Charter parents bumped from Web site

For the parents at the Cambridge Lakes Charter School, the third time was not a charm.

Last week, the third Web site set up by Cambridge Lakes parents to discuss issues and concerns at the Pingree Grove school was shut down.

The online forums have served as a way for parents and teachers at the school to share information and coordinate their efforts.

Destiny Lewis, a Texas teacher and a friend of a charter school parent, launched a third forum last week after two previous sites had been shut down.

A day after Lewis announced the new forum, the chief executive officer of Forumer.com, the free site that hosted the forum, told Lewis to find another host.

"Unfortunately we cannot host any forum which holds unauthorized conversations about Cambridge Lakes Charter School or 'Coyote code' etc.," wrote Limez, the username of Forumer's anonymous CEO.

"Please find some other paid host, so that your content is under less restriction. Forumer cannot be held liable for content posted by our users."

It is not clear why the forum was shut down.

The site does not appear to have violated any of Forumer's terms of use. But the user agreement states, "Forumer has the right to cancel any of its services without prior notice."

Lewis said her forum was shut down after someone posted the Coyote Code, the charter school's student and parent handbook.

"It had been stolen from our site and it was a copywritten document which they had no permission to take or to post," said Larry Fuhrer, executive director of the Northern Kane Educational Corp., the organization that runs the charter school.

Also, the contract that charter school parents signed when they enrolled their children in the school states they will "confine criticism and issues to private meetings."

"It would have been against the teaching and learning compact if it was negative and if they didn't contact us first," Fuhrer said.

But Fuhrer, who is also the chief executive officer and board chairman for Northern Kane, denied he or Northern Kane lodged any legal objections to the Cambridge Lakes forums.

"Northern Kane did not send anything to Forumer," Fuhrer said.

He also said students would not be punished for the actions of their parents.

"We would never, ever punish the kid for the actions of their stupid parent," Fuhrer said.

It is not clear who posted the handbook.

Forumer administrators did not respond to messages seeking comment.

While parents said they understood if Forumer took the site down after a threat of legal action, they also said Forumer's actions were irresponsible and overly severe.

"As a Web-hosting forum, I feel you are responsible to uphold our right to free speech," Lewis said. "They cannot tell us we can't talk about the school. That's insane."

But as soon as Forumer showed them the door, parents launched a new site: www.coyoteforum.com.

Kevin Thull, a Pingree Grove father whose children attend the charter school, started the site Friday using a paid hosting company, FutureQuest.net.

The new forum already had more than two dozen threads Monday.

But questions remain over why and how three previous forums were shut down.

"You're kind of left wondering what happened," Thrull said.

Fuhrer became Northern Kane's board chairman when two board members, including the chairman, resigned last month.

Teachers at the charter school are trying to unionize, but Northern Kane has filed objections to their efforts.