DENVER – An assistant football coach at KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy has been fired after being accused of making an online sexual advance toward a student, FOX31 News has learned.The coach, whose name has not been released, allegedly made the remarks on a student’s Facebook page.A Denver Public Schools spokesperson says the coach is a part-time employee of the charter school and not a DPS employee.
A charter school that opened this year with high expectations and wealthy, powerful backers scored at the bottom of all schools in all of Northeast Florida in School Grade score.KIPP Impact Middle, a college preparatory school, earned an F in its opening year.“We’re disappointed,” Principal Robert Hawke said. “We fell pretty far short of where we wanted to be.”...The school opened this past school year with about 90 fifth-graders. It will add another 90 fifth-graders in the next school year and grow a sixth-grade class. The school lost a handful of students during the school year...
One of the nation’s fastest-growing charter-school models may be stumbling in Kansas City.Concerns over the local management of the KIPP Endeavor Academy have prompted its sponsoring college to put the public school through the same kind of comprehensive site review the state conducts for struggling school districts.According to state documents, the middle school did not establish programs to use certain federal money that will have to be returned. The school also has had too few classroom teachers meeting the state’s criteria for “highly qualified.”…
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Parents at one local school are holding a town hall meeting Saturday because they said they want the principal fired.The parents said the mistakes the principal has made this year have hurt students.Students at KIPP Endeavor Academy went home Friday like any other regular day, but behind the scenes a group of parents said the charter school has failed to live up to its own motto.“Their motto is no excuses, no short cuts," said parent Cherise Ellison. "And we expect the same from them.”Ellison is just one of the parents that met Friday afternoon to organize the town hall meeting on Saturday to address several problems.She said she is upset the principal decided to disband the parent association with little explanation…The biggest concern for the parents is the fact that the charter school applied for federal Title 1 money. They were granted $256,000, but the school never came up with a plan on how to use that money. And parents said at a time when most school districts are struggling financially, it makes no sense to have all this money just sitting there…The principal told KCTV5, "We did discontinue the KIPP parent association as I felt it needed to be reorganized. There were disagreements between parents about the proper direction and leadership of the committee. We are currently planning for a new parent organization, which will pick up in the fall…
INDIANAPOLIS -- The co-founder of an Indianapolis charter school is facing new allegations he defrauded schools and small business owners out of thousands of dollars. 6News' Kara Kenney reported Monday that Dimitri Snowden, the co-founder of the Indianapolis-based Paramount School of Excellence, was named in a lawsuit brought by the KIPP Academy, another Indianapolis charter school, which is sponsored by Mayor Greg Ballard and funded by public tax dollars. [More about KIPP Indianapolis HERE]The school accuses Snowden and his information technology company, Ion360, of breach of contract, fraud and deception totaling $45,796 in damages.The Paramount School of Excellence also contracted with Snowden's company, but fired him and is now seeking legal action…Tom Wagenhauser with Indy IT Professionals said small-business owners should always ask for references, certifications and accreditations before doing business with a Web company…Ion360 is listed as a member of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. The chamber refused to comment on Snowden's membership due to the ongoing lawsuit.According to the lawsuit brought by KIPP, Ion360 pressured the school to purchase products and services it did not need and could not afford and failed to provide the promised "responsive service and rapid resolution" to technology issues and problems.It's unclear whether KIPP Charter Academy investigated Snowden prior to hiring him…
KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University.“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come.”…
A charter network that has two schools in Baltimore has a high level of student attrition and of private and public funding that have positioned it to be successful, according to a national report published Thursday.The report on Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), which opened its first school in Baltimore about a decade ago and recently reached a long-term deal to remain in the city for another 10 years, suggests that the national charter school network's high performance is a result of having advantages over its public school counterparts.The study, which was published by Western Michigan University and jointly released with Columbia University, "What Makes KIPP Work: A study of student characteristics, attrition and school finance," based its conclusions on publicly available KIPP data measured against districtwide data…Nationally, the report found, on average about 15 percent of students leave KIPP every year, compared with 3 percent in public schools. Moreover, between grades six and eight, about 30 percent of students drop off KIPP's rolls.The majority of students who leave are African-American males, the report found, and the schools primarily serve African-American students.The lead researcher, Gary Miron, called KIPP's attrition a "tremendous drop-off," concluding that he believes "their outcomes would change" without the attrition.The study also concluded that KIPP's high performance, when compared to public schools, could be a result of serving significantly fewer special-education students and English language learners — two populations that are often less competitive academically and more expensive to educate…The report's researchers found that in addition to receiving more public funding per pupil than its public school counterparts, KIPP also received $5,760 per pupil from private funding…"Kids who persist at KIPP do well," Miron said. "But the question is, is KIPP lifting the public schools, or are they lifting the kids who have the support to persist?"
…The school says it will close June 30 if it cannot reach a long-term deal with the Baltimore Teachers Union over pay or garner enough support for legislation in Annapolis that would allow teachers to set their own working conditions.KIPP's model requires a longer-than-typical 9 1/2-hour school day, which has caused tensions with the union, in order to achieve its results: some of the highest test scores in the state and a 100 percent college-acceptance rate…Unlike many of its counterparts around the nation, Baltimore's KIPP schools are bound by the teachers union contract regarding pay, which has earned the state criticism for having a restrictive charter school law. Therefore, KIPP has had to compensate teachers for the extended days — a demand that the school says is costing an additional $400,000 to $500,000 a year.KIPP is also negotiating with the school system in hopes of getting a long-term lease for the building Ujima now occupies. It is willing to take on debt to fix up the building, which is in poor condition, but only if it can get a long-term agreement….Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, said the union is willing to negotiate with KIPP, as it does with several charter schools in Baltimore that want to implement individual models that may conflict with the union's contract."What we have is the most innovative contract in the country — and we're expecting student achievement to rise in all of our schools, and I would hope KIPP is going to be a part of that," English said. "But, at the same token — I think it's unfair to expect teachers to work a 91/2-hour day and not pay them for that time."The school put the district on notice last winter that it would leave Baltimore if a long-term agreement could not be reached. KIPP had threatened to pull out of the district last year when the school and the union were at odds over the union's contract. The two parties then agreed that KIPP teachers would receive 20.5 percent more in pay — making them among the highest-paid teachers in the district. That agreement ends June 30…
One of the most sought-after public charter schools in Baltimore has stopped administering an entrance placement exam after city schools CEO Andrés Alonso expressed concern that the practice — the only one of its kind in the city — could discourage some applicants.The test at Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Ujima Academy in Northwest Baltimore, Alonso said, could deter families of lower-performing students from seeking enrollment.Since 2003, a year after opening in Baltimore, the school has used a diagnostic exam to determine whether students seeking to enter sixth grade were performing at comparable reading and math levels as KIPP Ujima's fifth-grade classes. If potential sixth-graders did not pass the test, they could enroll, but would have to repeat fifth grade.Alonso said he became aware of the test last year and asked the school to stop administering it after reading a description of it. Until it agreed to stop the practice, KIPP Ujima's website said the test was a way to determine whether a "student has the skills necessary to succeed" at the school…KIPP Ujima agreed to stop administering the placement test that would have been given early this year, realizing that it could be misinterpreted as a way of attracting only high-performing students, said Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore. The school primarily serves students who are below grade level and are from low-income neighborhoods…The school used to advertise that sixth-grade students who passed the test would be accepted, while those who did not would be entered into a lottery to vie to repeat the fifth grade…
