Velocity International Science and Technology Academy

“Stockton charter closing after just 10 days.” The Record (CA), 9/20/2012

STOCKTON - With enrollment less than one-third of what was expected, a charter high school that opened only last week in temporary space at Sherwood Mall will shut its doors for the final time Friday after a 10-day run.

The imminent closing of troubled Velocity International Science and Technology Academy leaves about 70 students looking for new schools and six teachers looking for new jobs as September reaches its late stages...

VISTA's brief existence followed a turbulent gestation period. It originally was established by parents and community members who had been affiliated with SECA and had unsuccessfully sought independence from Stockton Unified.

Following the bitter independence struggle, VISTA turned to New Jerusalem. Last month, founding SECA Principal Michael Hall, who spearheaded VISTA's establishment, ceased to be affiliated with the new school. Hall's departure came amid murky circumstances...

In late August, the school fired three teachers and the assistant principal, all of whom had left jobs in Stockton Unified to work for VISTA. Tilton said the school's enrollment was 220, not large enough to sustain a nine-teacher staff and an assistant principal but big enough for six teachers...

On Sept. 9, VISTA's opening day, fewer than 70 students showed up. Tilton and New Jerusalem Superintendent David Thoming said they quickly realized the disappointingly small enrollment would not generate enough revenue - about $6,000 a year for each of the 70 students - to sustain the school...

VISTA originally touted the opportunity it would give its students to graduate with two years of college credits. But no arrangement with college instructors was ever reached, and the fallback plan was to offer those credits through the online Education 2020 software...

"The people who decide they want to start charters, there's a lot of freedom and flexibility ... but a lot of responsibility, also," [Mick Founts, superintendent of the county office] said. "I'm sure everybody involved had the best intentions in mind, but running a school isn't done just by good intentions. It's hard work. I think this is an example where folks didn't understand the challenges of opening a charter."

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Innovate Manhattan Charter School

“Banned teach gets job at city charter.” New York Daily News (NY), 9/12/2012

The Manhattan charter school that hired an ex-con heroin dealer also apparently employed a teacher banned from the city workforce.

Innovate Manhattan Charter School’s website shows that staff included Bart Ocuto, who got busted in 2011 for asking a public school student if she ever had anal sex and for insulting other students...

As of Sept. 2, Ocuto was listed as the science teacher on Innovate Manhattan’s website, but his name has since been scrubbed. The Daily News reported Monday that the school hired a felon, Carlos Tapia, without the required background check.

Charter school officials declined to discuss whether Ocuto had ever set foot in a classroom. Former head of school Peg Hoey, now president of Kunskapsskolan USA, the for-profit group that manages the school, hung up when asked about Ocuto...

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“Convicted drug dealer hired by charter school.” New York Daily News (NY), 9/10/2012

... A charter school hired a convicted heroin dealer — and put him to work with kids — without a background check that would have quickly turned up his criminal past.

Carlos Tapia, 31, was hired in May at Innovate Charter School, where he supervised kids in the cafeteria. He expected to be fingerprinted so his past could be checked, but the school didn’t bother, he said.

“I could have been a person who was dangerous,” said Tapia, who was a public school teacher’s aide before he served a year and half for heroin distribution.

The high-profile school, then sharing Tweed Courthouse space with the Department of Education itself, did fire Tapia after three months — but he still can’t believe that he was even hired by a charter school in such a prime location.

“It’s just crazy. What if I was someone who really couldn’t be trusted?” Tapia said. “What if I had anger-management issues?...

A source familiar with the inner workings of the school said officials were entirely in the dark about Tapia’s past until contacted by the Daily News...

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http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2012/09/innovate-manhattan-charter-opens-new-home-on-the-lower-east-side.html

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New Millennium Institute of Education

“Troubled New Millennium charter school keeps getting second chances.” Fresno Bee (CA), 9/16/2012

In February 2011, after a decade of dismal performance, the New Millennium charter school in west Fresno turned to Dr. Ernie Smith for help...

As he dug in, Smith said he was unprepared for the sheer level of dysfunction he encountered at New Millennium -- and the hands-off attitude of Fresno Unified...

Students were coming and going in an independent study program that lacked even the pretense of accounting, Smith said. The program was so poorly run that the publicly funded school was having to pay back nearly $1 million in ADA (Average Daily Attendance) money to the state because of administrative lapses.

There was no central record keeping, Smith said. Instead, student transcripts and other files were tossed into boxes. The school had gone through seven principals and superintendents over a nine-year span. The oversight was so lax that counselors were receiving paychecks and not coming to work.

Among the no-shows was Cal Johnson, a trustee on the Fresno Unified School Board who is paid $3,600 a month to act as a "crisis counselor" at New Millennium.

Johnson skipped work for weeks at a time even as he was attending school board meetings...

"It was more than a mess," Smith said. "The entire staff seemed to be friends or relatives of each other. It was a nest of nepotism...

"The school -- and there is no easy way to say this -- is not providing an adequate education for the kids who go there," Smith said. "Instead, it's become a cash cow for a handful of people. And Fresno Unified is sitting on its duff and not doing anything about it."...

More than two dozen interviews with former teachers, administrators and community leaders, as well as a review of hundreds of pages of official documents, detail a decade-long pattern of a charter school repeatedly violating state education codes and a school district unwilling to hold it accountable. Each violation by the school, each broken promise to clean up its act ended with Fresno Unified giving New Millennium another chance...

"There aren't any benchmarks at New Millennium," said Sanchez, who worked at the school for nearly a decade, rising up the ranks to lead teacher. "The teachers are winging it. They have no way to assess students.

"Fresno Unified has let the school off the hook. It hasn't done its oversight."

In an interview last week, Brown says the school is doing its job, and that Smith, Sanchez and Biedermann simply are nursing a grudge.

"There is nobody bringing up issues except these three disgruntled former employees," he said. "All of their statements are not factual."...

But Smith and other critics say the charter school, whose enrollment has fluctuated from 200 to 500 students, should have been shut down years ago.

In a confidential report to the Fresno Unified School Board in July 2009, the district's charter review team found that the school was failing to provide students with an adequate education. The report noted that the school was continuing to violate numerous terms of its operating agreement with Fresno Unified -- clear grounds for revocation under state education law...

(h/t to the Fresno State journalism students who wrote this piece)

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Eagle Charter Academy

“Financial problems close three charter schools in Broward.” The Miami Herald (FL), 9/14/2012

Parents, students and teachers are unexpectedly scrambling to find a new school.

The abrupt end was punctuated by locked doors and silence at one school, and with a chaotic gathering of parents and students at another.

But the story at three Broward charter schools was essentially the same on Friday: financial problems had led to closure, leaving parents and students to unexpectedly scramble to find a new place to enroll.

“We should have had way more time to look for other schools for our kids,” said Nicole Williams, whose son Alfonso was a 10th-grader at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes, one of the three schools now closed. Also closing this week were the nearby SMART Charter School (run by the same company as Eagle Charter), and Touchdowns4life Charter School in Tamarac, which was founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby.

Williams said the school sent her a notification letter on Wednesday...

Broward school district officials said Eagle and SMART shut down because of shrinking enrollment, and district spokeswoman Tracy Clark said Touchdowns4life’s closure was due to “funding” issues — likely also enrollment-related, since charter schools are funded almost entirely based on the number of students who attend...

Annual audits for all three schools show deep financial troubles...

The parent company of Eagle and SMART, according to the most recent audit, owed a $1.2 million debt to the IRS for unpaid payroll taxes...

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“Three Broward County charter schools abruptly close.”Sun Sentinel (FL), 9/14/2012

Three Broward County charter schools abruptly closed this week, leaving parents scrambling and exposing a potential dark side to schools designed to be appealing alternatives to traditional public schools.

Touchdowns4Life, a financially troubled school in Tamarac founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby, closed its doors Tuesday. On Wednesday, Eagle Charter Academy and SMART Charter School, both operated by the same company, informed parents they would close their doors and gave parents until Friday to pick up student records...

The sudden closure of the three schools has also raised questions about who oversees them. Neither parents nor the school district, which contracts with the schools, had prior warning, said district spokeswoman Tracy Clark.

In the case of Eagle Charter Academy, its Board of Trustees was also left in the dark.

Some Eagle Charter parents said Friday the curriculum was disorganized this year and their students were doing little or no work...

Angelia Millender, who chaired the Eagle Charter board, which met about two or three times a year, said she didn't get into the daily operations of the school.

She said it didn't even have the authority to hire or fire the principal, which was the responsibility of TechEdventures, a private charter school company, which operated Eagle Academy and SMART Charter School...

... "If (problems) were happening, maybe they were telling someone. They weren't telling board members."

TechEdventures founder and CEO Edward Miller couldn't be reached for comment, despite an attempt by phone...

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“3 Broward Charter Schools Close Their Doors.” NBC Miami (FL), 9/14/2012

Three Broward charter schools closed their doors to students Friday, a day after the school board was notified of the closures...

Eagle Charter Academy has been in the news recently amid allegations former dean Jeffrey London molested at least three boys over an 18-year period. London has pleaded not guilty.

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Florida virtual schools provider K12 (43 school districts)

“State Investigating Virtual Schools Provider K12.” Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FL), 9/11/2012

The Florida Department of Education has launched an investigation of K12, the nation’s largest online educator, over allegations the company uses uncertified teachers and has asked employees to help cover up the practice.

K12 officials asked state-certified teachers to sign class rosters that included students they hadn’t taught, according to documents that are part of the investigation.

In one case, a K12 manager instructed a certified teacher to sign a class roster of more than 100 students. She only recognized seven names on that list...

The state investigation started in January, when a former K12 employee forwarded a series of emails to Seminole County Public Schools officials...

After reading these emails, Seminole County officials followed up with a survey of parents whose kids were enrolled in K12 classes. Parents were given a list of teachers who reportedly instructed their children.

More than one-third of parents said the listed teacher did not teach their child.

Only 36 percent of parents said their child’s teacher was the one K12 had listed. The rest could not be reached or said they couldn’t remember.

The survey and emails prompted Seminole County officials to request that the Department of Education investigate. They warned the state that the problems they uncovered with K12 may be widespread...

K12 has a financial incentive to skirt Florida’s law requiring the use of certified teachers. Simply, K12 can pay uncertified teachers less than certified teachers while collecting the same amount per student from state public school districts, increasing profits for shareholders.

Founded in 2000 by William Bennett, a former U.S. education secretary under President Ronald Reagan, K12 is an $864 million publicly traded company whose stock price has more than doubled in the last year.

In recent years, K12 has increased profits while student performance has suffered, raising questions about whether the for-profit virtual schools provider is making money at the expense of academics.

A July 2012 study by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado found that students at K12 schools fell further behind in reading and math scores than pupils in traditional schools.

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Delhi Charter School

“ACLU targets anti-pregnancy rule at Louisiana charter school.” Associated Press, 8/7/2012

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana threatened Tuesday to sue a northeastern Louisiana charter school if it doesn't change rules that keep pregnant students out of the classroom and require girls under suspicion of being pregnant to be tested. The four-paragraph "Student Pregnancy Policy" in Delhi Charter School's policy manualsays that if a suspected girl refuses to take a pregnancy test, she can be removed from class or the school.

That violates the U.S. Constitution and federal laws against sexual discrimination, state ACLU executive director Marjorie R. Esman said...

The pregnancy policy, on page 130 of the manual, says pregnant students who want to stay in the school must study at home.

"If an administrator or teacher suspects a student is pregnant, a parent conference will be held. The school reserves the right to require any female student to take a pregnancy test to confirm whether or not the suspected student is in fact pregnant," it states. The school can also choose which doctor the student will see.

Students who refuse to take a pregnancy test must either study at home or find another school.

The requirements are part of "an environment in which all students will learn and exhibit acceptable character traits," it says.

Title IX, the section of the 1972 federal education law requiring equal opportunities for both sexes in education, mandates that "pregnant students are entitled to an education free from discrimination," Esman wrote. She said it allows home instruction for pregnant students, but "participation ... must be completely voluntary and comparable to those offered to non-pregnant students."

It violates the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause because "boys who are expecting children -- or who are suspected of having engaged in sexual activity -- are not similarly treated," she wrote...

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Robert Russa Moton Charter School

"New Orleans charter school is accused of cheating to help 4th-graders pass LEAP tests.” The Times-Picayune (LA), 8/26/2012

Staff at the Robert Russa Moton Charter School, one of the highest-ranked open-enrollment schools in New Orleans, violated state testing policy to help fourth-grade students pass standardized exams last year, a district investigation found. The school denies any cheating took place.

Correspondence among school, district and state officials obtained through a public records request detail allegations brought by anonymous whistle-blowers, among them a charge -- apparently substantiated -- that fourth-graders were shown writing prompts for the state's LEAP exam ahead of time to give them a leg up.


In response to the district's findings, the independent charter board that governs Moton hired the law firm Adams and Reese to conduct a separate investigation, which turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, officials for the Orleans Parish School Board sent Moton's board a letter this spring listing five "non-negotiable" steps the school must take or risk losing its contract to run the campus. Portions of the letter were heavily redacted by district staff before they were made public to protect the identity of Moton employees. But the list of "corrective actions" includes a demand that Moton fire at least one staff member and take "disciplinary action" with others...

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Touchdowns4Life Charter Middle School

“Financial problems close three charter schools in Broward.” The Miami Herald (FL), 9/14/2012

Parents, students and teachers are unexpectedly scrambling to find a new school.

The abrupt end was punctuated by locked doors and silence at one school, and with a chaotic gathering of parents and students at another.

But the story at three Broward charter schools was essentially the same on Friday: financial problems had led to closure, leaving parents and students to unexpectedly scramble to find a new place to enroll.

“We should have had way more time to look for other schools for our kids,” said Nicole Williams, whose son Alfonso was a 10th-grader at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes, one of the three schools now closed. Also closing this week were the nearby SMART Charter School (run by the same company as Eagle Charter), and Touchdowns4life Charter School in Tamarac, which was founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby.

Williams said the school sent her a notification letter on Wednesday...

... district spokeswoman Tracy Clark said Touchdowns4life’s closure was due to “funding” issues — likely also enrollment-related, since charter schools are funded almost entirely based on the number of students who attend.

Annual audits for all three schools show deep financial troubles. A June 2011 audit of Touchdowns4life showed the school was nearly $24,000 behind on its rent, was accused of owing $20,000 to the company that supplied its computer equipment, and had been charged more than $4,000 in bank overdraft fees...

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“Broward Charter Schools Closures Reveal Larger Issues.” CBS Miami (FL), 9/16/2012

... CBS 4 spoke to a former teacher at Touchdowns on Saturday.

Bibiana Ortiz spent 15 years teaching at traditional Broward county public schools and it was her first experience with a charter school.

“I wondered why parents were dropping their kids off when there were only two teachers and three classrooms,” she says.

“The math and history teacher was let go on the ninth day.  The principal was let go and myself and one other teacher were left to carry the whole weight.  They didn’t have p.e. and recess was in the parking lot.  We didn’t have supplies or books and we haven’t gotten paid.”...

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“Charter school founded by ex-Dolphin warding off eviction.” Sun Sentinel (FL), 8/16/2011

TAMARAC — A charter school founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby is facing eviction from a strip mall just days before the start of a new school year.

Broward County Judge Robert W. Lee signed an order dated last Friday against the Touchdowns4Life charter middle school, authorizing the school's eviction from 10044 W. McNab Road.

According to the Broward School District, the school reached an agreement with its landlord on Tuesday to ward off the eviction. The landlord could not be reached to confirm the agreement.

Court documents show the school was behind on its rent in the sum of $39,950.20 as of July 12. Rent for July alone was $7,085, although it wasn't clear from the documents whether that included any penalties or fees...

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Fitch Ratings 'Charter School Rating Criteria: Exposure Draft' & anticipated negative effect

“TEXT-Fitch updates Charter School rating criteria.” Reuters, 9/19/2012

Sept 19 - Fitch Ratings has updated its Charter School Rating Criteria, incorporating the proposals detailed in 'Charter School Rating Criteria: Exposure Draft' dated July 19, 2012, and available at www.fitchratings.com.

The main proposals from the exposure draft that have been incorporated into the criteria are:

--Increased Emphasis on External Risk Factors

Fitch believes the operating model for charter schools exposes these entities to substantial external risks that are often outside the direct control of management. These include political risk, regulatory risk, and competitive risk. The agency will place greater emphasis on these qualitative factors in assigning charter school credit ratings.

--Conditional School District Cap on Certain Charter School Ratings

Fitch will assess the strength of any mechanisms in place to prevent interruptions in the flow of funds to charter schools when a school district serves as authorizer or as a pass-through for per-pupil funding. Where such mechanisms are limited or non-existent, the agency will cap the charter schools' ratings at the level of the school district.

--Operating History and Renewal Threshold

Given the fundamental nature of renewal risk, Fitch will rate as non-investment grade any schools that have less than five years of audited operating history and no charter renewals. This standard will also apply to transactions with multiple charter schools (pooled transactions) such that only those schools that meet the threshold will be included in Fitch's assessment of historical pro forma maximum annual debt service (MADS) coverage (see below for more details). The only possible exceptions to this requirement will be when initial charter terms exceed five years and Fitch can sufficiently assess a school's likelihood of renewal.

--Historical Financial Performance Expectations

Most charter schools lack the history of audited financial performance to support an investment grade rating. The updated criteria identify a set of baseline financial attributes Fitch considers appropriate in order to consider a charter school for investment grade. They include sum sufficient pro forma MADS coverage, and pro forma MADS burden (as a percentage of operating revenues) of 15% or less. Very few rated schools exhibit all of these attributes from audited financials.

Fitch thanks the various external parties (including investors, underwriters, financial advisors, and industry associations) who provided feedback during the exposure draft's comment period. The agency reviewed and carefully considered all feedback. The updated criteria report includes multiple results of the suggestions and clarification requests received during the comment period.

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"Fitch puts charter school bonds on review for possible downgrade." Reuters, 9/19/2012

(Reuters) - Fitch Ratings on Wednesday placed all bonds issued on behalf of charter schools on ratings watch negative, saying it believes that application of its recently published 'Charter School Rating Criteria' will negatively affect charter school ratings at all levels.

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Crown Ridge Academy

“San Bernardino charter school shut down.” San Bernardino Sun (CA), 9/19/2012

SAN BERNARDINO - More than 100 students who had been attending a charter school for at-risk children stayed home Wednesday, and they won't be going to Crown Ridge Academy ever again.

Neither will the school's teachers, all of whom the charter school director says are owed months of pay without a clear path to collect that money.

The board of the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which allowed the school to open in 2009, revoked the charter Tuesday night after determining that there was no realistic way for the school to dig itself out of a deep financial hole...

A big chunk of the school's problems came from spending a large grant twice, [board president, Steven Bielinski] said, and officials made other mistakes, but those people have been replaced...

It might be worth taking a risk on money coming in if the school were producing good academic results, but its test scores are far below those of other district schools that also serve English-learning students, said board member Judi Penman.

Crown Ridge is the latest charter school in the district to face potential shutdown.

Casa Ramona Academy lost 100 students beginning in the 2010-11 school after complaints of physical problems, inadequate instruction for English learners and classes that didn't qualify students for admission to state universities.

And the Public Safety Academy faced years of complaints about fiscal mismanagement and cronyism until that charter school's founder was removed from the board.

The district approved five-year extensions to the charters of both schools this spring.

[Board member Margaret Hill] worried this could be another stain on the reputation of the district and the city...

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Imagine Academy of Careers Middle School

“Former St. Louis charter school instructor charged with raping student.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/5/2012

ST. LOUIS • Prosecutors have charged a former St. Louis charter school instructor with raping a student last month.

Ronald C. Wilkerson, 41, of the 1200 block of North Euclid Avenue, was charged Aug. 31 with two counts of forcible rape, one count of forcible sodomy, two counts of second-degree statutory rape, one count of statutory sodomy and two counts of witness tampering.

Authorities said Wilkerson, a former instructor at one of the Imagine charter schools, twice raped and sodomized a 14-year-old girl last month and threatened to hurt or kill her family if she told anyone about it...

Wilkerson was a communication arts teacher at the Imagine Academy of Careers Middle School... The victim had attended the school.

After years of financial and academic troubles, the state education board closed Imagine's six charter schools this past spring. The public charter schools were run by the for-profit Imagine Schools Inc. and were independent of city school system.

Wilkerson was on the company's payroll through the end of July, Waters said.

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STATE OF MISSOURI  VS WILKERSON, RONALD C

http://www.circuitattorney.org/docs/Ronald%20Wilkerson.pdf

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Tennessee Virtual Academy

“TN virtual school draws criticism.” The Tennessean (TN), 9/10/2012

As state officials lambaste the Tennessee Virtual Academyfor low achievement scores and discuss new oversight methods, the school’s management company is facing an investigation in Florida, overcoming a list of citations issued in Georgia and recovering from reports of poor results in many of its schools.

The virtual academy allows students in grades K-8 to take all their classes online, monitored by a certified teacher. It is managed by K12 Inc., a publicly traded for-profit company that has contracts for differing levels of involvement with at least 2,000 other schools across the nation.

In its first year, the Tennessee academy ranked among the bottom 4 percent of districts in the state on a measure that shows student progress from year to year.

State Rep. Joe Pitts, D-Clarksville, called the school “a risky experiment that blew up in our face.”...

However, Tennessee is not the only state where the management company has been criticized.

A research paper published in July by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulderrecommended national education officials slow down the approval of virtual schools while examining effectiveness and cost. The study showed achievement scores of K12 students were not on par with those of traditional schools.

A class-action lawsuit against K12 is pending in a U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia claiming the company made inflated claims about its student achievement in an effort to inflate stock prices...

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More at http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/09/tennessees-k12-inc-virtual-school.html?spref=tw

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SMART Charter School

“Financial problems close three charter schools in Broward.” The Miami Herald (FL), 9/14/2012

Parents, students and teachers are unexpectedly scrambling to find a new school.

The abrupt end was punctuated by locked doors and silence at one school, and with a chaotic gathering of parents and students at another.

But the story at three Broward charter schools was essentially the same on Friday: financial problems had led to closure, leaving parents and students to unexpectedly scramble to find a new place to enroll.

“We should have had way more time to look for other schools for our kids,” said Nicole Williams, whose son Alfonso was a 10th-grader at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes, one of the three schools now closed. Also closing this week were the nearby SMART Charter School (run by the same company as Eagle Charter), and Touchdowns4life Charter School in Tamarac, which was founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby.

Williams said the school sent her a notification letter on Wednesday...

Broward school district officials said Eagle and SMART shut down because of shrinking enrollment, and district spokeswoman Tracy Clark said Touchdowns4life’s closure was due to “funding” issues — likely also enrollment-related, since charter schools are funded almost entirely based on the number of students who attend...

Annual audits for all three schools show deep financial troubles...

The parent company of Eagle and SMART, according to the most recent audit, owed a $1.2 million debt to the IRS for unpaid payroll taxes...

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“Three Broward County charter schools abruptly close.”Sun Sentinel (FL), 9/14/2012

Three Broward County charter schools abruptly closed this week, leaving parents scrambling and exposing a potential dark side to schools designed to be appealing alternatives to traditional public schools.

Touchdowns4Life, a financially troubled school in Tamarac founded by former Miami Dolphins running back Terry Kirby, closed its doors Tuesday. On Wednesday, Eagle Charter Academy and SMART Charter School, both operated by the same company, informed parents they would close their doors and gave parents until Friday to pick up student records.

All three cited low enrollment as the cause. Neither parents nor the Broward County School District, which issues the charter contract to the schools, say they received any notice before this week that the schools were on the verge of closing...

The sudden closure of the three schools has also raised questions about who oversees them. Neither parents nor the school district, which contracts with the schools, had prior warning, said district spokeswoman Tracy Clark...

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VLT (Value Learning and Teaching) Academy

“Audit flags ethics questions at charter school.” Cincinnati Enquirer (OH), 9/11/2012

A local charter school overpaid an employee $3,333 and committed possible ethics violations, according to the Ohio Auditor’s Office...

In one case, the school accepted a bid from a janitorial company even though it was higher than other bids. The company’s owner works for the school and is married to the superintendent. In the other case, the superintendent signed a $17,000 summer contract for her daughter. Both are potential conflicts of interest...

Lee said the school has been contracting with the janitorial company for years and has not had any prior issues. But in 2009, The Enquirer reported that the auditor’s office flagged the same janitorial service company contract in 2007, noting the potential conflict of interest.

VLT is one of the larger charter schools in the area, serving around 800 students in grades K-12. Its academic rating last year was Continuous Improvement, the third highest of six categories on the Ohio Report Card...

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Excelsior Charter School

“Rodeo Clown Stirs Controversy After Making Racist Joke About First Lady.” CBSLA, 9/18/2012

CRESTON (CBSLA.com) — A rodeo clown didn’t leave many people laughing in San Luis Obispo County this past weekend when he made a racist joke about first lady Michelle Obama.

Michael Hayhurst, a professional rodeo clown and barrelman, got on the PA system at the 17th Annual Creston Classic Rodeo Saturday and said, “Playboy is offering Ann Romney $250,000 to pose in the magazine, and the White House is upset about it because National Geographic only offered Michelle Obama $50 to pose for them.”

Parents at an Excelsior Charter School in Victorville said they can’t believe it, especially because Hayhurst serves as the school’s superintendent...

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From DataQuest (Excelsior Charter School, a.k.a. Excelsior Education Center"

 Ethnic/Racial (STAR)

	Percent
Black or African American	5
American Indian or Alaska Native	0
Asian	0
Filipino	1
Hispanic or Latino	34
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander	0
White	49
Two or More Races	5
These percentages may not sum to 100 due to responses of: other, multiple, or non-response.

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