Lake Havasu Charter School

LAKE HAVASU CHARTER SCHOOL TO CLOSE / Officials failed to meet state deadline for renewal papers; April 27, 2011; News-Herald (CO) 

Lake Havasu Charter School is closing after 16 years because officials failed to submit paperwork by the deadline to continue operation.

Principal Patricia Hauchrog said the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools e-mailed the charter-renewal notification in February 2010, but the administration never received the notice.

“We did not get the e-mail,” Hauchrog said. “Nor did they pick up the phone and say, ‘Why didn’t you respond to the e-mail?’ I figured the state would contact us. (The e-mail’s) not there.”

School officials then received a certified letter in July 2010, stating they missed the May 2010 renewal deadline and their charter would expire this August.

“It’s disheartening,” Hauchrog said. “Kids are all over the board (emotionally).”…

Hauchrog wrote a letter dated Oct. 28, 2010, to the state board, explaining a part-time employee had monitored incoming e-mails. Once the employee retired, the e-mails were supposed to be forwarded to an administrative assistant’s e-mail account.

“Human error and the need to be financially conservative is the cause for this dilemma,” the letter states.

Hauchrog said she knew the deadline was approaching, but was waiting to receive the state notification.

She said the first meeting they could be placed on the state agenda was in January. At the meeting, board members did not vote to let the school still submit its application.

Richard Tatham, who is the charter school’s representative on file for the state, said he didn’t think there would be “too much of a problem” convincing the state board to allow the submission past deadline. Tatham also pastors the Stonebridge Christian Fellowship Church, which is located on the same property as the school off Jamaica Boulevard.

“We feel God is involved in the overall,” Tatham said. “And that some good things can happen.”…