GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The six charter schools the Department of Education deemed so weak that they could be closed won’t be shuttered — for now.

But the department put a seventh school, New York French American Charter School, on probation for what it said were “serious violations” of state law and its own charter that could have left students unsafe.

The notice of probation sent by the DOE’s Charter Schools Office to NYFACS’s board yesterday lists concerns about the school’s financial stability, discipline procedures, teacher certification, academic instruction, and safety practices. It notes that the school is already late in producing audited financial statements for the last year.

“The school has no established financial controls and operational policies; the termination of one Operations Director and the hiring of a replacement has left the school in operational disarray,” reads the report, which also notes that the school has few books and that a parent volunteer with keys to the building had reportedly taken to sleeping in the school overnight. (more…)