#ANOTHERDAYANOTHERCHARTERSCHOOLSCANDAL
Judge sentences Broward charter school operator president for embezzling public funds
A federal judge sentenced Jimika Williams on Thursday to 40 months in prison after she was convicted of embezzling federal public education funds that were meant to help children in need in Broward County.
While she was the president of Advancement of Education in Scholars Corporation, a non-profit organization that operated Paramount Charter School, Williams embezzled $389,857, according to prosecutors.
Chicago school board moves to take over once-lauded charter serving Black boys
Chicago’s school board moved Wednesday to take over two South Side charter campuses that specialize in serving Black boys — an unprecedented step to pull the school’s charter but preserve an academic model officials acknowledged has delivered for many students.
School board members voted unanimously to revoke the Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men’s charter. They forcefully rejected the school’s arguments for more time to prove they are on the right track, and voicing dismay at the school’s response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving the school’s founder.
2 Hillsborough charter schools pledge improvements after dismal results
Students are chronically absent. The vast majority cannot pass state reading tests. And they’re often taught by substitute teachers.
For an hour on Tuesday, the Hillsborough County School Board heard detailed descriptions of Village of Excellence Academy and Village of Excellence Middle School, two publicly funded yet independently managed charter schools with a combined enrollment of 267 students.
Harpswell charter school hunts for ways to reopen even as it plans its closure
The leaders of Harpswell Coastal Academy are searching for ways to keep the school open, even as they begin the complex, untried process of shutting down at the end of the academic year, according to Interim Head of School Mel Christensen Fletcher.
“We know that we’re closing as one of Maine’s 10 charter schools, but we are looking at whether we have any other options to reform as something else,” Christensen Fletcher said. “If we can find something else that will work for us, we want to see if we can make that happen.”
Ex-principal of Lincoln Charter admits he took money for fake Ph.D. classes
The former principal of Lincoln Charter School lied about pursuing a doctoral degree while collecting funds for tuition over about two years, federal prosecutors said.
Leonard Hart, 50, of Mount Wolf, pleaded guilty to counts of fraud and misapplication of funds, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Harrisburg announced Thursday.
Community members protest charter school on baldwin hills elementary school campus
Staff, parents and community members voiced growing concerns about the co-habitation of Baldwin Hills Elementary School with the New LA Elementary charter school. They said it’s a drain on resources and are demanding the charter school be relocated.
“This isn’t a new charter school, but you want to go the easy route. ‘Oh, we’ll just come over here,’ because they think we’re just a neighborhood school. Our kids deserve the same rights as any other school and we should have that,” said Rita Richard, a parent and alum of Baldwin Hills Elementary.
Some teachers move to Hillsborough charters after facing discipline elsewhere
Teachers at Florida charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently managed, must hold state credentials in most cases. But when they have a disciplinary history at the organizations they left, it’s unclear how extensively charter schools review them.
New Orleans College Prep to surrender charter for Walter L. Cohen High School
Citing dwindling enrollment, New Orleans College Prep said it will hand over the charter to the historic Walter L. Cohen High School at the end of the school year, the school announced on Tuesday.
The New Orleans College Prep, which runs the school that has 160 students in 9th-12th grades, said in a news release that its board agreed unanimously to surrender Cohen’s charter.
As charter schools spread across Ohio Valley, a controversial curriculum begins to take hold
A small private school in Michigan with ties to former President Donald Trump is shaping how thousands of students are educated in publicly funded charter schools across the country, including right here in the Ohio Valley.
Cincinnati Classical Academy is one of the newest charter schools in Ohio. With 450 students, it is the largest charter to date in the region. It utilizes the 1776 Curriculum, an educational model created by Hillsdale College, a small conservative liberal arts college in Michigan. The program has been criticized for whitewashing U.S. history and undermining the civil rights movement.
Documentary Tells The Story Of Chester Upland Schools.
When U.S, schools entered the age of test-centered accountability, one of the arguments in favor of massive testing was that it would allow leaders to target schools for assistance and support. Chester Upland is a fine example of how that simply didn’t happen.
In 1994, CUSD was named the lowest performer in the state. Instead of assistance, what they got was a series of state-appointed receivers and assorted private companies brought in to profit from CUSD’s struggles. None of it helped. Financial crises came one after another.
Warrington Middle School faces shutdown if charter school contract isn’t finalized
The challenges at Warrington Middle School are well documented. The school failed to get the C grade needed to avoid transition to a charter school.
The school district now has a contract waiting to be signed with Charter Schools USA.
KIPP St. Louis High School closes for two weeks after weapons found on campus
Classes at KIPP St. Louis High School were canceled this week and will move online for another week to tighten security after weapons were found on campus.
A student brought a gun Friday to the charter school at 706 North Jefferson Avenue in the Downtown West neighborhood, the third time a weapon has been discovered this fall.
A Harpswell charter school will close at the end of the school year
One of Maine’s first charter schools will close by the end of the school year.
State law requires five of the seven members of the Maine Charter School Commission to vote to renew a charter school’s contract. But the Harpswell Coastal Academy was only able to secure four votes at a meeting on Tuesday, meaning it will be the first charter school in the state to close its doors.
Alabama charter school Legacy Prep needed $250,000 to keep running, state says
Prior to an audit that discovered Birmingham charter school Legacy Prep misspent as much as $311,000 of funds over a two-year period, state education officials were at the table with school officials because of money trouble.
Alabama State Superintendent Eric Mackey told AL.com that school officials contacted him in September 2021 asking for help meeting payroll. Without the state’s financial help, they said, they might have had to lay off teachers at the kindergarten through fourth grade school.
NC virtual charter schools continue to have poor performance yet high demand
In their five years of operation, both virtual charter schools have been consistently given a D-score on North Carolina’s school report cards based on their students’ test scores. The two schools have failed to “meet growth” on standardized tests and have been labeled continually low-performing, as students lag behind the state average for grade level proficiency.