John A. Reisenbach Charter School

URBAN TACTICS; REQUIEM FOR A MUCH-BELOVED SCHOOL; July 4, 2004; New York Times 

KAROLYN BELCHER, the forceful young principal of the John A. Reisenbach Charter School, sat in her office on a recent Thursday, sniffling slightly.

''I think I'm officially bitter,'' she said with a catch in her voice as she worked her way through a pile of red eighth-grade diplomas, flipping each one over, signing it, and laying it on a second stack. ''It's hard to see five years come to this. At least the kids are graduating.''

These eighth graders are the last class at Reisenbach, a charter school on West 117th Street in Harlem that Ms. Belcher has guided since its founding in 1999. Charter schools, state-financed, privately run alternatives to traditional public schools, have unusual freedom to operate, but they must submit to periodic and grueling review. In New York, the toughest review comes every five years, when a state evaluator, in this case the State University of New York Board of Trustees, must decide whether to renew the school charter.

Last February, the board decided not to do so for Reisenbach, influenced in part by low test scores its students received in 2003. Two weeks ago, amid calls for a reprieve based on new, higher scores, and after a nerve-racking period of flux, the board affirmed its earlier decision…

This intense parental loyalty makes closing charter schools very difficult. ''There's a huge sympathy factor to parents who look you in the eye and say, 'My child loves this school, and I'm not sending them away,''' said Peter Murphy, formerly a vice president of the Charter Schools Institute, an expert body that advises the SUNY board. ''It grips your soul. Nobody wants to tell these parents, 'Sorry, we've got to go by the book here.''' But, he added: ''What are charters supposed to be about? They're supposed to be about unemotional issues.''

By ''unemotional issues,'' Mr. Murphy means measurable indices of a school's performance: how well its curriculum is designed, whether there are provisions for self-review and -- most important -- how the students test. The Charter Schools Institute found Reisenbach had fallen short in all of these respects…

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TerraNova Academy

CHARTER SCHOOL FORCED TO CLOSE; July 27, 2004; Sun Sentinel (FL) 

The directors of a troubled, year-old charter school hit by financial woes, a deteriorating governing board and infighting closed the school Monday night.

TerraNova Academy in West Palm Beach had too many problems to remain open, said Chuck Shaw, charter schools chief for the Palm Beach County School District. The charter school's governing board voted during a special meeting Monday night to close the school.

"The school's debt is now approaching around $100,000," said Shaw. "Having to pay off that debt it almost makes it impossible to open. They gave it a shot, and it doesn't look like they can pull it off."

Shaw said he wanted to give the school a chance to close itself or the district would be forced to close it. TerraNova parents may be able to reopen the school "once they get it together," Shaw said. His office is scrambling to place as many as 200 students in other schools before school starts in two weeks.

Shaw said he couldn't allow the charter school to open because teachers are headed back to school next week and the school doesn't have a building that is up to code for classroom space. Last year, the school held classes at Tabernacle of Love in Palm Springs.

Meanwhile, the school's founder and former principal, Leo Cardona, claims he is a victim of the School District and a handful of board members out to destroy his vision to educate Hispanic children. Cardona also founded Spanish Academy in Boca Raton.

He said he knows the school might not reopen. "At this point I don't really care. I don't want to be part of that show any more," he said.

TerraNova, like all charter schools, was publicly funded but privately managed. It opened with promise in August. Parents hoped the school would offer a quality bilingual education for their youngsters. But by the end of the school year too much had been revealed and too much had gone wrong. Although the school received more than $500,000 in public funds to teach English as a second language, the school's language program was not effective.

The school's finances appeared to be on an upswing last month when the board removed Cardona from his $65,000 executive director position and eliminated a $30,000 TerraNova job held by Cardona's son, David.

But the school's original board resigned about three weeks ago amid chaos and the board's inability to make decisions. A new board of mostly parents tried to save the school during the past two weeks, but even that new board disintegrated amid confusion.

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CHARTER SCHOOL'S BOARD MEMBERS CALL IT QUITS IN FRUSTRATION; July 8, 2004; Palm Beach Post (FL) 

TerraNova charter school's governing board disintegrated this week with four of five members resigning following months of infighting and confusion over leadership at the West Palm Beach school.

A fifth board member, Jay Steele, who was absent from a meeting Tuesday night, said Wednesday that running the public school was a "nuisance" but did not say whether he planned to resign also.

"I didn't really wish to be on this board to begin with," Steele said.

New board members are scheduled to be nominated and elected at a July 13 meeting - less than a month before the first day of school.

Founding board member Laurel Cherwin-Salmon said she resigned to give parents a chance to serve on the board, but also because she was frustrated by the inability of the board to get information from Leo Cardona, who served as principal last school year.

"If you keep everyone in a state of confusion, then nothing gets accomplished," she said…

TerraNova has been under scrutiny for months after district officials realized its administration was not following basic rules for public charter schools.

Chuck Shaw, director of charter schools for the school district, said the school has been operating without approved contracts or job descriptions for employees, has never turned in board minutes to his office, and does not have an appropriate budget.

The school also has moved into a new facility without a lease, and it's unclear whether a new principal has been hired or not. According to minutes from a June 1 meeting, Cardona hired a new principal on May 12 without a draft budget outlining her salary, or approval from the board…

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Sojourner Truth Learning Academy

SOJOURNER CHARTER SCHOOL CLOSES DOORS- TRUSTEES DENY RENEWAL REQUEST; June 12, 2004; San Diego Union-Tribune (CA) 

The Sojourner Truth Learning Academy, a charter school under scrutiny for alleged financial improprieties, closed for the school year yesterday and will not reopen.

The San Diego Unified School District board voted 4-1 this week to deny the school's application for a five-year charter renewal after being told by district staffers that Sojourner, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus, faces a $200,000 deficit…

Located in St. Stephens Cathedral Church of God in Christ on Imperial Avenue in Encanto, Sojourner had an enrollment of 144 and served a predominantly black and Latino student base.

Parents said many of the students who attend the school come from broken homes and have a history of academic and disciplinary troubles, but that at Sojourner they have found a nurturing environment…

According to district reports, the school fared poorly both financially and academically, failing to meet the goals of its charter…

An internal audit the district completed in February said Sojourner paid employees' salaries with money orders and cash in violation of state law and district procedures.

The school wrote checks totaling more than $22,000 to the principal and former and current employees without documenting why the payments were made.

When examining invoices for services rendered to the school, district officials who conducted the review were unable to locate some of the vendors. Out of 25 vendors contacted, 11 could not be reached because their telephone numbers had changed, were incorrect or were answering machines.

The review also said the school received $37,464 in state funding last school year that was not supported by its attendance records. The school's monthly attendance reports failed to account for 1,002 absences marked by teachers.

The review also found that gains third-graders at Sojourner made on standardized language, spelling and reading tests in recent years are suspect. A former school employee declared in two sworn statements that there were unusual erasure marks found on test answer sheets, but that the principal took no action…

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Roxbury Charter High School

COMMISSIONER TO RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF ROXBURY CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL; Tuesday, December 14, 2004; Massachussets Department of Elementary & Secondary Education press release 

MALDEN - Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll will ask the Board of Education to vote next week to immediately suspend and revoke the charter granted in 2002 to the Roxbury Charter High School for Business, Finance and Entrepreneurship (RCHS). If approved, the school will shut its doors at the start of the winter break next week and will not reopen after the new year.

A letter was sent to leaders of RCHS late Monday to notify them of Driscoll’s recommendation.

“This is not a decision that I take lightly, but closing this school down is absolutely the right thing to do,” Driscoll said. “We as educators have a responsibility to our children, and it is unacceptable to me to leave students in that school any longer than necessary. This school has been in a downward spiral both financially and administratively for some time, and while we have tried to give them time to resolve their issues, the obstacles they face now are too big to overcome. Closing their doors is the best option for everyone.”

This recommendation is based on evidence that the school is not financially viable and does not have a strong enough governance and administrative structure to provide sufficient oversight to the operations of the school. As a result, Driscoll said he fears the 107 students enrolled at the school are simply not getting the education they deserve.

If approved, this would be the first time the Board of Education will have voted an emergency revocation and suspension of an operating school’s charter since the state’s charter school movement began in 1993.

The school received a Commonwealth charter in 2002 and opened in September, 2003. Their curriculum focus is on business, finance and entrepreneurship, and was chartered for grades 9 through 12, with a maximum of 400 students. It is currently in its second year, with an enrollment of 107, rather than the 175 projected on the school’s original growth plan.

Driscoll said his decision was based on several issues:

The school is experiencing significant cash flow problems, due in large part to the school not reaching its enrollment projections. Currently, the school is projecting a deficit of $113,000 for the current year, which could result in the school being forced to close its doors on its own accord later in the current school year.

The school has no viable financial plan for addressing its facility needs. The school is currently leasing a former parochial school; the lease expires at the end of next year. If the school remains at this location, it will need to address significant ADA compliance issues as well as expand the facility to accommodate its planned enrollment.

The school has had serious governance problems, leading DOE officials to conclude that the school’s Board of Trustees has not provided effective oversight to properly address the major issues facing the school.

The school has failed to implement required procedures and programs relating to special education and English language immersion.

The school is not complying with state and federal requirements regarding student record keeping and documentation of Title I eligibility.

DOE officials have been in contact with the Boston Public Schools, and have been assured that seats will be made available after the new year for any RCHS students who choose to enroll in Boston.

“I know that this may be a difficult transition for some, but what matters most to me that our students get the best possible education in our schools," Driscoll said. "This is what’s best for these kids.”

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