another charter school with money issues

[Hannah Bell]

Questions on money and leadership arise
By Helen Gao
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 24, 2007

SAN DIEGO – Just days before students are to return to classes at Children's Conservation Academy in City Heights, the taxpayer-funded charter school is in imminent risk of shutting down amid questions of financial mismanagement and a lack of leadership. The school, which opened in 2005 at University Avenue and 39th Street, served 168 students in kindergarten through sixth grade last year and planned to add a seventh grade this year.

District officials threatened to revoke the school's educational contract, known as a charter, unless the school fixes a long list of management and accounting problems. They say the school owes the district more than $97,000 in fees and for various services.

The academy's budget exceeds $1 million a year, with its revenue coming from federal, state and local governments.

The district said the school has not properly accounted for tens of thousands of dollars in questionable expenses, including an athletic club membership ($638), restaurant food ($2,219), Starbucks coffee ($143), Padres tickets ($369) and cell phone bills ($1,505). According to district documents, the school operated for a year and a half without workers' compensation insurance required by state law, and it lacked proof that all of its employees had undergone checks for criminal background and tuberculosis...Decatur's mother, Marina Grant, a past board president, was paid more than $11,000 by the school, “without authorization and without supporting documentation to reflect the work performed,” according to the district.

http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20070824-9999-1m24charter.html

[gophates]

1. Close it down. Public school for all!

[Catshrink]

2. The Arne fans have arrived

but they don't have the guts to show themselves.

[LWolf]

3. De-regulation in action. nt

[Catshrink]

4. Free enterprise.