The FBI and other federal agencies raided the home of the former director of a Los Angeles charter school that was recently closed by the district due to fiscal mismanagement. The Los Angeles school board voted to close Community Preparatory Academy last April due to ongoing mismanagement.
Federal law enforcement agents have seized records from the home of the former director of Community Preparatory Academy, a Los Angeles charter school that recently closed amid allegations of fiscal mismanagement.
The raid was carried out Tuesday morning by several agencies working in conjunction, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Secret Service with assistance from the FBI. Also taking part was the Los Angeles Unified School District through its inspector general….
The district repeatedly sent warning notices over issues such as minimally qualified teachers, inadequate teacher training, misassignment of teachers outside their subject area and a high ratio of substitutes, the report stated.
Some of the financial difficulties stemmed from a slow start. In the first year of its five-year run, school leaders recruited fewer than 80 students, throwing CPA into deficit spending from the get-go.
The school enrolled 338 students. The district accused it of padding its enrollment and other abuses. Questions were also raised about conflicts of interest and payments to the director’s husband. The director had previously run another charter that closed. (Culture and Language Academy of Sucess).
The closed school had received $575,00 from the federal Charter Schools Program, $433,000 from the state to pay rent, $338,000 from the state facilities fund for co-location fees, and $250,000 from the state Charter School Revolving Loan Fund. A grand total of $1.6 million wasted.
Despite the school’s multiple inadequacies and repeated warnings of violations, state law prevented closing it down until the charter came up for renewal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Devos’ federal grant aided and abetted this corruption, as did the authorizer who surely knew this was an end-to-end scam.
DeVoodoo should be in jail, too and so should dump and his gangsters.
Go Bernie.
What Blume left out was that the Bucknors operated another charter, CLAS, previous to opening CPA. But the Bucknors closed it down before it was renewed, most likely to avoid the kind of scrutiny that the LAUSD Charter School Division employed in its Finding of Facts for CPA’s denial. See below:
p. 126
Click to access 04-02-19SpclBdCharterMaterialsOptimizeWithLinksWithoutExhibits_0.pdf
As described above, the Bucknors intentionally left their names out of the CPA charter petition so that LAUSD had NO idea of their involvement. However, that quickly changed as Janice Bucknor officially was named CEO after approval.
Bottom line…..charter law is totally incapable of stopping these operators from gaming the system. The LAUSD Charter School Division is often attacked for allowing these kinds of charters to remain open, but they too are hampered by the weakness of the law. Also, if LAUSD denies a charter or its renewal, the school will just apply to the county or state for approval, which usually works in their favor. Last, these failed charters pay big bucks to the CA Charter School Association which frequently sends in their lawyers to counter LAUSD’s assessment.
This is why the law must be changed. Sadly, none of the charter bills being considered will go far enough to prevent this kind of fraud. Much more needs to be done.
Charter scandals are a daily occurrence. Waiting for one of the candidates to tie this into the corporate corruption it derives from.
Sent from my iPhone
>
One more drowns in its own sewage with hundreds to go while new charters pop-up out of the ground like poisonous mushrooms.
Cut to all other charter “leaders” shredding furiously.
It isn’t easy to shred e-mail. There is your original copy and then the copy you sent to one or more other people someplace else in the world. And I’ve read that even when we delete something, its never really gone and there are programs that retrieve deleted files and e-mails, et al.
Look at the amount of money wasted on this one charter school. If that doesn’t wake you up, what will ? The fraud is too easy – they are set up for fraud – one would have to be stupid not to commit fraud…or honest. But if you were an honest decent person, you probably would not be in the private charter business. Please people wake up…It takes awhile to explain to someone about charters…the reform deform crowd has done a good job of confusing the public.