Several weeks ago, the Charlotte News-Observer in North Carolina, reported that a charter school —Children’s Village Academy—was under investigation because a member of its board was paid more than $140,000 in interest on a loan to the school of $180,000. The member in question is a high-level federal official, Dr. Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a federal agency that oversees data collection, issues reports, and supervises the NAEP assessment program.

The state ordered the school to repay money it is accused of spending inappropriately. The charter itself is under review as to whether it will lose its charter. As a side note, NCES tweeted a congratulatory note about School Choice Week, an unusual move for a statistical agency.

The latest update:

A North Carolina charter school tied to a high-ranking federal official has been ordered by the state to repay $162,597 it’s accused of inappropriately spending.

The state Department of Public Instruction presented reports in December alleging conflict of interest violations and misspending of state and federal dollars at Children’s Village Academy in Kinston. On Monday, DPI sent the school a letter ordering it to repay $162,597 in “unallowable costs” in the next 10 days.

The letter comes as the state Office of Charter Schools has recommended that both Children’s Village Academy and Ridgeview Charter School in Gastonia lose their charters when they expire in June. The Charter Schools Review Board will vote in March whether to renew the schools.

On Monday, Children’s Village leaders told the Review Board that it’s addressing the concerns, including investigating questioned financial transactions and improving its internal control policies….

Many of the questions have revolved around the school’s dealings with Peggy Carr, the vice chair of Children’s Village’s board of directors…

Carr is commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education. The center oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly called NAEP, which is a series of national tests given to assess the state of education.

Carr’s family founded Children’s Village Academy in Lenoir County in 1997. In 2008, Carr gave the school a loan of $188,000 to help it get through a financial crisis.

DPI questioned the documentation of the loan and how Carr has received more than $140,000 in interest payments so far.

“Although the reports do not say so expressly, they implicitly allege that the board should not have taken out the loan, or that it paid too much interest,” Matthew Tilley, Carr’s lawyer, wrote in a letter to the Review Board.

“Those allegations, however, are unfounded and would require DPI or the CSRB to second-guess the board’s business judgment.”

Tilley said that the amount repaid in interest was reasonable for a 15-year loan. But Tilley said that both his client and the school agree that the loan could have been “better documented.”

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article285086937.html#storylink=cpy