#ANOTHERDAYANOTHERCHARTERSCHOOLSCANDAL
Fort Worth charter school for arts facing financial trouble and possible shutdown
AVPA informed parents and students about the financial challenges they’re facing on Wednesday afternoon. But now the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts is in trouble. Their budget for the school year has a $2 million budget hole to fill now.
The Casual Death of Education: Publicly funded private schools
Publicly funded charter schools are immune from most regulations and often don’t require regular audits, public meetings or even disclosure of public records. While most states require charter schools to be nonprofits, many entities bypass those regulations by creating shell nonprofit organizations that then license the right to run the schools back to a for-profit company.
Financially troubled charter permanently closing
The K-8 school is unable to meet its financial obligations, according to an annual performance report by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. The K-8 school was financially compliant one time during its previous five-year charter term.
New federal trial begins for 2 former Universal Companies execs, acquitted last year of bribing City Council member
This time, a co-defendant has pleaded guilty and will testify against the former charter school officials. Co-founders of charter school face a tougher case this time, standing trial on separate charges of tax fraud, embezzlement and bribing a Milwaukee school official.
A former charter school has gone private after the state ordered it closed
Weeks before the Charter School Review Board revoked SABA’s charter citing enrollment concerns, Toomer filed a “notice of intent to establish a private school” with the state Division of Non-Public Education. The agency registers and monitors private schools and home schools in North Carolina.
ConVal officials, residents cite concern over charter schools
Opponents of the district’s reconfiguration plan have also cited charter schools as a reason for their opposition. During a reconfiguration hearing in February, former state legislator Gordon Allen of Antrim said, “We have a concerted and well-funded effort in this state, and around the country, to destroy public education. If you want to see a downward spiral of public education, [closing elementary schools] is providing a great opportunity for that to happen.”
Former accountant for Hmong charter school receives two years of probation for 2022 theft
Michael Pocrnich pleaded guilty to stealing $42,500 from Noble Academy in a theft that rippled through Minnesota’s charter schools.
Pennsylvania state senator says cyber charter schools underperform at the cost of the taxpayer
A local state senator says Pennsylvania’s 13 cyber charter schools consistently underperform, yet at Sto-Rox, the superintendent says she’s still spending $8 million of her budget to fund them. “You see all the advertisements: ‘this is free.’ Well, it’s not free. It’s taxpayer dollars and they’re underperforming for students,” state Sen. Lindsey Williams said.
Stealth attempt at ensuring ‘transparency’ for Colorado charter school authorizers
Colorado Sens. James Coleman and Paul Lundeen are sponsoring a charter schools bill that pretends to provide “transparency” on charters. However, upon a closer read, this bill is not about transparency for charter schools, but instead it seems to be designed to monitor the decisions that local school boards make regarding charter schools. Under the guise of transparency, the bill would establish a new complicated reporting requirement for local school districts to provide information on charter school data to the state Department of Education.
State officials scrutinize 10 Clark County charter schools over financial issues
“They received a total of six deductions primarily due to late submission of required reports and documents, including some really important items,” SPCSA director Katie Broughton said. According to its most recent tax filing, Nevada Prep reported a loss of more than $900,000. As of Friday, the school owes $466,000 to the state’s teacher pension fund, which is called PERS.
Senator Lindsey Williams Calls for Moratorium on Cyber Charter Schools in PA
“I was incensed last month when PDE approved a new cyber charter managed by a for-profit, corporate education giant,” said Senator Williams. “This is the first new cyber charter school to be approved by PDE in eight years and its application was deficient on its face.”
OPINIONS Colorado’s PK-12 Enrollment Declines While Billionaires Fund Charter Schools
Yet, some charter school leaders may not be as concerned for their future funding if historical trends continue. For years, many charter schools received additional funding from billionaires through their foundations and hedge fund organizations. The charter schools will need to continue and possibly increase their extensive marketing campaigns to maintain their enrollment. But thanks to corporate donors, they may have a leg up in the financing game,
Philadelphia’s ‘Renaissance’ charter schools did not produce what was promised
All the disruption was even more unsettling for her students, she said, many of whom have already had to deal with trauma in their lives. The staff turnover, she feared, reinforced feelings that adults weren’t there for them. She said she had to “go the extra mile” to build relationships and trust with them.
Unelected charter boards have minimal oversight, maximum control
If the legislature wants more transparency in the system, it should shine its lights on these unelected charter school boards who, for the most part, do not live in the school communities they direct yet manage more than $2 billion in state dollars, collectively, with minimal oversight and maximum control.
A San Diego charter school may shut down its high school by the end of this school year
Families, children, and staff blindsided. Blame a lack of transparency.