could easily address, but they've never asked us," he said.

The charter school, which would be housed in the former Mt. Gallitzin Academy, could be approved by a state appeals board, or the application could be revised and resubmitted. Mr. Catanzarite said the committee overseeing the school's application would look at Ambridge's written comments before deciding on a course of action.

The school is proposing to open with 4-year-old and 5-year-old kindergarten and grades 1-4, expanding by one grade a year until it goes through eighth grade. It is designed to use the arts to help teach the entire curriculum, blending them into all subject areas.

At a special meeting of the Ambridge board Monday, Joe Pasquerilla, director of curriculum and instruction, and Travis Mineard, director of special education, took turns critiquing the charter school plans.

They said the plans lacked details on curriculum, did not list textbooks and lacked specifics on how the school would test and measure goals. They also said the plans lacked detail on how the arts would be blended into other subject matters, and lacked detail on handling special education and children with learning disabilities.

"For special education, all they propose is a full inclusion program," Mr. Mineard said, with no provision for pull-out programs or any details on assistance.

Mr. Mineard also said the school's budget does not include a nurse, secretaries, support staff, food service or the advertised trainer/nutritionist, and the plans offer no specifics on the structure of the school's board of directors.

Dr. Pasquerilla said he didn't see anything in the charter school's curriculum that was not already covered by Ambridge. "There's a lot of repetition -- or lack thereof, to be honest," he said. "I don't see them offering anything we don't."

Other questions centered on the building, an older structure that also houses the living quarters of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The school would be on three floors, with only one bathroom on each floor, no elevator and sprinklers only on the second floor.

"We have some serious safety concerns," Mr. Mineard said.

Both men also wondered how the school would offer art, music and physical education without using the activity room which was part of Mt. Gallitzin. Without that space, which was not on the list provided by the charter school, all activities would have to be held in regular classrooms.

Finally, both men questioned the lack of separation between the functions of the sisterhouse and the functions of the school -- as it is currently organized, people pass through school areas regularly on sisterhouse business.

Mr. Catanzarite said the architectural firm Hays & Large is assessing what needs to be done to bring the building up to code, and that the only reason the activities room was not listed is that it's not clear whether needed work there can get done in time.

"We do plan to rent it, but to have it ready with the access problems it has will be some work, and we didn't want to promise it for the fall," he said.

Mr. Catanzarite also said that Ambridge administrators are downplaying the unique nature of the arts-based curriculum.

"They keep comparing arts programs," he said. "They've never addressed the idea that we're teaching core curriculum through the arts."

And he said that in general, the school's organizers are addressing issues and moving forward.

"You don't start a school without being committed to a long-term process," he said. "We're going to get it done, and we're going to get it done right."

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