Eagle Ridge Academy

Eagle Ridge Academy was established after the closure of Brighton Collegiate High School (formerly Brighton Charter School) which was plagued by a series of sexual scandals involving teachers and students. Read about that HERE. 

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HIGH-FLYING EAGLE RIDGE GROUNDS SOME STUDENTS; STUDENT, PARENT ALLEGE ENROLLMENT NUMBERS, RACE PLAYS FACTOR; Brighton Standard Blade (CO) 29 Dec 2010

BRIGHTON — When Eagle Ridge Academy opened last fall, in place of the defunct Brighton Collegiate High School, the school’s new leadership promised a high-flying curriculum designed to give students a jumpstart on their college careers.

But the school’s new focus isn’t for everyone and at least one former student said he believes students of the former Brighton Collegiate are being pushed out to make room for new, smarter students.

“It’s like they are trying to get rid of us and get new kids to replace us,” sophomore Evin Cook said.

Cook, 16, said he was brought into the office of principal Brian Spinnato, shortly before students adjourned for winter break earlier this month and told he was “no longer a good fit for the school.”…

But [Evin’s mother Margaret Cook] said they were first informed, after the October enrollment count, that Evin wasn’t a good fit for the school and they should examine different options for him…

Spinnato said they expected there would be some difficulties in making the transition, especially for former Brighton Collegiate students, to the new curriculum.

While he was reluctant to comment specifically on Evin’s academic performance at the school, he said he understands some of Margaret and Evin’s frustration.

“I did tell her that the kids that were at Brighton Collegiate do have a rough transition,” he said. “It is tough and it is unfair that, halfway through the game, the rules changed. Unfortunately, it is the scenario that it is…

Cook further alleges there were racial undertones to the students who were spoken to about their academic futures before the holiday break. She said the majority of students were minorities, either Hispanic or African American, and based on their academic standards, Eagle Ridge will end up a “predominantly-white school.”

“They’re trying to have an all-white school over there,” she said.

Spinnato disputes that any of it was based on race. He pointed out that 45 percent of the school’s population meets the minority status and that only a small percentage of the school’s more than 200 students were presented with different options for their academic futures…

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Aventura City of Excellence School

FIRED CITY CHARTER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL CLAIMS HARASSMENT IN SUIT. Law.com 03 Apr 2008

A lawsuit filed by the fired principal of Aventura, Fla.'s city-owned charter school gives a peek into the soap operatic world of such institutions…

[Katherine Murphy] claims in the 45-page lawsuit filed March 7 that Aventura City Manager Eric Soroka sexually harassed her and fired her without cause because of her complaints about his behavior and his undue influence on operations at the school, which is ranked as one of the top K-8 schools in Florida…

Murphy was fired by Soroka as principal of Aventura City of Excellence School in December 2006. When asked why she was terminated after nearly four years of employment, Soroka told her only it was in his purview…

The lawsuit alleges Soroka spread rumors among parents and to news media that she was fired for taking kickbacks from parents and stealing from a school fund for activities.

Murphy also filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit last year shortly after she was fired, claiming she never got a hearing on her termination. She withdrew that litigation after it was moved to federal court.

At an unemployment compensation hearing, referee Gene L. Grimm found in favor of Murphy, saying the city cannot claim she was dismissed for misconduct: "The city manager accused the claimant of accepting money from the parents of a student admitted to the school. The accusation was not true."…

Besides Soroka and the city, Murphy is suing Charter Schools USA, which managed the school; Nicole Monroe, the school's registrar; Teresa Soroka, the wife of the city manager who serves as the city clerk; Jonathan Hage, CEO and owner of Charter Schools USA; and Elaine Adler, president of the Aventura Marketing Council.

Murphy was paid a salary of about $130,000 by Charter Schools USA and the city. Charter Schools USA is the largest provider of charter school management services in Florida…

Murphy helped build ACES, as the school is known, from the ground up, assisting in its design and curriculum. In 2006, the 900-student ACES was ranked by the state as the sixth best K-8 school in Florida…

It was not unusual for parents in affluent Aventura to try to use their influence or money to usurp the lottery or waiting list to get their children enrolled at ACES. Murphy said she had been offered as much as $100,000 to admit a student ahead of others.

Soroka acknowledged in his deposition that he investigated her for allowing a student ahead of others as well as for missing money.

"It came to my attention that Dr. Murphy had allowed not only one, but three other children, into the school without going through the lottery," he said in the deposition…

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Deborah Brown Community School

CHARTER SCHOOL SUED BY TEACHER. Tulsa World (OK) 24 Sept 2009 

A woman who quit her job to become a teacher at a new prekindergarten expansion program of the Deborah Brown Community School is suing the charter school for breach of contract after it abandoned plans for the program just days before its scheduled opening…

Bollinger's suit states "that the statements of the Defendants relating to the terms of employment were untrue at the time they were made," and that the false statements were "made with the intent to induce the Plaintiff to leave her previous job and enter into the employment agreement with the school."

Bollinger is seeking a monetary judgment plus punitive damages. Her suit names as defendants the charter school; its founder and director, Deborah Brown; and Harold Roberts, director of development and public affairs…

When the Tulsa World first reported that Deborah Brown Community School was abandoning its plan for the pre-K program after students had already enrolled and just days before the opening, Roberts denied that the prekindergarten program ever existed…

Two weeks later, the Tulsa World obtained documents through an open-records request showing that the school had a one-year, $25,000 lease on 2,091 square feet in two suites in a building at 5157 E. 51st St. and receipts from the city of Tulsa for occupancy permits to accommodate 40 students at the site.

At that time, Roberts and Bingham acknowledged that the school had, in fact, planned to open a new prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds but said the school needed 100 students to make the new program "economically viable" and that they had only 18.

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Vanguard Charter School Academy

NEW CHARTER SCHOOL FACES CRITICISM OF ITS CURRICULUM. Business Courier (Cincinnati, OH) 21 July 2003

Cincinnati's newest charter school will be managed by a national for-profit company that has faced lawsuits for allowing religious instruction and denying services to special education students.

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based National Heritage Academies will manage Alliance Academy in Evanston, which is renting the former St. Mark's Catholic School and will open in late August…

In 1998, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of parents who alleged that NHA was violating the separation of church and state at its Vanguard Charter Academy in Grand Rapids. The suit was dismissed in 2000 after the school put policies in place to prevent the types of actions alleged…

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ACLU OF MICHIGAN CHALLENGES CHARTER SCHOOL FOR CHURCH-STATE VIOLATIONS. ACLU news release 01 Apr 1999 

DETROIT -- Acting on behalf of five parents, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today challenged a Kent County charter school for violating the First Amendment's protections of separation of church and state.

Vanguard Charter School Academy sanctioned prayer in the school, allowed the distribution of religious materials during class, allowed a nearby church to use its facilities rent-free to conduct worship, conducted a mandatory staff retreat with distinct religious overtones and taught creationism as an accepted scientific theory, according to the amended complaint filed today in United States District Court.

Vanguard Charter School Academy teaches children from kindergarten through seventh grade. Like all other charter schools in Michigan, Vanguard is a public school and must follow Michigan's code for public school academies. It is managed by National Heritage Academy, one of the largest management companies in Michigan.

The ACLU is suing on behalf of five parents of students at the school…

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Imagine College Preparatory High School

STUDENT IS AWARDED $145,000 IN ALLEGED ASSAULT AT ST. LOUIS CHARTER SCHOOL- SETTLEMENT INVOLVES ALLEGATIONS AGAINST OFF-DUTY CITY COP. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 29 May 2010 

A student who was allegedly assaulted by an off-duty St. Louis police officer at a charter school was awarded $145,000 as part of the terms of a settlement disclosed Friday.

The settlement reached earlier this week between Imagine Academy of Careers, at 3740 Marine Avenue, and Barbara Perry stems from an incident on Feb. 26, 2009. The plaintiffs alleged that Perry's son, J.N., who was a minor and not named in the suit, was assaulted at Imagine College Preparatory High School by an off-duty police officer, Eugene Page, who was in a relationship with his teacher, Genesa Smith…

The settlement states that the payment absolves Imagine Schools and employees of Imagine of any wrongdoing but leaves the door open to future litigation against Eugene Page and the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners…

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SUIT CLAIMS STUDENT, 15, WAS ASSAULTED AT IMAGINE CHARTER SCHOOL. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 21 Aug 2009 

ST. LOUIS -- A federal lawsuit filed Friday alleges that a 15-year-old student at Imagine College Preparatory High School was beaten by staff and a St. Louis police officer.

Named in the suit are Genesa Smith, a teacher; Eugene Page, a St. Louis police officer who the suit said is Smith’s boyfriend; Rodney Williams, a security guard; Tamara Thomas, the charter school’s principal at the time; and the school itself.

The suit, filed by the boy and his mother, Barbara Perry, alleges Page lifted the boy by his throat and slammed him repeatedly against a wall on Feb. 26. The suit states that Page told the boy he had been accused of threatening a teacher, and that the other three knew what was happening but did nothing. The boy, now 16, suffered injuries that caused blood in his urine, as well as blunt force trauma, according to the suit…

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Richard Allen Schools-Salem Avenue campus

This school is one of five schools operated by Richard Allen Schools, currently under investigation by Ohio state auditors. Read about that HERE. 

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FORMER KINDERGARTEN TEACHER HELD ON SEX COUNT; Dayton Daily News (OH) 09 Jan 2007

KETTERING — Parents of children who attend the Salem Avenue campus of the Richard Allen Schools will be receiving a mailed letter soon that will address the charter school's response to Friday's arrest of a former kindergarten teacher on a sex-related charge.

Steven Keller, 30, of 5710 W. Coach Drive, was arraigned Monday in Municipal Court on one count of gross sexual imposition against a 7-year-old girl.

Keller, who resigned from the school during Christmas break from classes, taught kindergarten at the Edgemont campus from 2000 to 2005 before going to the Salem Avenue campus, according to Mike McCormick, superintendent of Richard Allen Schools…

Keller was arrested in his apartment, where police said the assault occurred when the girl was staying there with her parents' knowledge. Police also believe Keller met the girl's family through his profession and was considered to be a friend of her family, Torok said…

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Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy

This is an extensive article which is packed with information. Be sure to read the whole thing.

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CHARTER’SCONSERVATIVE BACKERS RAISE QUESTIONS. North Carolina Policy Watch 20 Apr 2011 

The Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, a public charter school in Rutherford County, is quick to promote the school’s high SAT test scores and international field trips to China, Europe and South America.

But not as widely advertised is the Western North Carolina public school’s connection to John Bryan, a retired Oregon business executive and significant funder of the conservative school choice movement.

Nor is the school’s annual diaper drive for a local anti-abortion religious group, an activity that an expert says violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.

Bryan’s $37 million family trust, the Challenge Foundation, contributes heavily and regularly to conservative causes like challenging global warming research and scaling back government in addition to lending its name to public schools like the Thomas Jefferson charter school.

He’s a national figure in libertarian circles when it comes to charter schools, and spoke last June about the push to expand charter schools at an annual retreat held by the billionaire Koch brothers, according to a copy of the retreat’s agenda obtained by the Center for American Progress…

Out-of-state organizations like Bryan’s Challenge Foundation stand to play bigger roles in North Carolina’s public education system with the state on the verge of lifting a 100-school cap on public charter schools. The contentious GOP-sponsored Senate Bill 8, which would give charters more access to education funding in addition to lifting the cap, is expected to land on Gov. Bev Perdue’s desk shortly. She’ll then have to decide if it will become law or be vetoed…

…If it passes, the state would allow up to 50 more charter schools to open each year and oversight of public charters would continue to be slim..

Some of the new slots will likely be filled by schools affiliated with philanthropist-backed groups like Bryan’s Team CFA (the charter school arm of the Challenge Foundation), for-profit companies like the National Heritage Academies (which already manage five charters in the state) and “virtual charters” similar to K12, Inc., a publicly-traded Virginia company paying a lobbyist this year to go to the N.C. General Assembly on its behalf…

The extent and influence of Bryan’s trust on the Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy and the three other Challenge Foundation Academy charter schools in North Carolina isn’t clear, with only limited tax records available in the public record to examine the connections.

But two members of the Challenge Foundation, Bryan’s daughter Cheryl Reinstadler and the foundation’s national school director Joan Lange, sit on the board of Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, flying in for meetings and make decisions with the eight other members of the board about the school’s curriculum and management, as well as the $7.6 million in public funds the school runs on…

Faunce, the school board member who worked at the school as a dean of students in its first years, says the charter school and TeamCFA have no political agenda that makes its way into classrooms…

That may not be the case, however.

An NC Policy Watch investigation found that the school’s activities include only one political club — a Young Republican’s Club – that has a mission to “shape the future of Republican politics in North Carolina by recruiting, engaging, training and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders,” according to the school’s website.

More contentious is the school’s annual diaper drive for a Hands of Hope for Life, a pro-life ministry in nearby Forest City that provides services to low-income women with children under the age of three and “has a general concern for sharing the love of Jesus Christ through both actions and words” by providing information about prenatal development, abortion and abstinence education.

Joel Medley, the acting director of the N.C. State Board of Education’s charter school office, said that because charter schools are independent non-profits, separate from the state education agency, there’s nothing to prevent the public schools from taking part in activities like a diaper drive that benefits religious anti-abortion groups.

But others feel differently, including Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State as well as an ordained minister with the Church of Christ.

“This is clearly an unconstitutional program,” Lynn said. “This charter school is connecting itself to a religious ministry.

“They can’t do things like that,” he said…

An often cited 2009 national study of standardized test results by Stanford University scholars, found that for every charter performing better than the traditional public schools in its area, there are two charters either at or below or the performance of their public school counterparts.

The study found things were slightly better in North Carolina where charter school students’ reading skills were higher overall than students in traditional schools, but that their math skills were significantly worse off than their peers in traditional schools. Black students in the state tested significantly below their peers in math, and there was no difference in reading, according to the Stanford report.

When it comes to racial makeup of charters, Duke professor Helen Ladd recently surveyed the state’s charter schools and found schools tended to be either primarily white or black. Out of the 99 charter schools in North Carolina, 37 had populations comprised of more than 80 percent white students while 26 schools have populations that are less than 20 percent white, she said.

The state Department of Public Instruction doesn’t keep track of the household income levels of charter school students, something it does track for traditional public students…

Giving rise to tension in the larger community about charters was a lawsuit filed in 2009 by Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy against the Rutherford County School System seeking more funding the charter schools says it’s entitled to. An appeals court is expected to weigh in soon on the suit, in a decision that charters across the state are watching to increase the funds they get from public school system…

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