Revoking the charter

The story of the first northern Nevada charter school to have its charter revoked could have been just the account of some folks playing a losing game of school—operating more than $100,000 in the red last year. It might have been the story of 60-some kids, who were considered truant Monday when they showed up for class at the Nevada Leadership Academy. (The school, with classrooms above the sanctuary of Center of Hope Christian Fellowship in Sparks, remained open this week despite having had its charter revoked in early December.)

It might have been a story of NLA’s all-day kindergarten and about a dozen moms who otherwise can’t afford day care for their 5-year-olds. It could have been about race, as the school has a high percentage of minority students. Or about public school funding disparities, educational vouchers, school choice.

But no story’s complete without the central figure of state Sen. Maurice Washington (D-Sparks), a co-founder of the school.

“They were determined to get Sen. Maurice out of office, and now they’re doing everything they can to tarnish this effort he put forth to educate black children,” said the Rev. Bill Moon, former president of the NAACP in Reno. In this case, “they” are the conservative Republican state senator’s political opponents, who leaked info to the press about misdoings at the school at a convenient time—shortly before Nevada’s primary election this spring. Washington, the incumbent, faced competition from two other feisty Republicans. Despite bad press, he won the primary and the general election.

Moon was waiting for Washoe District Judge James Hardesty to enter the courtroom. Before the hearing began, he talked about his granddaughter, at age 9 or so, coming home from a local public school feeling terrible.

“She said to me, ‘Granddad, today the teacher told me I was ugly in front of all the other kids,’ “ Moon recounted sadly. “She’s the only black kid in the school. It’s just the little things like that that turn them off. Charter schools are one of the only options for people who care about quality education. Everybody ought to put their shoulders to the wheel and help it along.”

The school district has been concerned about the NLA’s administration, finances and low test scores, testified school district officials who’ve audited, monitored or reviewed audits of the Nevada Leadership Academy. The witnesses were on hand for the case of the Washoe County School District v. the Nevada Leadership Academy, heard by Hardesty this week. The school district’s case merely regarded the retrieval of records from the school. The district wanted them—grades, attendance, everything. Though NLA administrators had disputed the school district’s right to these records for weeks, on Monday they quickly agreed to turn them over.

What remained to be hashed out was the academy’s counter-motion to keep operating while administrators appeal the revocation of the school’s charter. Attorney Glade Hall, for NLA, argued that the school district didn’t give the proper 90-day notice required by statute. This discussion, with many side forays into how wonderful the teachers are at NLA and how horrifying the financial and management situation is at NLA, took the better part of two days.

District Superintendent James Hager sent a letter to the NLA in mid-May, informing the school of many issues that needed addressing. After school district officials decided in August that the chances of the NLA’s complying with these requests were slim, they recommended that the Board of Trustees revoke the school’s charter.

But the board in August voted 4-3 against revoking the charter. Hall said that should have started the process over again, with the school district once again giving 90 days’ notice. The school district saw the issue as one long continuing question. Judge Hardesty, for his part, seemed frustrated with the wording of the regulation governing the closing of a charter school in the Nevada Revised Statutes.

“Did anyone look at this administrative code?” he asked a member of the Nevada Board of Education. “Did a lawyer look at this stuff?”

No one answered, as it seemed to be a rhetorical question.

About five years ago, Nevada passed legislation allowing parents and concerned educators to get together and write charters for new, innovative places of learning. These new charter schools, if approved by a local operating entity like the Washoe County School District, could receive per-pupil funding—nearly $5,000 per student last year—just like any other public school. It’s not quite the voucher system, but it operates in the same mental milieu. Now eight charter schools are operating in the area. A ninth has been approved to open in the fall.

Sen. Washington considers himself one of the early proponents of charter schools in Nevada. He was a co-founder of the Nevada Leadership Academy two and a half years ago. Classes are held in rooms rented from the church where he is a pastor. For a while, he served as the president of the school’s Board of Directors.

The NLA started with more than 120 students. Enrollment last month was about half of that. The dwindling numbers could be attributed to parents who felt less than confident in the school’s management or who rankled at what a school auditor called dismal test scores. More likely it’s the result of a bit of media attention over the possible mismanagement of school funds. NLA began this school year in debt to the tune of $115,000, said the school district’s auditor, Debbie Padgett.

“I wasn’t sure how they’d make up this deficit and make it through the school year,” she told the court. Padgett said she began looking at the school’s books in April and found a messy nest of inconsistencies: two sets of books, some accounts handwritten on spreadsheets with no hard documentation of money coming in or going out.

For example, a cash withdrawal from the school account of $150,000 had been made in February. “The required purpose of what those were for was not provided any documentation,” she said.

NLA staff, parents and friends in the courtroom started to fidget. They’d been through these uncomfortable allegations before. The media had already been all over Washington’s alleged commingling of school and church funds to secure a building loan. The juicy tidbit was leaked to the Nevada Department of Education (which forwarded the information to the school district) and to the press in April and May by people Washington referred to as “disgruntled employees who had been terminated.”

Washington was alleged to have deposited a chunk of the school’s money in his church’s bank account to make the church look financially viable to Wells Fargo. The Center of Hope wanted to buy its building from the former occupants, the Church of Jesus Christ Spirit-Filled. The latter party wanted about $750,000 for its building. Wells Fargo wouldn’t approve a loan for that amount.

When he took the stand, Washington again claimed that the specifics of the allegations were not accurate. The boards of the church and the school had met together to work out a long-term lease.

“Something like six years or five years or four—to continue long-term for the school,” he explained. “There was never any money transacted between the two entities. No money commingled or dispersed.”

“So Wells Fargo made the loan without any guarantees?” asked Paul Anderson, an attorney for the school district.

“They made the loan based on the information given to them about the financial records of the church and the income the church receives,” Washington answered, confidently.

In the galley, a fan of Washington’s sighed deeply at this rehashing of the church/school relationship: “Same old garbage.”

Tuesday’s proceedings began with Anderson presenting to Padgett a copy of the NLA’s withdrawal slip for $150,000 in early February, signed by Washington, and a copy of another deposit slip for the same amount later that month. That would be about the time the church had secured the Wells Fargo loan.

The financial finagling was only one of about a dozen issues that made the school district begin taking a closer look at the NLA. Hager’s May 17 letter to the school outlined deficiencies and asked for proof of compliance in the coming months.

Even in September and October, the school district was still trying to obtain such things as copies of certification for teachers, a list of the names of individuals on the governing board, proof of insurance and an updated budget and a copy of the school’s lease.

“We were concerned and wanted to look at whether the lease payments were more or less than the mortgage payment made by the church,” said Dottie Merrill, acting charter school administrator for the district and a member of NLA’s monitoring team.

Hager said the district did work with the school to try to help it reach compliance on such issues as dealing appropriately with the individualized education plans required for special-education students.

“It became apparently clear that they were unwilling or unable to fulfill the responsibilities of their charter,” Hager said. The school district staff in August recommended that the NLA’s charter be revoked. Favorable public testimony from parents and teachers at an August meeting of the school district’s Board of Trustees seemed to convince the trustees to vote against revoking the charter.

“I voted for not revoking the charter in August,” Jonnie Pullman, vice president of the Board of Trustees, testified. “More than 100 kids had signed up, I was told, and were ready to begin classes. The school promised to get its affairs in order, address the unrealistic nature of its budget and have this done in a month.”

But when that month was up, Pullman’s concerns were far from alleviated. In fact, the picture had darkened considerably. Pullman believed that the NLA leadership had misrepresented the truth at the August meeting. Representatives of the school had said that 100 students were enrolled, when that number should have been 82. And when the school faced the trustees in August, its liability insurance had already lapsed for several months. (In November, Washington pleaded no contest in Sparks Justice Court to charges that the school hadn’t maintained workman’s compensation insurance for NLA employees.)

“I know how serious that is,” Pullman said. “As the sponsoring agency for the charter school, that responsibility goes back to the school district.”

A new budget submitted to the district was still unrealistic, Pullman said. And the NLA’s projected enrollment for the coming school year had risen to 140 students.

“That’s not even close,” she said.

The issue was brought back to the board at meetings in September and October. In November, the school district received audit reports from both the Nevada Department of Education and an independent auditor hired by the NLA. Even the independent auditor expressed the opinion that the school might have difficulty being a “going concern.” Though the NLA had received an offer of a $250,000 loan should the board not revoke its charter, school district officials felt that would not remedy NLA’s financial problems, as it was essentially trading debt for debt. To add insult to injury, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office sent out a letter of complaint that the NLA was in violation of open-meeting laws.

At its early December meeting, the trustees voted unanimously to revoke the school’s charter. Hardesty asked repeatedly if the documents made available to the trustees had been also made available to the NLA, but most had not, district employees admitted.

“If the NLA did not have these memos or know these issues would be addressed, how could they adequately prepare?” he asked.

In the December meeting, trustees decided that the school should close Dec. 20, before the holiday break, because that would naturally be a good time for students to make a transition to another school.

The school district sent out letters to NLA’s students, advising them of the closure and telling them about the process for registering at other schools. Parents complained that most other charter schools had no room for their children. Others complained that they couldn’t, in mid-year, obtain a variance to attend a public school other than the one for which they were zoned. The 12 children in all-day kindergarten will not be able to find another free all-day kindergarten. Instead, they’ll have to attend the district’s two-and-a half-hour version of the program and find day care for the rest of the time. I overheard one mom, who didn’t want to be interviewed, tell another that she couldn’t afford day care and feared losing her job.

These parents can’t enroll their children in their schools of choice, worried NLA Co-administrator David Love, who was hired in mid-November.

The district is required to make room for these students in the neighborhood schools for which they are zoned, Hager replied.

Despite the revocation, the school opened Monday. Most of the students and all of the teachers were there.

Before their closing arguments Tuesday, attorneys for both sides gave Judge Hardesty a mountain of additional evidence, including meeting minutes and videotapes of Board of Trustees discussions regarding the NLA.

At press deadline, the judge had yet to make the final call. It appeared that it would be several days before Hardesty announced his decision as to whether the school could remain open.