She has been removed from her position at Fairview, an MPS-authorized charter school in Milwaukee. The firing came after WFLA News in Tampa ran a series on the mess she left behind in that city.
Update just now...I heard on the news that she is still receiving pay from Milwaukee, though she has been fired. Also they mentioned the school debts she left behind here totaled over 3 million. Waiting on an article now.
What was that Milwaukee charter school thinking not to even find out all this information. Do they not vet their school leaders at all?
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on line.
MPS principal removed over dealings in previous jobA new principal in Milwaukee Public Schools was removed from Fairview School on Friday pending an investigation into her business dealings in Florida, where she ran a private school that abruptly closed this year but didn't refund families' prepaid tuition money, according to parents.
Wendy Alexander, 42, was on the job for five months with MPS and took over Fairview, an MPS-authorized charter school at 6500 W. Kinnickinnic River Parkway, after its principal joined dozens of others who retired or resigned from the district last year.
She came under fire this week after parents and at least one business owner in Florida reported that Alexander's private elementary school, Hand in Hand Academy, closed after a few weeks of operation this fall but didn't refund tuition money or pay for a new roof installed in August.
At Fairview, Alexander was responsible for a projected enrollment this year of 634 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and an estimated $6.8 million budget.
She was already on the job in Milwaukee as parents and businesses in Tampa were irate over lost tuition and not being paid.
It seems a Tampa parent called Milwaukee to tell them what had happened to her. Her twins had been attending when the school was shut down in September, and she was out $3000.
The tuition payments are gone, and the parents are angry.
Tuition payments gone as Lutz school shuts downThere is a video at the link.
Parents were blindsided when the Hand in Hand Academy announced in an e-mail that it was shutting down Sept. 16, seven years after it first went into business and four weeks after opening for the new semester.
Some say they paid registration and tuition as late as mid-July under pressure from Principal Wendy Alexander, even after Alexander lost her bid for bankruptcy protection to stave off foreclosure.
"She was telling us one thing and turning around and it was totally something totally different," said Michael Hanke, a financial planner, who says he wouldn't have enrolled his child if he'd known about money problems. "She made you want to trust her."
The creditors owed by Hand in Hand Academy are also speaking out. There is a video there as well.
Hand In Hand School creditors speak outFrom the "automatically generated" transcript: I am putting only the parts that make sense. I do not like these transcripts, they sound weird.
Signature roofing co owner Terry Harrington says she never saw it coming. Last July Harrington didn't think twice when Wendy Alexander the -- of hand in hand academy wanted an estimate for a new school roof. ....Harrington says Alexander promised the school would pay after the job got underway in August just as soon as tuition money started rolling in. So should replace the roof and 27 sheets of -- plywood how -- even better. ....Harrington had no idea at the time that Alexander school have been in foreclosure for years and just defaulted on a bankruptcy plan and owed millions to other creditors. Erickson says the boondoggle cost her family owned business 21000.
...Some parents say the school owes them thousands for tuition money Alexander pressured them to pay before the school suddenly shut down three and a half weeks after classes started. They had no idea when they paid tuition that the schools demise was all but guaranteed by the collapse of a bankruptcy plan....even before her school shut down Alexander moved on with their life and relocated 12100 miles away.
She left her failing private school owing everyone money, was hired by a charter school in Milwaukee which apparently asked no questions about her background.
Sweet situation for Wendy Alexander until WFLA did their homework and caught up with her.
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