Reply to Another Charter School Leader Being Sued by DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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