Imagine School at St. Petersburg

“Pinellas to close struggling charter school.” Tampa Bay Online / TampaTribune (FL), 2/12/2013

LARGO - After more than an hour of pleas from students, parents and teachers, the Pinellas County school board voted today to close Imagine School at St. Petersburg's charter elementary school, which a room full of students called "the best school on earth."

In fact, the school, which is at 1950 First Ave. N., is the lowest-performing elementary school in the county, based on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores and student learning gains...

Board members voted in December to close the school by the end of the academic year but postponed their decision to meet with school officials and review new data that school principal Carolyn Wilson said shows students "are kicking butt."

But school officials argued that students simply aren't doing well enough to keep the school open...

Imagine's middle school will remain open, but at least some of its 300 or so elementary students will have to attend their zoned schools. That's because the school district's school-choice window has closed already...

Closing the school could jeopardize a lawsuit agreement from 2010, said Imagine's marketing and enrollment coordinator, Terrance Tomlin. The school district has spent 49 years settling a lawsuit that integrated Pinellas County Schools, and part of that settlement included a goal of creating 500 seats in charter schools serving predominantly black communities.

"If you close our school, you will be at a deficit of charter schools fostering an African-American community with no prospects of providing one in the near future," Tomlin told board members.

School officials plan to appeal the closing before the state Division of Administrative Hearings April 10. The state will provide the school board with a recommendation within 60 days...

=====================================================

AS ST. PETERSBURG SCHOOL FOUNDERS, DISTRICTS QUESTION IMAGINE SCHOOLS' STATUS, May 9, 2010, St. Petersburg Times (FL) 

An F-rated St. Petersburg charter school stands on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and losing enrollment. And most of those debts — around $1 million in public tax dollars — are owed to the same private company that founded it.

Pinellas County district officials say they're battling with Virginia-based Imagine Schools, the nation's largest commercial charter operator, over the future of the Central Avenue school…

Pinellas officials are now joining districts across Florida — including Hillsborough and Pasco — in raising doubts about whether the company is running its schools as nonprofits, as required by state law…

"They owe a tremendous amount of money to their management company, and it looks to us hopeless that they'll ever pay it," said Pinellas School Board attorney James Robinson. "And they don't have enough students to generate the state funding they need."

Some parents said they were unaware of financial or governance problems at the school…

Parent Scott Benjamin saw and heard more in his role as chairman of the parent-teacher organization. He pulled his fourth-grade son out of the school last spring, after several experienced teachers were fired.

"The teachers told me about the budget cuts and the stress they were under to work after school, for what they described as no additional payments," he said…

"A board must show that it is not a front for a management company," the agency said in published guidelines.

But the Pinellas charter's board is chaired by Justin Matthews, who works for the company as a school principal in North Port.

"Who's he going to support, Imagine or the school?" Clark said…

Faced with challenges from several districts, Imagine sought a ruling from the state on its nonprofit status. On Jan. 5, the Department of Education told the company it would develop new rules on the issue and invite public comment…

That creates the potential for abuse, said Henry Levin, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University Teachers College.

"The problem is it doesn't prevent self-dealing," he [said. "As long as you allow them to set any salaries they want, to put anyone on the payroll that they want, to pay for services where there is some association with them or a relative, there's just no protection in this."…

But Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University, said more safeguards are needed. Around 80 percent of charter schools in Michigan are run by for-profit companies.

"We have these management companies that should be supporting schools as a vendor, and they're running them like private franchises," he said.