UNO Charter Schools

“More money from clout-heavy Hispanic group UNO went to insider.” Chicago Sun Times (IL), 4/22/2013

Weeks after Federico “Fred” d’Escoto stepped down from the board of the United Neighborhood Organization, his company, d’Escoto Inc., got its first check from the influential charter-school operator toward what now totals more than $1.8 million in state-funded payments.

But d’Escoto Inc.’s ties to UNO — part of a pattern of insider hiring now under scrutiny by state authorities — date back years before that, internal documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

The private, not-for-profit organization already had been using d’Escoto’s Chicago construction-management company for three years to do rehabilitation work on its largely taxpayer-funded charter schools, the records show.

And it did so even as d’Escoto was a member of UNO’s board and while his brother Miguel d’Escoto was both a top executive at UNO and a member of d’Escoto Inc.’s board, state and city government documents show...

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“New schools meet old school cronyism ...” Chicago Tribune (IL), 2/22/2013

... The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that much of a $98 million state grant given to UNO to build schools was funneled to companies that have deep connections to the organization's political allies and a top UNO executive, Miguel d'Escoto. Shortly after the story broke, d'Escoto resigned.

D'Escoto Inc., a company owned by Miguel d'Escoto's brother Federico, reaped more than $1.5 million for work as the "owner's representative" in the construction of several schools.

Reflection Window Co., owned by another d'Escoto brother, Rodrigo, stands to earn nearly $10 million for work on several schools.

Plumbing contracts went to a company owned by the sister of Victor Reyes, the clout-heavy lawyer and lobbyist who helped UNO snag the state grant.

UNO hired Aguila Security, a firm run by two brothers of state Rep. Edward Acevedo, a longtime UNO ally who voted to approve the UNO grant in 2009...

At first, UNO chief executive Juan Rangel defended the contracts, saying he hired Hispanic-owned companies that "have proven themselves."

In recent days Rangel has acknowledged his organization has a serious problem. He has suspended UNO's contract with d'Escoto Inc., while UNO reviews its contracting practices. He has brought on former U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen to review how UNO picked companies to build its schools. He accepted the resignation of Miguel d'Escoto...

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"Ald. Solis: Insider charter-school deals were 'improper.'” Chicago Sun-Times (IL), 2/13/2013

Ald. Danny Solis (25th) — a co-founder and former head of the United Neighborhood Organization — said Wednesday he thinks it was “improper, at the very least,” for the politically influential organization to use a $98 million state school grant to hire contractors with close ties to the leadership of UNO’s charter-school network.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that UNO’s insider deals included giving contracts paid for by the state grant to companies owned by two brothers of Miguel d’Escoto, the group’s No. 2 executive until he resigned Tuesday from his $200,000-a-year post as senior vice president of operations in the fallout from that revelation...

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“For insiders, community group UNO's charter schools pay.” Chicago Sun-Times (IL), 2/4/2013

Built in 2011 with $25 million from Illinois taxpayers, the curvy, stainless-steel structure that houses the UNO Soccer Academy Elementary Charter School leaps out from the neighboring landscape of boxy brick houses on the Southwest Side.

The school on South Homan Avenue isn’t just eye-catching. It has provided opportunities for working-class, Hispanic parents who want an alternative to crowded, poorly performing public schools for their children, says the head of the United Neighborhood Organization, the increasingly influential group that built and operates the school.

But the way it and other UNO schools were built also has provided a financial boon to people close to the group’s leaders, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show...

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Falun Gong-associated charter school chain (attempt)

“Falun Gong follower behind attempt to open six charter schools.” New York Daily News, 3/6/2013

A follower of a controversial Chinese movement whose last attempt to open a school was rejected is now seeking approval for six bilingual charters — even though her name isn’t on the application.

Lotus King Weiss is trying to open Confucius Teachings elementary, middle and high schools in Flushing and three others in Manhattan’s Chinatown in 2014. Applications are due April 15.

Weiss isn’t one of the 21 names on the letter of intent submitted last month to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute.

But Weiss told the Daily News on Wednesday that she suggested the idea to fellow Falun Gong practitioner Xiaoming Xu, the lead applicant for the Flushing schools. Since Xu doesn’t speak English well, Weiss said she’s working with Xu and will write the roughly 500-page application...

Xu confirmed in broken English that Weiss is the “manager” of the charters. But she denied the schools would teach Falun Gong.

“Not any religion here,” she said. “Not any political [sic] here.”

She also said some students could board there...

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Antioch Charter Academy II

“East Bay teacher duct taped boy's mouth shut,claim alleges.” Contra Costa Times (CA), 2/20/2013

ANTIOCH -- The family of an 8-year-old boy filed a claim Tuesday alleging the boy's third-grade teacher duct-taped his mouth shut and that another teacher punished him by placing a chair over him and sitting on it in separate incidents earlier this school year.

Another student's hands were duct-taped by Antioch Charter Academy II teacher Michelle Mankewich in November, the claim alleges.

All four charter school employees who witnessed or learned of the November incidents failed to perform their mandated reporting duties and notify authorities about them, the claim alleges. The charter school principal -- the mother of one of the teachers alleged to have abused the boy -- conducted an internal investigation that found no wrongdoing.

"These are highly inappropriate forms of restraint on a student. It's abusive. I'd call it child abuse," said Larry Cook, the Walnut Creek attorney who filed the claim. "There's got to be other ways to control kids in a classroom."

The Antioch boy, through his mother Luvy Torres, filed the claim against the Antioch district, the charter school, The Learner-Centered School, Inc. (the nonprofit that operates the school), Mankewich, teacher Marianne Dubitsky, teacher Julie Fajeau and Principal Jeannie Dubitsky alleging they violated his constitutional rights, assaulted him and discriminated against him, among other charges. The boy's family seeks more than $10,000 in damages...

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100 Legacy Academy Charter School

“Fine Print: Newark Charter School Revocation.” NJ Spotlight (NJ), 4/16/2013

What it is: The state Department of Education yesterday released its letter to the 100 Legacy Academy Charter School in Newark, informing the school that its state charter had been revoked after just seven months of operation...

First probation: The middle school opened in August, 2012, with roughly 270 students, part of a partnership with the 100 Black Men of NJ organization. But by January it was placed on probation, after review found the school in violation of state statute in several areas, including special education and required criminal background checks of staff...

Didn’t get better: The state followed up in early February. According to the letter from assistant commissioner Evo Popoff, “This visit confirmed that school conditions had indeed deteriorated, putting at risk not only the safety, well-being and academic progress of students, but also the overall viability of the school.” ...

No comment yet: Efforts to contact the school’s leadership yesterday were unsuccessful, but the school made no mention of the revocation on its website. It said it was accepting applications for next year and also seeking a new principal...

Subject to appeal: The school may challenge the decision to the state appeals court.

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William and Josephine Dorn Charter Community School

“Charter school gets too much state funding.” KOAT (Albuquerque, NM), 12/4/2012

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Target 7 learned a new charter academy grossly overestimated its enrollment numbers, and now the school will have to pay the state back for money it didn’t deserve.

The William and Josephine Dorn Charter Community School sits at the Eastern Edge of the South Valley. According to the state’s Legislative Finance Committee, the academy received more state money than it was owed for the entire year because it estimated it would have 90 students when it actually had nine...

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The Project School

Bank foreclosing on former charter school property.” Indianapolis Business Journal (IN), 2/25/2013

Old National Bank is suing the operator of a charter school that closed last summer in Indianapolis, claiming it failed to pay off the $1.8 million balance on its mortgage.

The Project School in August lost a court battleto stay open after Mayor Greg Ballard revoked the school’s charter due to poor test scores and financial issues...

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“Ballard moves to shut down The Project School.” Indianapolis Business Journal (IN), 7/17/2012

It looks like there will be no back to school at The Project School, a charter school just northeast of downtown.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard announced Tuesday evening that he intends to revoke the charter that gives The Project School the authority to operate. Ballard cited poor test scores and “recently discovered financial problems.”

The four-year-old school, which is publicly funded, has never seen more than 30 percent of its students pass both the math and reading portions of the state standardized ISTEP test...

A notice of revocation sent to The Project School paints an ugly picture of the school's finances. It claims the school has run a deficit in each of the last three years and now has nearly $5.3 million in debt. The notice also states that The Project School delayed paying its staff this month by one week because it had so little cash on hand.

The notice of revocation also cited a report by the Indiana State Board of Accounts, which found that The Project School had improperly used more than $63,500 in federal facilities and planning grant money to pay salaries and operational expenses...

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Texas charter school proposals (content copied)

“Four Texas charter school proposals contain copied passages.” Dallas Morning News (TX), 2/0/2013

Four groups vying to open Texas charter schools turned in applications last year that had sections copied from other applications, even claiming parts of another school’s public hearing summary as their own...

The state board largely dismissed concerns about the copied material, and one board member called the practice “being smart.” But the head of the public integrity unit of the Travis County district attorney’s office said such practices could be fraudulent, though that office hasn’t been asked to investigate the charter applications...

The News reviewed four years’ worth of charter school applications posted on the Texas Education Agency’s website. The applications for Athlos, International Leadership, iWin and Polaris had questions and answers in their public hearing summaries that were similar to what an Austin charter school had submitted a year earlier.

John Armbrust, founder and executive director of Austin Achieve Public Schools, said he was shocked to see parts of his school’s public hearing summary copied almost verbatim. He said he never worked with Bracy Wilson or Help Charters.

“It’s shameful is what it is,” Armbrust said. “I don’t appreciate people who take shortcuts to get to the end, because there are no shortcuts when you’re running a school...

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Related articles

Blog: See more examples of copied applications

Graphic: Charter schools copied language for their applications

Story: Texas Education Agency works to improve scrutiny of charter school applications

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Sherwood Charter School

“Sherwood parents intend to file claim against Sherwood Charter School.” The Oregonian (OR), 3/15/2013

Three parents of current and former students at Sherwood Charter School intend to file a tort claim against the school.

In a letter of intent dated March 15, the parents' attorney alleges the school board did not protect students against a fellow student's death threats, threats of sexual assault and violence...

According to the Oregon Department of Education, Sherwood School District and the charter school have not received substantiated complaints since 2008. However, a Sherwood family filed a federal lawsuit against the school district and another family in August 2011 claiming administrators failed to intervene in a bullying case...

Keith Halasy, a Sherwood Charter Board member, released a statement that said the school has appropriately handled student safety and discipline issues in contrast to "a mischaracterization of school process in recent news reports."...

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Queen City Academy Charter School (attempt)

“Proposed Bangor charter school linked to Turkish imam.” Portland Press Herald (ME), 2/17/2013

A proposed charter school to be based in Bangor is tied into an informal worldwide network of religious, cultural and education institutions operated by followers of a controversial and reclusive Turkish imam, Fethullah Gulen.

The Queen City Academy Charter School was one of four proposed taxpayer-financed charter schools whose applications were denied last month by the state charter school commission, but the school intends to reapply at a future date...

"They claim that these charter schools are independent and have no connection to the Gulen movement, and I said to them: 'That's baloney,' " said William Martin, senior fellow in religion and public policy at Baker Institute of Rice University in Texas, where Gulen followers have set up dozens of charter schools.

Martin has followed the movement for years, traveled to Turkey at their expense, and counts its leaders there as friends. "I say to them: 'Look, there's nothing wrong with your saying that you are admirers and followers of Mr. Gulen, and to say this is what he stands for and this is what you stand for,' but they say that their lawyers have said they shouldn't be open about it."...

The central figure behind the proposed Bangor charter school, construction company owner Murat Kilic of Revere, Mass., deflects questions about ties to Gulen as unimportant.

"Individuals might be inspired by him, but what their background is and what they are inspired by, I think that's a little bit irrelevant," said Kilic, who helped found several Gulen-linked organizations in the Bay State. "Yes, I have read a few books of Mr. Gulen and met with him two times, but I have also met (former President) Clinton...”...

Over the past year, Gulen's followers have been active in Maine on several fronts. A key organization in the Gulen network -- the New York-based Council of Turkic American Associations -- organized a subsidized nine-day trip to Turkey for three state legislators last summer and persuaded Gov. Paul LePage to issue an executive order declaring April 3, 2012, to be the first annual Turkish Cultural Day in Maine...

The real motivation of the Gulen movement -- charter schools and all -- is to accumulate political and financial resources to further the transformation of Turkey itself, according to Joshua Hendrick, assistant professor of sociology and global studies at Loyola University in Maryland and perhaps the leading U.S. scholar of Gulen. He noted the ongoing ascent of a center-right in that country, which is "pro-capitalist, democratic, socially conservative and believes a revival of faith is good for national development."

"It's unfortunate that we have this rise of Islamophobia because it takes people's eyes off the ball for a legitimate critique that has to do with teachers' concerns about suspect hiring practices or school boards' concerns about suspect financial dealings and governance issues," Hendrick said. "The real questions are: 'Where do you buy your desks and chairs? Who supplies your books? How are people hired and promoted?' ... It has nothing to do with stealth jihad."...

"If they can maintain ambiguity and leave people never really able to pinpoint who is what, it allows them flexibility to adapt and adjust to local conditions," Hendrick said. This evasiveness served Gulenists well during the 1970s and 1980s in Turkey, he said, where they were among the many targets of the country's surveillance apparatus. "The organizational strategies of the movement are the product of an environment where secrecy and non-transparency are not only perfectly rational and understandable but a neccessity." [sic]

Kilic said they planned to resubmit their application...

Hendrick said the movement first got involved in education by opening private schools abroad and has gotten into trouble by applying the same hiring and contracting policies it used in its private operations to charter schools, where taxpayer funding brings increased public scrutiny. For instance, the practice of recruiting teachers from Turkey has drawn fire because the average H1-B visa costs between $600 and $1,500 to sponsor, a difficult expense to justify to taxpayers...

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Quality Education Academy

“'A factory of excellence'? Charter school’s international basketball team raises oversight questions.” NC Policy Watch, 1/28/2013

A Winston-Salem charter school has become an unlikely basketball powerhouse in recent years, winning three national high school championships and sending more than a dozen former players on to Division 1 colleges.

But the success of Quality Education Academy‘s boys basketball team rests on a strategy prohibited at most public schools—recruiting top players throughout the nation and world.

It also offers a window into the N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s struggles to hold charter schools accountable as the schools become a larger piece of the state’s public education system.

An N.C. Policy Watch investigation found two-thirds of the players on Quality Education Academy’s basketball rosters from 2008 to present came from other states and nations to attend the K-12 school. Their educations were subsidized by taxpayers who sent $13.2 million in state, federal and local funding to the school for the same time period, according to state education estimates and budgets provided by the school.

The investigation also found that the N.C. Department of Public Instruction failed to follow up on its own 2011 probe into funding and enrollment issues at the charter school.

Questions about Quality Education Academy’s basketball program highlight criticisms and challenges DPI faces in overseeing charter schools, the privately-run and publicly-funded schools poised to grow rapidly with strong backing from the Republican-led state legislature and Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.

The basketball program at Quality Education Academy (QEA) is a set-up impossible to recreate at most North Carolina public schools.

North Carolina specifically prohibits recruitment of students for athletics across school district lines, much less state and national boundaries.

But QEA’s status as a charter school means it can opt out of joining the N.C. High School Athletic Association, which enforces the N.C. recruitment rule for public schools. Instead, QEA and a handful of private high schools with strong basketball programs formed their own athletic association in 2011, the Greater Carolina High School Athletic Association. The new league allows coaches to recruit players from elsewhere, just not from the six schools that form the association, according to the association’s rules.

Even though the small charter school has fewer than 100 high school students, QEA has attracted basketball players from countries like Nigeria, Serbia, Canada and the Bahamas and states including California, Michigan, Georgia and Virginia since the basketball program began in 2008. Parents signed over temporary guardianship to Isaac Pitts Jr., a basketball coach with a criminal past and a side recruiting business, according to documents obtained from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction through a public records request...

The state education agency began looking at QEA closely in January of 2010, after three Serbian students sent June Atkinson, the state superintendent of schools, an emailbegging for help. The students, who left their Balkan nation to attend the Winston-Salem school, were instructed to pay Pitts, the coach, $4,000 each to attend the school, according to a copy of the email obtained by N.C. Policy Watch. Johnson, the school’s CEO, responded that the students came as part of a “cultural diversity and exchange” program and had agreed to the fee associated with a separate recruiting operation Pitts was involved in...

BE SURE TO READ THE REST!

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Northwest Preparatory Charter School

“Police: 3 charged with felony injury to 7th grader who wanted to use the bathroom.” KHOU (TX), 3/7/2013

HUMBLE, Texas -- Three staffers of a Humble-area charter school are facing felony injury to a child charges after allegedly over-disciplining a seventh grade girl.

"Her arm was bent behind her back in a way that her wrist was up by her shoulder blades pretty high on her back," said Humble Police Department Det. Jackie Blanchard, the lead investigator in the case...

Police say it started in a classroom when the 13-year-old female victim asked to go to the restroom. She was told no.

“It was up to the teacher to set the restroom breaks and every time someone would talk in the class he would change the time as a form of punishment. So she was not allowed for a long period of time to go to the restroom. She just finally had to go," said Det. Blanchard...

In all, the girl says her arm was bent backwards three different times. She was treated at a local hospital for arm injuries and referred to an orthopedist for additional treatment...

Humble police have responded to the school 23 times this year...

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Midlands Math and Business Academy

“After appeals process, Midlands Math and Business Charter will close.” WIS TV (SC), 3/20/2013

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - The Richland One School Board voted three years ago to revoke the charter of the Midlands Math and Business Academy. During the appeals process, the school has been operating without a charter. Now the courts have sided with the district, forcing the school to close next week...

The school is tucked inside an old shopping center with 72 students in grades 4 through 8...

The Richland One School Board voted to revoke the school's charter in 2009.

"There were several violations that included academics as well as some staffing issues," said Richland One Superintendent Percy Mack.

Mack says the school did not fulfill the goals set forth in its charter. The district sent in resources to help the school rebound, but Mack says there has not been enough progress...

Parents have less than a week to decide on a new school...

The district says it will stop all funding to the school next Tuesday March 26. The school does have the right to file another appeal but has not made a decision yet.

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Massachusetts charter schools (overstated demand)

“Charter school demand in Mass. Disputed.” Boston Globe (MA), 4/8/2013

A state tally showing more than 53,000 students on charter school waiting lists is overstating demand, according to a Globe review of state data.

The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, in tallying the waiting lists statewide and for many individual communities, including Boston, frequently counts the same students more than once.

That’s because the state simply adds up the waiting lists from each charter school without collecting individual names to learn whether a student appears on more than one list or, in fact, may be enrolled at another charter school.

Charter school leaders have been seizing on the large number of students on the waiting lists as evidence of soaring popularity for the schools and the need for more of them.

But critics note that as lawmakers debate legislation this spring to raise a state-imposed cap on the number of charter school seats in Boston and other cities, they will do so without a full picture of demand...

The Globe review found that waiting list policies can vary tremendously among the state’s 81 charter schools, which at minimum under state law must place all unsuccessful applicants in a lottery for admission on a list.

While some schools purge their lists annually and ask those students to reapply, others keep students on lists for many years without knowing whether they are still interested, or add names when parents merely request information about the school.

In Boston, where students on combined waiting lists have nearly tripled to more than 27,000 over the past three years, the rate of duplication could be high, said guidance counselors and advocates who monitor school registrations.

“If a family is applying to charter schools, they are applying to all of them,” said Susan Trotz, a guidance counselor at the city-run Curley K-8 School in Jamaica Plain, whose 200 eighth-graders each year often apply to 20 traditional, charter, or private high schools...

“It is disappointing and upsetting not having a measure [implemented that] we all agreed to,” said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, which pushed for a more accurate waiting-list count. “It continues the tension between charter and traditional schools.”...

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Mary L. Dinkins Charter School

“Revoked Charter School Remains Open, SLED Investigating.” WLTX (SC), 3/18/2013

Sumter, SC (WLTX) -- Classes continued Monday at a Sumter school with a revoked charter and a restraining order.

Now SLED says it is also investigating the school for impropriety.

The South Carolina Charter School District says whatever is going on at the Mary L. Dinkins Charter School is not a recognized function with the state, and it plans to take further action against the school Tuesday...

A court cited low test scores and irregularities in its decision to revoke the school's charter.

Dinkins-Robinson says the school has since improved and their appeal of the decision allows them to remain open...

According to [Clay Eaton with the South Carolina Public Charter School District], the school received no materials for upcoming statewide tests and no funding for the month of March. He says parents should move their students to a recognized school setting...

He says the district will head to court Tuesday asking to make their temporary restraining order against the school permanent.

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Lusher Charter School

“NOPD says feds now looking into 2011 embezzlement from Lusher Charter School.” The Lens (LA), 4/17/2013

The New Orleans Police Department is working with federal investigators in an embezzlement case from 2011 at Lusher Charter School that so far has led to no charges against the admitted embezzler...

Lauren Hightower, a former accountant at the Uptown school, was discovered by administrators to have forged signatures on checks adding up to $25,800. The investigation into her activities is focused on the forgeries...

Hightower was fired from her post; she later returned the money. School officials said she reported herself to the State Board of Certified Public Accountants, which licenses CPAs. Her license has been revoked, according to the agency’s website.

Hightower has not been charged with theft or embezzlement. The detective on the case, Michael Riley, told the Lens in March that the speedy return of the money by Hightower’s lawyer rendered the theft charge a “moot issue.”

... Riley has been talking with a representative from the Inspector General wing of the U.S. Department of Education, along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Knight and the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, over how to proceed...

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Las Montañas Charter School

“Audit shows Las Montañas Charter's repeat accounting problems.” Las Cruces Sun-News (NM), 2/8/2013

LAS CRUCES — Las Montañas Charter School again has accounting difficulties and faces revocation of its charter, a year after budget problems threatened to shut down the school.

Las Montañas overstated its capital asset balance — the value of its land, buildings, equipment and other assets — on is fiscal year 2011 report, according to final audit findings presented to the Las Cruces school board Tuesday...

"These audit findings are problematic," Superintendent Stan Rounds said.

Las Montañas was "not keeping good track of the assets they had purchased" and listed items as assets that it didn't buy, Las Cruces Public Schools Assistant Superintendent of Finance Terry Dean said...

To fix the overstatement, the school's listed net assets and capital assets were each decreased by $100,701.

The decrease does not alter the school's budget, merely corrects the value of the assets it owns.

Las Montañas also couldn't account for $83,207 in cash, according to the audit report...

This audit is not the first time financial issues at Las Montañas have come up.

The school has repeat problems with its internal control structure, cash control and bookkeeping, among others, according to the report...

Las Montañas has seen low enrollment and graduation rates...

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La Crescent Montessori Academy

“Teacher's arrest begs more questions.” La Crosse Tribune (WI), 1/31/2013

School administrators had few answers Wednesday for why Jason David Barker — a convicted felon and special-education teacher now charged with molesting his students — was able to land job after job at area charter and private schools.

Barker was director of the special-education program at La Crescent Montessori Academy until earlier this month, when several of his students confronted him at school in a plea to stop the abuse, prosecutors said...

La Crescent Montessori school administrator Tammy Stremcha declined to comment Wednesday about Barker and referred all questions to the school’s attorney, Dawn Harris.

Harris declined to comment on the school’s procedure for hiring new employees, and would not say if the school conducts background checks...

Barker’s latest charges accuse him of ongoing inappropriate relationships with at least three young girls at La Crescent Montessori Academy, offering what one described as “weird touches,” hugging, and requests they sit on his lap only after he closed the door...

According to court records, Barker was convicted in Minnesota’s Ramsey County of felony criminal damage to property in 1995, and of third-degree burglary in 1994. No further details on those crimes were available Wednesday.

He was charged in Anoka County in September 2006 with disorderly conduct and furnishing alcohol to minors, according to court records. He pleaded guilty later that year to the count of disorderly conduct, and the furnishing alcohol charge was dismissed, records show...

Barker was already working at the La Crescent Montessori Academy in May, when prosecutors say he brandished a knife, reached into a car and threatened to stab a couple he accused of cutting him off during a bicycle ride on the east end of Winona.

Barker pleaded not guilty. The school promoted him to special-education director four months later...

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Keystone Education Center Charter School

“Mercer County charter school executive director fined.” Pittsburg Tribune (PA), 3/26/2013

The Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission on Tuesday fined the executive director of a Mercer County charter school for leasing properties he and his family controlled for the school's use without board approval.

James Gentile, executive director of Keystone Education Center Charter School, violated conflict of interest rules, the commission said. It fined him $7,000...

From the 2006-07 through 2011-12 school years, the school paid $714,120 in leases for two Greenville properties owned by Gentile Enterprises, a company owned by Gentile and his family, without board approval, the state said.

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Houston Gateway Academy

“Charter school's entry fee is illegal.” Houston Chronicle (TX), 4/10/2013

Houston Gateway Academy, a public charter school that serves mostly low-income families, was charging parents fees to enroll their children in violation of state law, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Applicants to the school received a letter saying the fee - $100 for one child or $200 per family - was required for students to land a reserved spot next fall...

Charter schools and traditional school districts are allowed to charge for materials, student clubs, identification cards and a few other areas under state law, but the fees cannot be tied to admission, said TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe.

Gateway Superintendent Richard Garza could not be reached for comment Wednesday. His charter network enrolls about 1,500 students, and 93 percent are considered economically disadvantaged, according to TEA data. The fee was to be charged to new students and to those who were re-enrolling...

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Fulton Science Academy High School*

“School board: Fulton Science Academy appeal must wait till May, June.” NorthFulton.Com (GA), 4/14/2013

FULTON COUNTY, Ga. – With May 23 the final day of school in Fulton County, it appears probable a decision on the future of the Fulton Science Academy High School will come just days before that date, putting in flux the academic plans for hundreds of high school students.

Last year, the Fulton School Board voted to terminate the charter with FSA HS on June 30, ending its relationship with the charter school after an eight-year partnership. Because there were two years remaining in the charter agreement, the action must be approved by the Georgia Board of Education (GBOE), following a recommendation from the Georgia Department of Education (GDOE), which is handling the appeal.

FSA HS appealed Fulton's decision to the state in January, but officials with the GDOE noted the process was not complete in time for the GBOE's April 4-5 meeting. The date of the May meeting has not yet been set and state officials are not promising completion of the process even then...

However, minutes of the board meeting show about a 7 percent decline in enrollment following the Fulton School Board's action in December, and an open house for prospective students in the spring was canceled because of the uncertainty of the appeal. FSA HS had an enrollment of 250 students at the start of the school year.

Last year, its sister school, Fulton Science Academy Middle School, lost its public school charter and converted to a private school. Morgan did not comment on whether plans have been made to follow the same route for the high school.

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“Financial, operational deficiencies cited in Fulton Science Academy closure.”NorthFulton.com (GA), 12/11/2012

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – The looming closure of the Fulton Science Academy High School has seen none of the drama created last year with the closing of its sister school, the FSA Middle School, as a public charter school.

Noticeably absent are the local politicians and community leaders who came out in force to try and stop the Fulton County School System from revoking last year the charter from the high performing middle school. One year later, few voices have come forward in support of keeping its sister high school open as a charter school.

Last week, the seven-member Fulton County Board of Education voted unanimously to begin termination proceedings against the charter high school at the end of June 2013. If successful, the high school will either close its doors completely in June, or convert to a private high school —the route taken by the FSA Middle School...

The recommendation to close the high school came after an extensive audit over the summer that examined the financial and operational processes of the school. The audit concluded significant deficiencies were apparent, and serious enough to warrant a closing of the school...

In recommending the closing of the FSA HS, Avossa pointed to a number of issues at the school, centered on governance board activities, low enrollment and its practice of charging students hundreds of dollars to take core classes, which should be offered at no cost.

Avossa noted FSA High School has never connected with the community or lived up to its goal of being the feeder school for the FSA Middle School. Its current enrollment of just over 250 students is well below the projected enrollment of 450...

"We've had numerous issues with the school since 2007 and have given them many opportunities to try and improve their operations," said Avossa. "The governance board has had a long history of ineffective leadership and poor decision-making, which has led to many of the current issues."

He pointed to the default on a $19 million bond, which was taken out last year to finance the construction of a campus to eventually house the FSA elementary school (Fulton Sunshine Academy), FSA Middle and FSA High. After Fulton County revoked the charter for the middle school, plans for construction stopped and the loan went into default in June. How the remaining $10 million will be paid back is still in legal limbo...

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* Gulen charter school

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