Children's Conservation Academy

WHEN CHARTERS CLOSE, PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOOT THE BILL; December 4, 2007; Voice of San Diego (CA)

Spending scandals brought down Children's Conservation Academy, a City Heights charter school shuttered in 2007, only two years after it opened. A year earlier, A. Phillip Randolph Leadership Academy dissolved, with questions swirling around its finances. Its closure echoed that of Jola Community Charter School, a girls' charter that sunk two months after opening in 2005.

These schools and two other closed charters owe more than $300,000 to San Diego Unified School District in unpaid fees and property taxes. None have repaid the district. School staff doubts they ever will…

District staffers suspect fraud in the closures of some San Diego charters, most notably Children's Conservation Academy, which closed in August. San Diego Unified claims that CCA spent hundreds of dollars on Padres tickets, cell phone bills and gym memberships, and paid more than $11,000 to executive director Nicole Decatur's mother, a past board president, with little proof of the work she'd performed…

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TROUBLED CHARTER SCHOOL MAY CLOSE, QUESTIONS ON MONEY AND LEADERSHIP ARISE, August 24, 2007, San Diego (CA) Union Tribune

SAN DIEGO – Just days before students are to return to classes at Children's Conservation Academy in City Heights, the taxpayer-funded charter school is in imminent risk of shutting down amid questions of financial mismanagement and a lack of leadership…

District officials threatened to revoke the school's educational contract, known as a charter, unless the school fixes a long list of management and accounting problems. They say the school owes the district more than $97,000 in fees and for various services…

The district said the school has not properly accounted for tens of thousands of dollars in questionable expenses, including an athletic club membership ($638), restaurant food ($2,219), Starbucks coffee ($143), Padres tickets ($369) and cell phone bills ($1,505)…

According to district documents, the school operated for a year and a half without workers' compensation insurance required by state law, and it lacked proof that all of its employees had undergone checks for criminal background and tuberculosis, posing safety and health hazards to students. Decatur was among the employees who did not have proper clearances, the district said. In a series of letters dating to June 2006, the district expressed concerns about “conflicts of interest” and “self-dealing” on the school's governing board. Decatur's mother, Marina Grant, a past board president, was paid more than $11,000 by the school, “without authorization and without sup porting documentation to reflect the work performed,” according to the district…

Some teachers provided affidavits to the district, documenting many concerns, including lack of textbooks and basic supplies. The school's attorney denied there were insufficient instructional materials.

Decatur laid much of the blame for the school's bungled finances on a past business manager and others' mistakes…