NORTON: A charter school is trying to open in Norton and compete with Norton City Schools for its students and state money, even though the district is rated excellent and generally should be off-limits to charter schools opening within its borders.
The school for grades K-4 calls itself the Academy of Learning and first appeared under that name in Doylestown last fall.
The Academy of Learning appears to have enrolled about a dozen children whose parents withdrew them from the excellent-rated Chippewa school district and told district officials the children would be home-schooled.
Now the Academy of Learning needs the Norton City Council to approve a zoning change so it can relocate to a building at 5566 Wooster Road near state Route 21. The council will have a public hearing on Monday.
The Academy of Learning spent much of the past year looking for a new home when its original sponsor, Liberty Local Schools near Youngstown, severed ties last year because of the charter school’s “dysfunctional organizational structure” and failure to maintain financial records required for a state audit.
An attorney representing the charter school, J. Allen Jones III, disputes Liberty’s assertions about the charter school’s financial records and says that they were academically high performing when they were sponsored by Liberty and will continue those efforts under new sponsorship.
Since leaving Liberty Local Schools last year, however, the charter school’s quest for a new home has sown confusion among local and state education officials about the school’s status, its finances and even its name.
Charter schools in Ohio are privately operated schools that receive taxpayer money for the students they enroll, which is transferred from the public school districts that the students would otherwise attend.
Generally, charter schools may open only in public school districts the state considers “challenged,” which are the eight big city school systems, including Akron, and 11 other districts that are in Lucas County or receive one of the state’s two lowest ratings on state report cards. Starting next August, charter schools may also open in districts that are in the bottom 5 percent of the state based on test scores.
Neither the Norton nor Chippewa districts are considered challenged.
But a charter school can open in a district that isn’t on the challenged list if either a school district or a former county school district (now known as an educational service center) creates a “conversion” charter school by converting part of a building the district or ESC owns or leases. The new conversion school, like other charter schools, is a separate entity that can receive federal grants and state aid for the students it enrolls.
All charter schools need state-approved sponsors, so conversion schools are sponsored by the district or ESC that creates them.
The Academy of Learning began its life in 2009 as LEARN (Liberty Early Academic Resource Nest) Academy, a conversion school created by Liberty Local Schools near Youngstown, to serve children in kindergarten through 2nd grade.
The next year, LEARN Academy added third grade and the district created LEAD (Liberty Exemplary Academic Design Academy) for grades 7 and 8. The plan eventually called for adding fourth grade to LEARN and ninth grade to LEAD.
The district’s former curriculum director, Kathie Carlile, administered the LEARN and LEAD academies and former district treasurer Tracey Obermiyer also served as the first treasurer for the conversion schools.
At one point, the two conversion schools enrolled a total of about 260 children.
The arrangement was not well explained to the community, said attorney John Britton, general counsel for Liberty Local.
“We had two sets of teachers, two sets of kids,” Britton said. “The kids from the conversion school had iPads, were going on field trips and their teachers had small classes. Whereas the other teachers and the other kids in Liberty, when the bus is going off the cliff and they’re broke, they’re not getting anything. Nobody rolled this out properly.”
Auditor finds issues
But the district had bigger problems than public perception.
On Feb. 7, 2011, Ohio Auditor Dave Yost wrote a letter to Obermiyer and Liberty Superintendent Stan Watson informing them that the condition of records the district provided for an audit of the 2009-10 school year were not adequate and the district was now considered “unauditable.” Missing documents included “bank reconciliations for the entire period” and “bank statements for July and August 2010.”
Carlile submitted her resignation in March followed by Obermiyer in May.
The Beacon Journal attempted over several days to reach Carlile and Obermiyer through an email contact on the school’s Facebook page and by phone at the Doylestown school, but messages were not returned.
On May 26, Yost declared Liberty Local Schools to be in fiscal watch.
The Liberty school board resolved at its June 14 meeting to ask the state to declare fiscal emergency.
At the same meeting, the Liberty board voted to terminate its sponsorship of LEAD and LEARN, noting the schools’ repeated failure to maintain “necessary and appropriate financial records to ensure compliance with the Educational Plan or complying with the requirements for financial audits by the Auditor of State as set forth in its Financial Plan.”
With that, the state froze LEAD and LEARN’s grant money.
Looking for sponsors
Meanwhile, Carlile and Obermiyer had already launched a quest to keep the charter school going in some form.
They approached North Central Educational Service Center in Tiffin, southeast of Toledo, in the spring.
It was a long way to go for sponsorship, but Carlile had done some grant writing for North Central in the past related to conversion schools, said North Central ESC Superintendent Jim Lahoski.
Lahoski said they asked North Central to sponsor LEAD and LEARN and he turned them down.
But he was initially interested in their proposal that North Central open its own conversion charter school in space it would lease in Doylestown, which Carlile would run with Obermiyer serving as treasurer.
In May, the North Central ESC passed resolutions approving the hire of Carlile and Obermiyer and the sponsorship of a new conversion school to be called Just for Kids in Doylestown. Lahoski said Carlile was to be paid about $86,500 including a pickup of her payments into the state pension system. Obermiyer was to be paid almost $79,000.
But before formal contracts were presented to the board for approval, Lahoski discovered the problems that Liberty had with the state auditor. He said neither Carlile nor Obermiyer had said anything about the financial situation at Liberty during their many conversations.
“During our hiring process and our due diligence to employ personnel, we found some areas of concern listed by the auditor of the state and accordingly did not take action on the employment of Carlile and Obermiyer,” Lahoski said.
Bills start arriving
Lahoski said he never brought the contract to sponsor Just for Kids to the board for ratification.
However, his office received an invoice from a surveyor for $1,000 worth of work he had already performed for the school. The board agreed to pay the surveyor, even though the ESC never became the official sponsor of the school.
“Then I started getting all these other bills for thousands and thousands of dollars for stuff that they wanted done with this Just for Kids,” Lahoski said. “So I had our legal counsel write a letter and basically say that we’re not responsible for any of these debts. We have not agreed to take over this community school by contract.”
He said the North Central ESC received an additional four invoices for work related to the Doylestown school.
“It was almost $15,000 of things that were never authorized by our office,” Lahoski said.
Jones, the attorney for LEARN/LEAD, said the schools have no knowledge of those bills.
Doylestown is within the jurisdiction of the Tri-County ESC based in Wooster, so the schools looked for sponsorship there also.
But Tri-County ESC also turned down a request to sponsor LEAD and LEARN.
“We didn’t even give them an opportunity to make much of a pitch,” said Tri-County Superintendent Eugene P. Linton. “When they told us what they were doing, we said we really didn’t have an interest.”
Settlement deal
As far as the Ohio Department of Education was aware, LEAD and LEARN were finished as charter schools.
“Liberty informed us that it was non-renewing and terminating the two schools’ contracts. So based upon that, we notified all the relevant offices that funding should cease with the end of the fiscal year and that’s what happened, ” said Joni Hoffman, who directs the state office overseeing charter schools. “That’s when it started to get very confusing. We had even sent out a notice internally that these two schools were closing. The two schools got lawyered up, as they say.”
LEAD and LEARN would have died if they had not been able to get Liberty to rescind the termination notice and transfer sponsorship.
Lawyers for both sides worked out a settlement agreement in September: Liberty would cut the schools loose in exchange for an immediate payment of $250,000 and a promise never to open in Liberty Township.
Britton said he was surprised when the schools made the $250,000 payment.
“Nobody on my side of the ledger can tell you how much money they actually have because the person who did the books left them unauditable,” Britton said.
Jones disputes assertions that the schools’ records were unauditable.
“LEARN and LEAD respectfully disagreed with the reasons stated in the former sponsor’s resolution terminating sponsorship of the schools,” Jones said. “LEARN was never declared unauditable. LEAD is not yet due for an audit.”
However, Liberty Superintendent Watson said Obermiyer was treasurer for both the district and LEAD/LEARN during the time in question.
The sponsorship was transferred to the Portage County ESC, and LEAD and LEARN collected the schools’ property from the district buildings.
“They brought in a van, a big semi, one of the moving company guys, and they loaded up their stuff, their iPads, and off they went,” Britton said.
Portage ESC signed a lease agreement for space in Doylestown in the J.A.S. Building, a complex that also included a day care and a senior center.
The school submitted an estimated budget for this school year to Portage ESC for LEARN and LEAD, but under new names, The Academy of Learning and the The Academy of Design and Technology. The Academy of Learning estimated that it would pull in nearly $143,000 in state aid based on enrollment. The other school for older students would collect $325,000.
On Sept. 22, the Academy of Learning sponsored a parent information night at the J.A.S. Building. The Facebook page for the Academy of Learning announced that classes would begin Sept. 30.
However, the Portage County ESC issued a notice on Sept. 30 that it intended to suspend its sponsorship for “failure to provide learning opportunities in a manner consistent with law” and because the school had enrolled fewer than 25 students and was using an “unauthorized facility.”
The building issue was discovered by the Chippewa Township fire chief when he responded to a squad call at the J.A.S. Building and discovered a school in operation. But the building hadn’t been approved for a school.
“That was when I first found out that they were even doing a school,” said Chief Ron Browning. “It wasn’t a real big problem, it was just a matter of them following the guidelines and getting the paperwork done.”
Home-schooled students
The enrollment issue was more complicated.
“Some parents began to come in explaining they were going to withdraw,” said David Fischer, superintendent of Chippewa Local Schools.
Fischer asked where they going and they said the Academy of Learning.
“They proceeded to tell me where they were going and I said that isn’t up and running, it doesn’t necessarily exist,” Fischer said.
They withdrew their children anyway.
“When kids don’t show up to school, we’re obligated reporters,” Fischer said. “Until I know that they are in safe harbor, they are ours.”
He sent a letter to the parents informing them that they were violating Ohio law until the state could account for where the children were attending school.
About a dozen parents now say their children are being home-schooled.
The district believes these are the students who are attending the Academy of Learning, which wants to relocate to an industrial part of Norton just over the Chippewa district border.
“LEARN opened in September before it was suspended by Portage County ESC,” Jones said. “During the suspension, children have been receiving instruction consistent with Ohio law with regard to home schooling in Doylestown. When the suspension is lifted by Portage County ESC, school will resume in Doylestown, while LEARN pursues other alternatives with its sponsor, Portage County ESC.”
Here’s where things stand now.
Carlile is under contract with LEARN as director. Obermiyer also has a contract for providing fiscal services, according to Jones.
The Academy of Learning has never officially changed its name, so as far as Portage County ESC and the state are concerned, it’s still the LEARN school. Its sponsorship is suspended, which means it can receive no state or federal funding. It has no official students.
“LEARN/LEAD have been instructed to cease operation by nature of the suspension of the schools,” said Cheryl Emrich, Portage ESC executive director. “There have been no documents submitted to Portage County ESC to begin the process of changing the name.”
She said Portage ESC will decide whether to lift the suspension if the school corrects the issues that led to the suspension.
The school already has changed superintendents. The school’s governing board on Thursday named the Portage County ESC Superintendent Dewey L. Chapman as the interim superintendent for the school in a special meeting.
Now it’s up to the Norton City Council to decide if it’s a good idea to change the zoning and allow the school to open.
Beacon Journal Staff writer Marilyn Miller contributed to this report.
John Higgins can be reached at 330-996-3792 or jhiggins@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the education blog at http://education.ohio.com/.