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September 16, 2011

Brooklyn charter school with checkered past put on probation

by Philissa Cramer, at 5:00 pm

The Department of Education is giving a Brooklyn charter school with a history of trouble just weeks to fix its most flagrant violations.

We wrote in April that Williamsburg Charter High School had failed to make rent after a sharp enrollment decline.

Now, the city has placed the school on a one-year probation, saying it is “in material and substantial violation of its charter, and in serious violation of applicable laws and regulations.”

Those laws and regulations include ones governing management, finances, and the school’s relationship with the Believe High Schools Network — a relationship that the city says the school entered into illegally and must terminate within six weeks.

At least three of WCHS’s six board members are employed by the Believe network or one of the other two schools it operates, according to the letter, sent by Recy Dunn, head of the DOE’s Charter Schools Office, to the chair of WCHS’s board. “Any decisions made by the Board in regards to WCHS’s relationship with the Network would not be valid as those three members would have to recuse themselves; with only three voting Board members remaining, a majority vote decision would not be possible,” the letter states.

Whether the board actually voted on the Believe relationship is not clear: The board met only four times last year, instead of the required 12.

The letter also raises red flags about the school’s budgeting, pointing out that the school’s own reporting put current assets at about $509,000 and current liabilities — the amount for which it’s on the hook — at nearly $5 million. Last year, the school spent more than $15.5 million but only got $13.5 million in public funds. And it only raised about $200,000 in private funds to cover the difference.

The school’s precarious financial state became clear last year when the owner of the building that it had been renting put the space back on the market, saying that Williamsburg Charter High School had not been paying its bills. Previously, we reported that Believe Charter Schools was illicitly sending students to a building that was not permitted for school use.

The school has until the end of the month to supply financial documents from last year and the end of next month to break ties with Believe. Its board must put together a comprehensive improvement plan by Sept. 30. If the school does not follow those recommendations and others outlined in the letter, it could be closed.

WCHS Probation Letter

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  • bee

    Big surprise. (sarcasm  intended). It provokes my ire that this charter school, like many others, despite malfeasance and incompetence, is given every opportunity, every chance, while public schools are treated punitively. Of course, under these circumstances, the charter students, who are treated as lab rats for obscene venture capitalist experiments, are the ones who pay the price, followed by public school communities and tax payers. Why do the powers that be continue to approve charter schools, when it is patently obvious that there are so many unresolved and serious issues (inequity of resources between charter and public schools, lack of accountability, dubious track records, excessive pay for charter operators, to name a few) due to these charter operations. It is an outrage that they are given another year to continue this blatant abuse! Who exactly is responsible for policing the charters?

  • Guest

    I am a teacher at one of the schools under the Believe umbrella. This is shocking to me, I only found out today from a colleague about the trouble the network has gotten into. As for this probationary period we (the teachers) have not yet heard anything about this but I’m waiting to see if we even will. 

    It’s a shame that students, parents, and teachers have to work under a network that has severely mismanaged itself and in turn is neglecting the educators they employ and the students that we teach. This is truly shocking. Despite the heat the school is taking, I can say that within my particular school the teachers do work extremely hard and sometimes we run ourselves ragged but we are able to provide all of our students with the greatest quality education possible. It’s a shame that our management is not sticking to the same mission that we signed on to. 

  • Communityeducation

    Behavior like this makes it more difficult for upstanding, legitimate charter school operators. The entire Board of Directors, and Executive Leadership should be terminated and held legally responsible legally. At one point did the professionals in the school and the Board of Directors say “is this the best thing for these students?” That is the problem, these clowns are morally bankrupt.

  • Former Teacher

    I have a hard time understanding how this could have possibly taken this long.  Everybody knows the network and the “Board of Directors” (using “direct” quite loosely) have always been a sham, and anybody that dared say it out loud was terminated.  The school is in the news enough to be on even the most casual observer’s radar. If you check the website of the other institutions under the umbrella of the network, (Northside and Southside) you’ll see similar issues.  At N’side, out of four board members, two are employed within the network, and at S’side, two out of five.  Also, I can’t seem to find a 990 for the network anywhere.

    What makes anybody think that people that can’t figure out “conflict of interest” would be able to figure out how to oversee the education of children safely…

    That said, I know there are a team of dedicated educators that are committed to teaching at all three institutions — it’s just too bad that the administration can’t seem to get it at least least half right to allow them to do their jobs effectively.  The competence gap is huge.

  • Dan

    This network seems to get away with everything.  Despite complete incompetence and illegality and fiscal irresponsibility at every turn they continue to be able to enroll students and abuse staff.  There simply must be some kind of link between this network and the DOE as who else would be able to so openly defy them time and time again.  Just last year this network was supposed to sever ties with the Williamsburg Charter School, this was a demand made publically by the DOE and promised to the parents and yet here we are still….a year later and the DOe is “asking” them again to sever ties…and giving them yet another year to clean things up.  They are now in year 8 of being asked to clean things up.  8 years!!!!  Some oversight….real intimidating DOE…way to take charge of the education of our kids. Maybe next year they can ask again.  Let’s check in again next september when this sham of an organization is allowed to enroll another 300 students into the albatross they call a school.

  • Dan

    This network seems to get away with everything.  Despite complete incompetence and illegality and fiscal irresponsibility at every turn they continue to be able to enroll students and abuse staff.  There simply must be some kind of link between this network and the DOE as who else would be able to so openly defy them time and time again.  Just last year this network was supposed to sever ties with the Williamsburg Charter School, this was a demand made publically by the DOE and promised to the parents and yet here we are still….a year later and the DOe is “asking” them again to sever ties…and giving them yet another year to clean things up.  They are now in year 8 of being asked to clean things up.  8 years!!!!  Some oversight….real intimidating DOE…way to take charge of the education of our kids. Maybe next year they can ask again.  Let’s check in again next september when this sham of an organization is allowed to enroll another 300 students into the albatross they call a school.

  • Former Teacher
  • Close It

    The lack of consequences this ridiculous, flagrantly illicit school has enjoyed is indeed appalling, and calls into question exactly who from the DOE or state/city politics Eddie Calderon Melendez has in his pocket.

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