Linden Charter Academy

“Teacher wins $500K judgment in suit vs. Linden Charter Academy over firing because of racial joke.” Flint Journal (MI), 7/19/11

MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Michigan — A charter school organization is weighing an appeal after a jury awarded more than $500,000 to a former Linden Charter Academy teacher who was fired for what his attorney said was a racial joke...

The school referred all comment to its parent company, the Grand Rapids-based National Heritage Academies...

Lenhoff said Hecht heard many black employees at Linden Charter Academy make racial jokes and that they were not punished.

Hecht had an excellent record on racial relations and had no prior record of any issues with the school, Lenhoff said.

According to the lawsuit, the teacher’s aide complained to the principal and Hecht was called into the office. Lenhoff said Hecht apologized to the teacher’s aide in the meeting...

Hecht, who had worked at the school for more than eight years, is now working as a machine operator at Dow Corning Corp. in Midland and has been unable to get hired for a teaching position.

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Great River Education Center

“GREC charter school closes.” St. Cloud Times (MN), 7/18/2011

WAITE PARK — A public charter school that has served alternative students in the area since 2000 will not reopen next school year...

The school closed after Novation Education Opportunities decided not to continue as the school’s authorizer, said Matthew Pennertz, who has served as the school’s director since March...

The school has struggled financially, and an effort to recruit students earlier this year was unsuccessful...

Novation Education Opportunities, which is based in Minneapolis and became GREC’s authorizer this year, has oversight of about 11 charter schools, the organization’s website said. Novation provided Great River with an improvement plan that was not met, Pennertz said...

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Los Angeles charter schools (high teacher turnover)

“Los Angeles charter schools have high teacher turnover.”  LA Times (CA) 7/19/2011

Local charter schools serving middle and high school students are losing about half their teachers every year, according to a study of the Los Angeles Unified School District released Tuesday. The rate of turnover is nearly three times that of other public schools, although they also are seeing high rates of departures...

The conclusions are based on data from the Los Angeles Unified School District as part of two companion UC Berkeley studies -- one on teachers and the other on students.

The findings about teachers are especially noteworthy, said study co-author Bruce Fuller.

“Earlier research shows that student achievement rests in part on strong, sustained relationships with teachers,” Fuller said. “High teacher turnover rates, at the eye-opening levels we discovered, are worrisome.”...

In the 2007-08 school year, the most recent in the six-year study, 45% of charter secondary teachers-- those in middle and high schools -- had exited before the next school year. The range of annual departures was 41% to 55% over that period. The range for other public schools was 14% to 23% over that period...

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Brooklyn City Prep / City Prep Academies AKA OpenEd [Open Education] Solutions

“Tom Vander Ark’s New York-Area Charter Schools Falter.”New York Times, 7/14/2011

After years spent directing the distribution of more than $1 billion from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation into hundreds of schools across the nation, Tom Vander Ark set his sights on the New York area, with a plan to create a network of charter schools of his own.

Mr. Vander Ark, the foundation’s former executive director of education and a national leader in the online learning movement, was granted charters in 2010 to open a high school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and two others in Newark. The New York school, Brooklyn City Prep, also got space in a public school building — a precious and controversial commodity — hired a principal, and welcomed applications from 150 eighth graders this spring.

But after spending more than $1.5 million of investors’ money on consultants and lawyers, Mr. Vander Ark, 52, has walked away from the project, and the schools will not open as planned this fall, leaving others involved stunned and frustrated...

“He’s flying 30,000 feet on the air, but can’t do it on the ground,” said Joshua Morales, a former official with the New York City Education Department who was hired by Mr. Vander Ark to develop the schools...

While many new charter schools are asked to take a year for planning, it is relatively rare to require two, and unusual for a founder — in this case, a well-known figure in education reform — to walk away.

A former businessman and superintendent of a Washington State school district, Mr. Vander Ark doled out more than $1.6 billion in Gates Foundation money from 1999 to 2006, much of it to create and support small high schools. In 2008, he founded City Prep Academies, a for-profit organization intended to create and operate charter schools that combined traditional classroom teaching and online learning. He said the group was financed by $1.5 million from Revolution Learning, a venture fund where he is a managing partner.

But City Prep Academies immediately ran into problems. Its first application for a New York charter, made in summer 2009 as a close copy of the NYC iSchool that opened in SoHo the year before, received a tepid response from the city’s Education Department. Like the iSchool, Brooklyn City Prep promised to blend traditional classroom teaching with online learning, but many who read the application found it lacking in details...

The city and state approved the charter the next year, on the condition that Brooklyn Prep take an extra year to ready itself, with the opening scheduled for September 2011. At the same time, the first of the Newark schools, Vailsburg Prep, had its opening postponed to 2011 from the requested 2010, and the second, Spirit Prep, applied in 2010 for a 2011 opening but was also delayed a year.

After the initial $1.5 million investment from his own venture fund, Mr. Vander Ark found himself unable to raise the money — up to $500,000 per school — that he said he needed to open them. He switched strategies and asked the Charter School Growth Fund, a nonprofit investment fund based in Colorado, to help him start a charter management organization, City Prep Academies Northeast. He also changed the name of his for-profit organization to Open Education Solutions...

All they needed was a management agreement with City Prep Academies Northeast, which Mr. Wiley, the school’s board chairman, said he was negotiating with Kathi Littmann, the president of OpenEd Solutions.

But in April, Mr. Wiley came to an unsettling realization: City Prep Academies Northeast existed in name only.

In a phone call on April 21 that Mr. Wiley characterized as “explosive,” Mr. Vander Ark and Ms. Littmann acknowledged that City Prep Academies Northeast had no money to pay for Brooklyn City Prep’s opening costs and would not sign a management agreement.

Mr. Vander Ark had been unable to get any money from the Charter School Growth Fund or other similar national organizations. He had basically abandoned the idea of beginning a charter management organization and left the three schools-in-progress to find outside help on their own...

Now, Brooklyn City Prep has lost its claim on the Marcy Avenue space, and is applying for a second planning year, with the hope of opening in 2012. Mr. Lawrence is still the principal, though he is not being paid. The two Newark high schools are also looking to 2012. All three boards are seeking new management organizations, and their members are no longer in contact with Mr. Vander Ark, who as chief executive of OpenEd Solutions travels the country evangelizing about online education and writes for the EdReformer blog...

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“Plans for Newark charter school abandoned, after more than $1.5M is spent.” The Star-Ledger (NJ), 7/15/2011

A former official with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who was in charge of distributing education grants has abandoned plans to open three charter schools of his own in New York City and Newark, N.J.

Tom Vander Ark was granted charters in 2010 to open a high school in Brooklyn and two others in Newark.

But The New York Times reports that after spending more than $1.5 million of investors' money, Vander Ark has walked away from the project and the schools will not open as planned this fall.

Vander Ark blamed the weak economy and the difficulty of establishing charters.

But those he had been working with to open the schools said they were blindsided.

The schools may open in 2012 without Vander Ark.

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NOTE: www.cityprepacademies.com/ redirects to http://openedsolutions.com/

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River City Science Academy*

“Guard Pleads Not Guilty To Fondling Girls; Charter School Employee Arrested In April.” WJXT (FL), 6/2/11

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A charter school security guard has pleaded not guilty to charges he molested two students at the school...

He's accused of taking two students in April to an office at the River City Science Academy, locking the door, turning off the lights and fondling them...

Smith faces two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation and one count of battery...

He was hired by the school in August.

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“School security guard accused of molesting students.” WTEV 47, 4/20/11

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police say a man who was supposed to protect students at River City Science Academy is now accused of hurting them. 33-year-old Ronald Smith Jr. was a security guard at the school. He is in jail for molesting two girls there.

"You face two counts of lewd and lacivious molestation and one count of simple battery," said the judge at the Pretrail Detention Center.

The girls told the person who reported Smith that he locked them in an office at the school, turned off the lights, and fondled them. "I am shocked by it, and you wonder how they could hire someone like that," said Nancy Trahan...

"Being he was in such a high position, he is very friendly with all the students, but would never stoop that low." Ronald Smith was given a $170,000 bond. His next court date is May 11th.

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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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Sycamore Academy of Science and Cultural Arts

“LEUSD Calls For Academic Improvement At Wildomar Charter School.” Lake Elsinore-Wildomar Patch (CA), 6/14/2011

The Lake Elsinore Unified School District issued a Notice of Violations and a Notice to Cure and Correct order after the charter school came up short on several benchmarks.

The Lake Elsinore Unified School District and Sycamore Academy of Science and Cultural Arts boards have each agreed to provide two representatives to meet regularly to discuss how to address and improve the K-6 Charter School’s academic rankings and scores to meet specific benchmarks.

The decision follows the issuance of a Notice of Violations and Notice to Cure and Correct by the district to the Wildomar-based charter school. The notice resulted from a lower-than-expected academic ranking based on state-required tests.

The district board also requested that the school report when a student drops out and to provide the student’s last address to the superintendent...

District officials insisted that those worried about the school being closed were overreacting and the district was simply requesting improvement.

“It is not my intent to close the charter school,” said Susan Scott, district board president. “We are not here to antagonize. But you are getting notice.”...

Sycamore school representatives challenged the way the state judges a school’s success based on test scores and school rankings. District Superintendent Frank Passarella agreed that the system is not perfect.

“It’s the card public schools have been dealt,” he said, adding that lawmakers and school officials in Sacramento make the decisions on how schools are scored and pass them on to local school districts.

Sycamore school received a similar-school ranking of 1 out of 10 with 10 being the highest ranking. The school’s statewide ranking was a 6...

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