The Classical Academy

“Special report by state levels criticisms at TCA.” The Gazette (CO); May 08, 2009

Complaints that The Classical Academy's insular community created an environment where racism and religious intolerance were allowed to go unchecked raises questions about whether the charter school is welcoming to all students, according to a report released Friday.

The report to the Colorado Department of Education, triggered by parents' complaints, also found fault with the school's accounting practices, noted possible conflicts of interest with administrators who run a charter-school consulting business on the side and said the school failed to properly respond to allegations of sexual and physical assaults and bullying.

It concluded that while the school has high academic achievement, the "investigation revealed major areas of concern about management, safety and security of students."...

The CDE paid independent consultant James Sauls, of Colorado Springs, $9,500 to look into allegations made against the TCA by parents who said they turned to the state because the school and Academy School District 20 ignored their issues. TCA is a D-20 charter school with about 2,900 students on three campuses...

Friday's report said TCA failed to follow procedures regarding reports of sexual and physical assaults. In the Reece case, the report said, there was no evidence that an in-house investigation had been conducted, as school officials claimed. The police investigation was inconclusive, the report said...

[TCA board President Matt Carpenter]  and [school principal] Hyatt said they both were aware that chief financial officer Doug Hering and high school principal Peter Hilts started a charter-school consulting business, Advantage Insights Consulting Network LLC, in December 2007.

The report questioned whether TCA should have paid for their travel to charter school conferences that might have benefited their business.

Hyatt said he sent them to conferences for the benefit of TCA and it was appropriate for the school to pay. He said sometimes he and other staff attend such conferences as well.

The report also said the two had used school equipment to print business cards, but spokeswoman Susan Tillotson said TCA was reimbursed within the last month for those costs. She didn't know when the cards were printed.

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Read more: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/05/dirty-and-dangerous-secrets-of.html

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Willits Charter School

“Mom Says Charter School Stood By As Teacher Preyed on her Daughter.” Courthouse News Service, 8/13/2009

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A mother claims that Willits Unified School District did nothing to stop a charter school teacher from sexually abusing her 15-year-old daughter, and invaded the girl's privacy disclosing "intimate facts" about the sexual misconduct in "a public announcement to the entire student body."

In her federal complaint, Jane Doe adds that teachers at the Willits Charter School have ostracized her since she objected to the teacher's fondling her daughter's butt at a teachers' party.

Doe says the school district did not discipline Clint Smith, 38, though he engaged in oral sex and intercourse with her daughter for almost a year.

Doe says the molestation began with kissing and fondling, but escalated when Smith had oral sex with her daughter during a Willits Charter School camping trip to Yosemite National Park in June 2008...

Two students also saw the butt-grabbing and reported it to another parent, who reported it to a Willits Charter School board member, Doe says. She says the board member told her that principal Sally Rulison was "handling it."..

The mom says that principal Rulison learned about the sexual relationship in early December 2008, but "took no measures to prevent any physical contact or emotional entanglement between Smith and [her daughter] after either the June 2008 or December 2008 reports of Smith's inappropriate conduct."

She claims that Rulison asked that the girl not attend school for a day and in her absence "made a public announcement to the entire student body, disclosing intimate facts" about Smith's relationship with the girl, "including details of the sexual misconduct."

The girl and her mother seek general and punitive damages for civil rights violations, denial of equal protection, negligent hiring and invasion of privacy. They named as defendants Willits Unified School District, Willits Charter School, Rulison and Smith...

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“Jail term for former Willits teacher who had sex with student.” The Press Democrat (CA), 8/4/2009

WILLITS — To the relief of many people packed into the courtroom on Tuesday, a former charter school teacher was sentenced to county jail rather than state prison for his sexual relationship with a student.

Most of 40 people in the Willits courtroom were there to support Clinton Douglas Smith, 38, who had pleaded guilty in April to having sex with a 15-year-old Willits Charter School student.

“He’s a wonderful guy,” said Yvonne Winter.

The supporters also included Smith’s family, teachers, and former students, including his victim, now 16.

During a private meeting toward the end of the four-hour sentencing hearing, the girl told Judge Clay Brennan that Smith was a good person and she did not want him to go to prison, her mother said.

Smith had faced a maximum four-year prison sentence following his guilty plea to having unlawful sex with a minor under the age of 16.

Brennan sentenced Smith on Tuesday to six months in the county jail and 36 months probation. He also ordered a four-year suspended prison sentence that could be imposed if Smith violates the terms of his probation. Brennan delayed deciding whether to require Brennan to register as a sex offender until the end of his probation.

During the sentencing hearing, a forensic psychologist testified that he is unlikely to re-offend.

“I determined he was not a pedophile and he was not predatory,” said Ukiah psychologist Kevin Kelly.

Smith became sexually involved with his student because he lacked the ability to set adequate boundaries and was somewhat naive and co-dependent, the psychologist said.

The weaknesses in Smith’s personality, combined with the personality of the teenager resulted in “a grievous mistake,” Kelly said.

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La Paloma Academy

“Molestation suit against principal cites text messages.” Arizona Daily Star, 8/16/2009

One text message sent to a teenager's cell phone asked, in effect: What can I do so what happened is never spoken about?

Another message said: I just want forgiveness, please.

The teen and a former teacher who saved copies of that text and other brief messages say they were sent by a school principal who was also pastor of the teen's church.

The former student alleges in a lawsuit that Randy S. Musgrove used his position as principal and pastor to sexually molest and harass her starting when she was 14. She told police he bought her a cell phone and offered cash to keep her from telling anyone, a police report says.

Musgrove denies the allegations and has not been charged with a crime. None of the 20 text messages that have surfaced in the case admit any sexual conduct.

Musgrove was pastor of Tucson's Hope Chapel, a church located at the Lakeside campus of La Paloma Academy, 8140 E. Golf Links Road. He has since moved to Phoenix and become principal of Liberty Traditional Charter School...

Musgrove could not be reached for comment. His Tucson attorney, Jack Redhair, did not return calls. But Robert Berk, the attorney representing La Paloma Academy in the suit, said Musgrove "vociferously and categorically" denies the allegations and that the school supports him in his defense.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants, which also include La Paloma Academy, Hope Chapel and Musgrove's wife, who worked as a teacher's aide, knew or should have known the molestation was occurring and should have prevented it.

"The school's position is that if these allegations are true — if the sex molestation occurred — the school had no reason to believe it was occurring," Berk said.

Musgrove's relationship with the alleged victim when she was at La Paloma drew the attention of Shari Brown, who testified she found it inappropriate that he gave the teen rides in his car and paid for pizza, a pedicure and other things.

Brown spent nearly 20 years as a Tucson police officer. After she retired from law enforcement, she taught fourth grade for a year at the Lakeside campus, then got to know the alleged victim after leaving that job.

Around October or November of 2007, the young woman called Brown and revealed she'd been involved in "some stuff with a married man," the ex-detective testified in a deposition last April.

Brown asked if it was Randy Musgrove and the woman said yes, then confirmed it was "sexual stuff" but not sexual intercourse, Brown testified.

Brown said she reported the matter to the teen's legal guardian, who said she would notify police. But the family held off doing so because the teen was concerned about the impact on the Musgrove family, the school and church, Brown testified...

Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_bb1fa0fe-1672-590f-b7d1-f9321a63de14.html#ixzz1YEp9Pule

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“Police: Boy tried to poison classmates.” Arizona Daily Sun, 4/24/2008

PHOENIX (AP) — Tucson police have arrested a 10-year-old boy who allegedly put pills in a carton of juice and tried to get two classmates to drink it.

The boy was in the custody of a guardian and is charged as a juvenile with one felony count of poisoning food, drink or medicine, Tucson police Sgt. Mark Robinson said Thursday.

He said the La Paloma Academy student put various pills in pineapple-orange juice Wednesday morning and offered it to a 12-year-old boy, who was warned there were drugs in the drink by another student.

The 10-year-old then offered the drink to a girl of the same age, who also was warned about the tainted juice and didn't drink it, Robinson said.

A call to school Principal Jackie Trujillo-Watins was not immediately returned Thursday.

Six types of pills were found in the juice, in the school yard and in a trash can, Robinson said. It's unclear how many of them were in the juice.

Robinson said two of the pills were prescription medications that, if taken by somebody other than the patient they were prescribed to, lowers the blood pressure and decreases the heart rate to a potentially dangerous level.

While he said those effects could be more harmful for a child, he said there's no indication they would be life-threatening.

Robinson said the possible effects of a third prescription medication were unknown, as were the effects of the fourth type of pill — likely over-the-counter pain medication — and the other two types of pills, which were purple and yellow tablets.

Police said it's unclear what the student's motive was in bringing the pills to school and trying to get other students to ingest them.

"It could have been extremely serious," Robinson said. "I think the school administration took quick action on it and limited the other kids' exposure to this attempt to pass around tainted juice."

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Howard Road Academy Public Charter School

“Cheating on DC-CAS Costs Charter School.” Washington Post (DC), 8/12/2009

The teacher at Howard Road Academy Public Charter School suspected something was seriously amiss in April when a student taking the math portion of the DC-CAS standardized test announced that she was finished -- way early.

"You can't be finished. Go back and check your work," the teacher said.

"We did this yesterday. I know all of the answers," the student said.

The scene comes from a report by school officials detailing the investigation of a cheating scandal at their G Street campus in Southeast D.C. When the probe was done, an administrator and two teachers were dismissed and 27 fourth- and sixth-graders had their test scores invalidated...

When the teacher looked at the student's exam, she found that the problems were identical to those in a packet of practice questions distributed to students a few days earlier. A colleague had a similar experience, and they shared their concern with the school's leadership.

According to a statement from an unnamed school official, copies of the test were "distributed strategically to two new teachers who have never administered a DC-CAS before and didn't know what they looked like. The pages were copied without covers and distributed to them as extra practice for the kids."

Security was also lax, according to another staff member's statement. Copies of the exams were sitting in an unlocked cabinet for three weeks prior to testing week.

The administrator who leaked the test, and two teachers who knew of the cheating but did not report it, were dismissed, according to the report.

The report also strongly suggests that school politics may have helped create an envionment [sic] in which cheating could take root. It includes a letter of "reprimand" and another of "admonishment" to two unnamed Howard Road employees from Mosaica Education Inc., the company that operates Howard Road and charter schools in eight states.

One of them, who was apparently in a senior position, was cited for a failure of leadership because the teachers who suspected the cheating "did not feel comfortable" coming to him/her. "Had they not seen you as so personally close to [name redacted] they would have brought this issue directly to your attention."

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Morningstar Academy Charter School

In 2003, the for-profit Educational Administrative Services opened Morningstar Academy. EAS also operated the now-defunct California Charter Academy. Read about the CCA scandal @ http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/05/california-charter-academy-60-schools.html

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PROBATION FOR TEACHER/MINISTER IN AJ SEX EXPLOITATION CASE. Gold Canyon Today (AZ) 07 July 2009 http://www.goldcanyontoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=471&Itemid=189

Former Apache Junction charter school teacher and youth minister, Bobby Kennedy, 31, received lifetime supervised probation despite his pleading guilty to attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and furnishing obscene materials to a minor.

Kennedy was accused of molesting a 15-year-old female student at Morningstar Academy Charter School, kissing her and coercing students to take naked pictures of themselves with his cell phone in 2005. He was originally arrested by Apache Junction Police (AJPD) in May 2005 charged with 2 counts of sexual exploitation of minor and 2 counts of child molestation that reportedly involved at least three female students in incidents that occurred on school property at 1105 W. Superstition Blvd.

Kennedy was held in the Pinal County Jail on $750,000 bail until June 27, 2005 at which time his bail was reduced to $150,000. Kennedy subsequently posted the reduced bail and was out on bond while authorities continued to investigate the case, which led to an additional indictment on August 11, 2005 on 22 charges including molestation, sexual abuse, aggravated assault and furnishing obscene materials to a minor.

Kennedy failed to appear for a hearing on the charges on August 23, 2005 and dropped out of sight, prompting the AJPD to put Kennedy on their “Most Wanted List” where he remained for nearly three years.

Police believed that Kennedy’s mother and principal of Morningstar Academy, Carolyn Kennedy, had prior knowledge of her son’s actions with students and also that she helped her son to flee prosecution. In 2006 Kennedy’s mother pleaded guilty for failing to report the abuse of a minor and received two years probation and a suspended 90 day jail sentence along with paying a fine of $2,500. Despite her conviction and alleged failure to help authorities locate her fugitive son, she was allowed to retain her position as principal.

After nearly three years on the lam, Kennedy was arrested by Deputy U.S. Marshals on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 in Lawton, Oklahoma where he was living with his wife and small son. On Monday, June 26, 2009 Kennedy was sentenced to lifetime supervised probation with a 180-day deferred jail sentence with 52 days already served.

When told of Kennedy’s sentence of probation, former AJPD Commander Jay Swart who was instrumental in Kennedy’s capture by the U.S. Marshall’s was incredulous saying, “What? I can’t believe that! How can anybody justify probation for someone who confessed of such grievous actions against children?”

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Additional stories about this case

• PROSECUTOR TO FIGHT MOLESTATION SUSPECT'S BAIL-TEACHER WHO FLED IS CAUGHT, FREED ON BAIL AGAIN. The Arizona Republic 16 May 2008 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/05/16/20080516molest0516.html
• PRINCIPAL'S SON ARRESTED THREE YEARS AFTER MOM SHELTERED HIM ON MOLEST CHARGE. AZcentral.com 19 Mar 2008 http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/WATCHBLOG/19644

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OPERATOR OF VALLEY SCHOOL FACES CHARGES IN CALIF. The Arizona Republic 11 Sep 2007 http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0911charter0911.html

The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools refused Monday to allow a charter-school company to change its name after its owner was indicted on felony-theft charges in California.

C. Steven Cox owns Educational Administrative Services, which operates Morningstar Academy, an elementary school, in Apache Junction.

Cox was indicted Sept. 4 in San Bernardino on 56 felony counts of misappropriation of funds and 56 felony counts of grand theft while operating the now-defunct California Charter Academy, run by the for-profit Educational Administrative Services. Cox was indicted along with a Hesperia City Council member, and both pleaded not guilty.

California shut down the school in 2004 after auditors found that the owners had drained the school's coffers of millions of dollars to provide high executive salaries and perks and give questionable contracts to friends and family members.

Arizona agreed to sign a contract with Cox in 2003 to open the Apache Junction elementary charter school.

The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools on Monday tabled a request to allow Educational Administrative Services to change its name, citing the board's recent suspension of Cox's fingerprint card pending the outcome of the indictments…

The company has had money problems in Arizona. Its 2006 audit shows it was operating with "an accumulated loss of $174,050" and owed $34,882 in state and federal taxes. Its 2005 audit reported that an employee embezzled $27,640 and that financial records were missing after an attempted "hostile takeover" of the school by two employees…

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Sequoia Choice Arizona Distance Learning

CHRISTIAN SCHOOL EXPELS CHILDREN OF INQUISITIVE WOMAN. The Arizona Republic 13 Oct 2009

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/10/13/20091013expel1013.html

A Christian school in Glendale expelled the children of a parent who persistently asked questions about how the private school was spending its tuition money.

Lise Hopson had been asking Joy Christian School in Glendale why she paid tuition when a public charter school, Sequoia Choice, was providing the bulk of the private school's academic courses. Charter schools, like all publicly funded schools, are free…

The Republic published an article about the relationship between Joy Christian School and Sequoia Choice on Oct. 2. Before the article was published, state education officials sent copies of parent complaints and state records about the two schools to the state Attorney General's Office for review…

The day before Hopson was quoted in the Republic article, Hopson picked up her daughters as usual after school. The principal handed a letter to Hopson that stated both Hopson and her husband, James, were not "contributing to the harmonious attitude of the school."

In the letter, Kempf called Hopson's actions disruptive and damaging and said they "may have caused financial losses to the school, as well."

Kempf "terminated" the Hopson children's education at Joy Christian School as of 5 p.m. that day and gave the Hopsons a formal notice that as of 5:30 p.m. that day, they were barred from school and church property. The notice allowed the family to visit the "reasonable radius" of the gravesite of Joanne Wright, the children's grandmother, and access to a building leased by the charter school, as long as the Hopsons did not exit their vehicle or talk to anyone on campus.

Hopson's father, Don Wright, said last week that he had his wife's remains removed from a niche on the Joy property.

Wright said a letter he wrote to the pastor also may have led to the children's dismissal. Wright questioned Joy Christian School's relationship with a public charter school. In the letter, Wright said he "expected a refund" of $12,700 in tuition and threatened to take the issue to state officials…

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SCHOOLS UNDER SCRUTINY FOR FINANCING PRIVATE SCHOOL WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS. The Arizona Republic 02 Oct 2009 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/10/02/20091002sto-joy1002.html

State officials are raising questions about an arrangement in which a private school in Glendale and a public charter-school operator have teamed up to help finance the private school with taxpayer dollars.

State records obtained by The Arizona Republic show that Sequoia Choice Arizona Distance Learning, a charter-school firm, collected at least $1.9 million in state funds from 2005 through 2008 to teach courses to students of Joy Christian School.

During the same period, Joy was collecting tuition payments from the parents of the same students, many of whom used private-school tuition tax credits to help pay. Tuition ranges from $6,710 to $8,000 this year.

Last month, the partnership between Sequoia and Joy Christian, which is affiliated with Community Church of Joy, a megachurch along Loop 101, caught the attention of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne…

An official with the Attorney General's Office said the office will examine the legality of all aspects of the partnership.

A non-profit tuition organization that provides most of Joy's scholarship money said it will stop providing the tax-credit funds if Joy does not dramatically reduce the number of Sequoia-provided courses.

In 2008, Sequoia taught nearly 60 percent of Joy Christian's courses. Sequoia said that the arrangement started when it was asked to help the students and that Joy does not pay it to provide the classes…

The partnership is another indication of how the state's private-school tuition tax credit has been used in ways not originally intended.

The tax credit gives taxpayers a dollar-for-dollar reduction of their state income tax for donating to private-school tuition scholarship. The money is collected and distributed by non-profit school-tuition organizations.

A series of Republic stories has revealed that the tax-credit law, which is scarcely enforced, has given rise to creative ways to tap state funds. For example, some charter schools, which are privately owned but state-funded, obtained tax-credit money by designating the afternoon half of their all-day kindergarten as a private service…

The partnership between Joy Christian and Sequoia began in the 2004-05 school year when Sequoia began providing Joy a few courses that the private school couldn't afford, such as a high-end math course and a language course, said Ron Neil, manager of Sequoia…

By 2008-09, Neil said, Sequoia attorneys warned the charter school that religion had become too prominent in Sequoia's classrooms at Joy; classroom prayer and crosses displayed in class could raise issues related to separation of church and state, Neil said…

Last school year, state officials began receiving complaints from a few parents who didn't like that they were paying tuition at Joy Christian when most courses were provided by a public charter school.

"When I started to piece things together, what we were paying for really came down to music, PE, art and Bible class," said Joy Christian parent Lise Hopson, who has two children at the school. "It almost feels as if our kids are pretty much at a charter school, with a little bit of biblical emphasis."…

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Deborah Brown Community School

CHARTER SCHOOL SUED BY TEACHER. Tulsa World (OK) 24 Sept 2009 

A woman who quit her job to become a teacher at a new prekindergarten expansion program of the Deborah Brown Community School is suing the charter school for breach of contract after it abandoned plans for the program just days before its scheduled opening…

Bollinger's suit states "that the statements of the Defendants relating to the terms of employment were untrue at the time they were made," and that the false statements were "made with the intent to induce the Plaintiff to leave her previous job and enter into the employment agreement with the school."

Bollinger is seeking a monetary judgment plus punitive damages. Her suit names as defendants the charter school; its founder and director, Deborah Brown; and Harold Roberts, director of development and public affairs…

When the Tulsa World first reported that Deborah Brown Community School was abandoning its plan for the pre-K program after students had already enrolled and just days before the opening, Roberts denied that the prekindergarten program ever existed…

Two weeks later, the Tulsa World obtained documents through an open-records request showing that the school had a one-year, $25,000 lease on 2,091 square feet in two suites in a building at 5157 E. 51st St. and receipts from the city of Tulsa for occupancy permits to accommodate 40 students at the site.

At that time, Roberts and Bingham acknowledged that the school had, in fact, planned to open a new prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds but said the school needed 100 students to make the new program "economically viable" and that they had only 18.

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Imagine College Preparatory High School

STUDENT IS AWARDED $145,000 IN ALLEGED ASSAULT AT ST. LOUIS CHARTER SCHOOL- SETTLEMENT INVOLVES ALLEGATIONS AGAINST OFF-DUTY CITY COP. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 29 May 2010 

A student who was allegedly assaulted by an off-duty St. Louis police officer at a charter school was awarded $145,000 as part of the terms of a settlement disclosed Friday.

The settlement reached earlier this week between Imagine Academy of Careers, at 3740 Marine Avenue, and Barbara Perry stems from an incident on Feb. 26, 2009. The plaintiffs alleged that Perry's son, J.N., who was a minor and not named in the suit, was assaulted at Imagine College Preparatory High School by an off-duty police officer, Eugene Page, who was in a relationship with his teacher, Genesa Smith…

The settlement states that the payment absolves Imagine Schools and employees of Imagine of any wrongdoing but leaves the door open to future litigation against Eugene Page and the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners…

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SUIT CLAIMS STUDENT, 15, WAS ASSAULTED AT IMAGINE CHARTER SCHOOL. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 21 Aug 2009 

ST. LOUIS -- A federal lawsuit filed Friday alleges that a 15-year-old student at Imagine College Preparatory High School was beaten by staff and a St. Louis police officer.

Named in the suit are Genesa Smith, a teacher; Eugene Page, a St. Louis police officer who the suit said is Smith’s boyfriend; Rodney Williams, a security guard; Tamara Thomas, the charter school’s principal at the time; and the school itself.

The suit, filed by the boy and his mother, Barbara Perry, alleges Page lifted the boy by his throat and slammed him repeatedly against a wall on Feb. 26. The suit states that Page told the boy he had been accused of threatening a teacher, and that the other three knew what was happening but did nothing. The boy, now 16, suffered injuries that caused blood in his urine, as well as blunt force trauma, according to the suit…

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Skills for Tomorrow

LOW ENROLLMENT TO CLOSE DOORS OF ST. PAUL CHARTER SCHOOL / Skills for Tomorrow, a St. Paul school dedicated to teaching job skills, will shut down next month; November 25, 2009; Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) 

A small St. Paul charter high school that was among the state's first charter schools will close its doors next month, its board decided Monday.

Skills for Tomorrow, which has focused on getting students ready to enter the workforce, will shut down on Dec. 18 when students go on holiday break, said school director Claude Maddox.

Financial problems stemming from declining enrollment led to the decision, Maddox said. The school has 81 students, down from 108 six years ago, he said…

The school's board made the "responsible decision" to shut down the school when it could still pay its teachers, meet other financial obligations and cause the least disruption to students, she said. The school has an annual budget of about $1.2 million, mainly from state and federal funding, Maddox said.

Opened in 1994, the school billed itself as the nation's first "school-to-work" charter high school…

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Skills for Tomorrow

FINANCIAL TROUBLES FORCE CLOSING OF ST. PAUL CHARTER SCHOOL; November 25, 2009; Minnesota Public Radio 

St. Paul, Minn. — A charter school in St. Paul plans to close next month because of financial problems.

Skills for Tomorrow school has continually lost enrollment in recent years, which has only hurt finances, but officials say the governor's shifts in education funding this summer also contributed.

While Skills is the first school to announce its closure since the shifts, advocates for charter schools worry it won't be the last.

Every time a school's enrollment drops, so too does its state funding. That's been the root problem for the Skills for Tomorrow school in recent years. This year, it's down to just 65 students…

Piehl also confirms the problems had been building. The school had reserves it could dip into for cash flow needs, but this year, enrollment dropped too much for reserves to cover, which created the need for credit. Credit, Piehl said, that they couldn't get…

"It's true that the payment shift hurts the charter school more than the district school because the district school has the ability to tax and is a better loan risk," Walsh said. "We are working with some others that are on the bubble, so this might not be the last school you see closed." …

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Explorer Charter School

FORMER PRINCIPAL ARRESTED ON GRAND THEFT CHARGES; January 6, 2009; WFTV (FL) 

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- The former principal of Explorer Charter School, a Brevard County elementary and middle school, turned himself in at the Brevard County jail Tuesday. He's accused of stealing funds from the now-defunct school.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has also issued an arrest warrant for Jay Maer, the former finance director, who is also accused of stealing funds from the school. He was arrested Tuesday afternoon in Indian River County.

Eyewitness News was there when Ruben Rosario turned himself in to Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents at the Brevard County jail. The former principal is facing four counts of grand theft for stealing thousands of dollars from the charter school he ran in West Melbourne…

Rosario's finance director, Jay Maer, an ex-con, defended the school's bookkeeping as the district took over the school last spring. He is in even more trouble. He faces 46 charges, including grand theft and forgery. Investigators said he wrote checks to himself for all sorts of things, including coaching stipends, providing security at the school grounds and forging the principal's name.

"When in reality there was no work being done and no extra duties being performed," Ivey explained.

Investigators said they know as much as $100,000 was stolen, but there were so many financial records missing they may never know exactly how much was taken or whether the school would have survived if the money wasn't stolen.

The school's financial problems were disclosed last March and the Brevard County School District took over in April. The school was then shut down.

Maer's bond is set at $133,500. Rosario's bond is set at $12,000.

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Hoggetowne Middle School

FORMER CHARTER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL ARRESTED FOR ALLEGED THEFT OF SCHOOL FUNDS; October 14, 2009; Gainsville Sun (FL)

The ex-principal of a local charter school faces felony charges for allegedly spending more than $18,000 in school funds for personal use.

On Tuesday, Gainesville police charged Kristine M. Santos, 38, formerly the principal and president of the board of directors at Hoggetowne Middle School, with grand theft and fraud. She turned herself in Tuesday and was released on her own recognizance.

Last September, Alachua County School District staff went to Hoggetowne to assist the school's new bookkeeper and reported spending irregularities involving a school debit card that Santos used…

A few of the purchases were listed in the complaint. They included approximately $1,500 at Gainesville Health and Fitness for personal training services, an approximately $380 bill at Hilton Hotels Disney and $139.72 at Victoria's Secret.

According to police, school funds were also used to pay off approximately $31,800 in charges on Santos' personal credit card. She reportedly identified approximately $19,593 of those charges as expenditures for the school but could not provide a school-related purpose for the remaining $12,221.11.

Santos told Hoggetowne school officials that she gave her entire credit card bill to the school's accountants and they mistakenly paid the whole bill instead of only the school-related expenses, according to the complaint.

In the complaint, Gainesville Police Detective William Quirk wrote that the standard procedure should be "to submit a request for reimbursement, not to have the bill paid directly by the school."…

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Serious quality challenge in national charter school sector: Stanford CREDO study

NEW STANFORD REPORT FINDS SERIOUS QUALITY CHALLENGE IN NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL SECTOR; June 15, 2009; CREDO Press release 

Report Recognizes Robust Demand, Supply and Exceptional Charters, Faults Quality Controls, Authorizers and Charter Caps

Stanford, CA – A new report issued today by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.

While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter schools demonstrating no significant difference.

The report found that the academic success of students in charter schools was affected by the individual state policy environment. States with caps limiting the number of charter schools reported significantly lower academic results than states without caps limiting charter growth. States that have the presence of multiple charter school authorizers also reported lower academic results than states with fewer authorizers in place. Finally, states with charter legislation allowing for appeals of previously denied charter school applications saw a small but significant increase in student performance.

The Stanford report, entitled, “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States,” is the first detailed national assessment of charter school impacts since its longitudinal, student-level analysis covers more than 70 percent of the nation’s students attending charter schools. The peer-reviewed analysis looks at student achievement growth on state achievement tests in both reading and math with controls for student demographics and eligibility for program support such as free or reduced-price lunch and special education. The analysis includes the most current student achievement data from 15 states and the District of Columbia and gauges whether students who attend charter schools fare better than if they would have attended a traditional public school.

“The issue of quality is the most pressing problem that the charter school movement faces,” said Dr. Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO at Stanford University. “The charter school movement continues to work hard to remove barriers to charter school entry into the market, making notable strides to level the playing field and improve access to facilities funding, but now it needs to equally focus on removing the barriers to exit, which means closing underperforming schools.”

The report found several key positive findings regarding the academic performance of students attending charter schools. For students that are low income, charter schools had a larger and more positive effect than for similar students in traditional public schools. English Language Learner students also reported significantly better gains in charter schools, while special education students showed similar results to their traditional public school peers.

The report also found that students do better in charter schools over time. While first year charter school students on average experienced a decline in learning, students in their second and third years in charter schools saw a significant reversal, experiencing positive achievement gains.

The report found that achievement results varied by states that reported individual data. States with reading and math gains that were significantly higher for charter school students than would have occurred in traditional schools included: Arkansas, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana and Missouri.

States with reading and math gains that were either mixed or were not different than their peers in the traditional public school system included: California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and North Carolina.

States with reading and math gains that were significantly below their peers in the traditional public school system included: Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas.

"If the supporters of charter schools fail to address the quality challenge, they run the risk of having it addressed for them," said Dr. Raymond. "If the charter school movement is to flourish, a deliberate and sustained effort to increase the proportion of high quality schools is essential.

The replication of successful charter school models is one important element of this effort. On the other side of the equation, however, authorizers, charter school advocates and policymakers must be willing and able to fulfill their end of the original charter school bargain, which is accountability in exchange for flexibility."

To download a copy of the full report and executive summary, visit: http://credo.stanford.edu

About CREDO at Stanford University

CREDO at Stanford University was established to improve empirical evidence about education reform and student performance at the primary and secondary levels. CREDO at Stanford University supports education organizations and policymakers in using reliable research and program evaluation to assess the performance of education initiatives. CREDO's valuable insight helps educators and policymakers strengthen their focus on the results from innovative programs, curricula, policies or accountability practices. http://credo.stanford.edu

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Majority of charter schools not following basic financial guidelines: Minnesota 2020 study

CHECKING IN ON CHARTER SCHOOLS; June 15, 2009; Minnesota 2020 study

Seventeen years after the first charter school opened in Minnesota, this examination of fiscal year 2007 charter school financial audits shows that the vast majority of charter schools do not follow basic financial guidelines or, in some cases, state law. Since this analysis agrees with a recent report by the Office of the Legislative Auditor and audit examinations written in 2001, 2002 and 2003, we conclude that these financial problems are not being adequately addressed by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and, further, are endemic of the charter school system.

Efforts by the 2009 Legislature to provide more accountability to charter schools was welcome, but shorthanded. The charter school program is financially flawed and basic concepts about charter schools - such as unelected school boards and under informed business management - need to be changed.

In November and December, 2008 and January, 2009, Minnesota 2020 combed through the financial audits of 145 charter schools for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2007 - reports that were filed with MDE by December 31, 2007. Our research found several trends in charter school financial management:

    * 83 percent were found to have at least one financial irregularity in their audit - five years earlier, that figure was 73 percent;

    * 51 percent of those schools with problems identified on their 2007 financial audits had the same problems identified on their 2008 audits, according to the MDE;

    * 29 percent did not respond to a request for board minutes - five years earlier, that figure was 33 percent;

    * 55 percent were found to have "limited segregation of duties," a requirement that ensures no single charter school official has control of the school's funds;

    * 26 percent didn't have proper collateral for deposit insurance, a requirement that ensures the charter school can pay its bills…

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