Another Charter School Leader Being Sued by DC
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jsteele
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-officials-allege-improper-diversion-of-charter-funds/2014/06/02/a22ffcc2-ea94-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html
"Kent Amos, founder of one of the oldest and largest D.C. charter school networks, allegedly funneled millions of school dollars to a for-profit management company he owns, according to a complaint filed Monday by D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan. "Amos founded Community Academy Public Charter School as a nonprofit in 1998. About six years later, Amos founded a for-profit management company that received fees for services that “could have been performed, and in many cases was actually performed, by direct employees of the school,” according to the complaint." |
Anonymous
| This was predicted about 10 years ago and no one would listen or care. Donald Hense does the same thing at Friendship PLUS pays himself about $400K because he considers himself the "superintendent" of the Friendship Charter school district. All the privatization hustlers running the shitty charters will someday all be indicted, I hope. |
Anonymous
| No no. Somehow, magically, the free market will take care of all of this! |
Anonymous
| Didn't some of the campuses close? |
Anonymous
| Yes. Students either left or were filtered into other campuses (like the one in Shaw near N. Capitol St.). |
Anonymous
School choice solves all our problems even when there is no transparancy or accountability |
Anonymous
Butler closed b/c they lost their lease and moved into the same building, on the corner of First NW and P St NW, with another CAPCS, Amos III. |
Anonymous
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Well, maybe the Public Charter School Board is doing its job here -- we don't know for sure, because the article doesn't state whether the DC Attorney General collaborated with the School Board on the complaint. What IS clear from the article, however, is that Amos's companies hung themselves on accounting data that they freely reported. You'd think it would occur to them to "cook the books" a bit more.
And, aside from that, many Charter school leaders are cutting themselves too much cheese off the DCPS bricks they get to justify their funding. I mean, $400,000? Ridiculous. These folks should take no more than a DCPS Principal's salary, which in itself is generous at around $160K. |
dcmom
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From the article: "D.C. charter schools are legally allowed to contract with for-profit management companies, including companies with which school leaders have financial ties."
Seriously? Is this in the law, or could the PCSB change it? I have problems with allowing a for-profit management company run a school, but one that also has financial ties with school leaders seems over the top. |
Anonymous
The information in this complaint has been known for years, with the facts in the public domain in the form of PCSB contract approvals, audit reports, etc. So, it would not have required any collaboration or assist from the PCSB to address. What the PCSB could/should have done was address this during CAPCS' charter renewal, which the PCSB clearly failed to do. |
Anonymous
One would have thought that this org chart on the school's website would have raised red flags: http://www.capcs.org/_pdf/2013-2014%20SY/2014orgChart.pdf |
Anonymous
| Hmmm but New Orleans has rid themselves of all public schools for charter schools. Interesting. |
Anonymous
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The management company also used its fees to make monthly loan payments of $1,148 on a 2010 Lexus CX 460 sport-utility vehicle, according to the complaint, which says that the vehicle was registered to Amos and assigned the specialty license plate “KIDS.”
---- My favorite part of these stories is the predictable luxury SUV. |
Anonymous
I disagree, PP. The PCSB is not in a position to police violations of the "non-profit corporation" requirement of the School Reform Act. If you read the complaint, you'll see that the attorney general plans to seize all of the asserts in question and engage in forensic accounting with the aim of returning the misappropriated funds to CAPCS. The attorney general has also asked the court to order the operators of CAPCS to stop these practices going forward. The PCSB's only remedy would be to revoke the charter or to threaten to do so. However, revoking the charter would be unfair the students, families and teacher CAPCS. The School Reform Act requires that charter schools in DC be organized as non-profit corporations, which requires that any budget surpluses be retained rather than distributed to owners/operators. According to Wikipedia, charter schools in DC with over 300 students tend to run budget surpluses, presumably due to economies of scale. With this complaint, the attorney general is sending the clear message that attempts to subvert the non-profit corporation provision of the School Reform Act and distribute charter surpluses by contracting with shell management companies charging unreasonable fees will not be tolerated. It remains to be seen if Amos and his co-conspirators with be indicted on criminal charges. P.S. I think Amos should just have paid himself $400K as head of school. I understand that such a salary would be three times what a DCPS principal makes. However, I suspect that the head of a charter school has more responsibility and takes on greater career risk than the average DCPS principal. Of course, $400K is nowhere near what the shell management company was bringing in in fees the past few years. |
Anonymous
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I used to drive by CAPCS's Petworth location every day. They have an electronic sign that has the slogan "Expectations of Excellence." Below that there is one of those black electronic signs with red lights that can display messages. The sign alternated between these messages:
* WWW.CAPCS.ORG * 3:48 PM * ERR The time message was off by about 2 1/2 hours for the year and a half I drove by. I presume ERR means error. I thought they set the "excellence" bar a little low. |