Lafayette Academy Charter School


CHARTER SCHOOL WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST MANAGEMENT COMPANY, September 17, 2007, Times-Picayune (LA) 
The governing board of Lafayette Academy charter school emerged from legal arbitration Friday with a $350,000 judgment against the for-profit company it hired to run the elementary campus.

The arbitrator further upheld the board's early termination of the company's five-year management agreement, the first such forcible removal of a contracted charter operator in the city's short history with widespread chartering of public schools. The board, however, will have to pay $100,000 to Mosaica Education to terminate the agreement, as the contract mandates…

According to Choice Foundation, the management company did not align the school's curriculum to state standards, which caused students to fail the state's high-stakes LEAP test, according to the foundation. Also, Mosaica didn't perform routine assessments of students or create education plans tailored for each student. Mosaica further failed to properly organize transportation, officials said.

Mosaica also dragged its feet in establishing an after-school program for students below grade level, as were many of Lafayette's students, months after the board continuously raised the issue. Among other grievances, Mosaica kept the building filthy, according to the school's board…

Mosaica, which was paid $773,000 for the first year of its five-year contract, could not be reached for comment Friday. Founded in 1997, Mosaica operates 90 charter school programs in eight states, the District of Columbia and the Middle East and serves more than 18,000 students. Lafayette is the only school Mosaica operates in Louisiana, according to its Web site.

Ten days into the school year, Lafayette's board started noticing problems, such as the school didn't have insurance and there weren't copy machines, Huger said…

"The academics weren't even being delivered, because they didn't have the basic things in place," Huger said.

Lafayette lost more than 20 teachers, and more than 200 students transferred at the end of the school year, Huger said. Choice now runs the school…

More about the for-profit Mosaica Education, Inc. HERE:

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