November 7, 2017 is the renewal schedule of #4 and #5
Two of the schools up for renewal in November are Magnolia Public Schools. Three of their schools were rejected last year, despite increasingly strong test scores, based on the charter division’s recommendations, which said Magnolia failed to provide auditors and financial overseers with necessary documents. The three schools then were authorized by the Los Angeles County Board of Education.
LA Unified’s inspector general’s office is also still conducting a three-year-old investigation of fiscal mismanagement, but Magnolia Chief Executive Caprice Young has yet to be informed about what is being investigated. Two years ago the district reported that it had so far spent $125,282 on investigating Magnolia, and that much of the investigation had to be outsourced. But it didn’t reveal what it was investigating. The district would not provide an update on what has been spent.
“This is still a shadow over our schools,” said Young, who has five schools remaining under LA Unified’s authorization. “We don’t know what is being investigated, or when it will end, and we keep asking but get no response. This affects our ability to get philanthropy and for us to be able to recruit kids to our schools. Parents want some certainty that the schools will be there.”
Young was on the school board when it gave the district more investigatory powers because the board members thought it would be helpful in getting bond measures passed to build schools. “It turned out to be a big waste of money,” she said.
“When I first was on the school board there were 17 charters, and when I left there were 50,” said Young, who served from 1999 to 2003. “The bureaucracy thought of charters as kind of a curiosity and not particularly threatening. It was a good place to stash your annoying educational innovators.”
Young doesn’t know yet whether the district staff will recommend against her two schools that are up for renewal in November.
“I’m not holding my breath, but I don’t know,” Young said. “I will find out when the agenda is published when everyone else finds out, and then there will be a mad scramble for 72 hours to see what they say about why we didn’t meet their criteria and find out what’s true and what isn’t true.”
