|
|
In less than a year, a promising Mount Auburn charter school with 672 students has devolved into an empty building, a series of lawsuits and a heap of animosity.
All that remains of the educational effort is a new charter school with about 50 students in a West End gym.
The school’s former managers, SABIS Educational Systems — a private, for-profit company — say the school’s former board disregarded the concerns of parents and students when it fired the company.
“That ought to be the headline,” says Jose Afonso, SABIS Inc.’s director for board and government affairs.
But an overly broad SABIS contract kept the board from being an independent body able to responsibly run the school, according to Charlie Wallner, agent for the board.
Among the board’s problems with SABIS was access to financial records, he says.
“You couldn’t get records that were understandable,” Wallner says.
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) is now calling for the board to refund $588,000 the state paid for expenses in July and August. ODE and the board are heading to federal court in Columbus over that and other issues.
Over the summer the board began putting together its own charter school — Learning Opportunities of Greater Cincinnati — with a curriculum based on state standards.
The board eventually wants to work with colleges to create a curriculum focused on results.
Having been evicted from the old SABIS building, the new school, providing kindergarten through eighth grade, is barely hanging on. Since Sept. 30 about 50 students have been attending Learning Opportunities at the West End YMCA.
ODE, which didn’t authorize that facility for school use, wants the school to stop using it. ODE says it will work with the board to open a school in fall 2003.
SABIS operates more than 26 schools in 11 countries, mostly in the Middle East. The organization opened its first school in 1886 in Beirut, Lebanon. Its curriculum focuses on repetition and testing. Students wear uniforms.
Two years ago Cincinnati Education Management, a SABIS subsidiary, bought a block of land and buildings in Mount Auburn for $1 million (see The Will to Survive, issue of March 9-15, 2000). SABIS eventually spent $2.5 million, adding a cafeteria and gym.
The SABIS International School of Cincinnati opened at 244 Southern Ave. in fall 2000. SABIS hired employees and ran day-to-day operations. An independent board was responsible for setting policies and making decisions.
Or so the board thought. More than a year ago board member Tracy Lowe became dissatisfied with the level of detail SABIS provided. She and other board members began demanding more documentation. Last summer the IRS also raised similar questions about the board’s weak position.
In December the board notified SABIS it was firing the company.
Afonso characterizes the dispute as a “personality conflict” involving Lowe. He says there was only one board meeting at which the school’s financial officer wasn’t able to immediately provide details the board demanded.
The bottom line is the board’s word is unreliable, he says.
“They are liars and they can’t be trusted,” Afonso says.
Afonso says he met with more than 100 parents and not one of them supported the board’s actions.
“Those kids were learning,” he says. “The parents were satisfied, and yet that meant nothing to this group.”
Wallner says the board’s communication with parents wasn’t great.
“We’ve always admitted that we didn’t have a really good way to handle the issue with parents,” he says.
But SABIS hampered the board by refusing to turn over parents’ addresses and attempting to turn them against the board, according to Wallner.
In March the board filed what Wallner calls “a Hail Mary lawsuit” seeking to dissolve the school and have its remaining funds turned over to the state. SABIS responded with a breach of contract lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. A group of parents filed their own lawsuit, alleging the board was mismanaging the school and its money.
The board unsuccessfully tried to post a bond for the SABIS building. Wallner says the board needed more records about the building’s value. The board looked into leasing a building in Western Hills but was unable to negotiate a contract.
SABIS successfully acquired an eviction notice in court and convinced a judge to force the board to pay June’s rent. Wallner says SABIS kept the board out of the building in early June, while Afonso says that began June 30.
Ohio annually audits charter schools. But two years after the SABIS School opened, it still hasn’t been audited.
In late May the Ohio Auditor of State’s Office declared the SABIS School “unauditable” because of incomplete records. The office is still waiting for “two significant pieces of information,” according to Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the auditor. The board blames this on SABIS withholding records.
“That’s crap,” Afonso says. “We don’t know what it is they’re looking for. We have no idea.”
Afonso said it wrote the auditor’s office about the issue in July.
Wallner wants to know what SABIS did with computers, furniture, books and other supplies that used to be in the SABIS School. Afonso says some of the estimated $300,000 in supplies have been moved to other SABIS schools, including one in New Orleans. All of it was bought with company money, Afonso says.
“Well, they always say that,” Wallner says. “Who’s to tell anymore?”
About 500 of the 672 former SABIS students have enrolled in the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), according to John Rothwell, CPS charter school manager.
“They were from all over and they returned to all over,” Rothwell says.
Amber Howard, Learning Opportunities’ parent liaison, has a daughter attending the new school.
“Learning Opportunities School, if given the chance, will be a very excellent school,” she says.
Afonso says he’s still waiting for the justification for essentially dissolving the SABIS School.
“On what basis can they justify the destruction of the school?” he says. ©
This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2002.