JACKSON, MI – A former da Vinci Institute teacher is going to prison for five to 20 years for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student.
MUSKEGON, MI -- Barbara Stellard, the former director of WayPoint Academy in Muskegon Township, will face trial on multiple felony counts after waiving her preliminary examination on charges she obtained state school aid under false pretenses and falsified school records...
MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Michigan — A charter school organization is weighing an appeal after a jury awarded more than $500,000 to a former Linden Charter Academy teacher who was fired for what his attorney said was a racial joke...The school referred all comment to its parent company, the Grand Rapids-based National Heritage Academies...Lenhoff said Hecht heard many black employees at Linden Charter Academy make racial jokes and that they were not punished.Hecht had an excellent record on racial relations and had no prior record of any issues with the school, Lenhoff said.According to the lawsuit, the teacher’s aide complained to the principal and Hecht was called into the office. Lenhoff said Hecht apologized to the teacher’s aide in the meeting...Hecht, who had worked at the school for more than eight years, is now working as a machine operator at Dow Corning Corp. in Midland and has been unable to get hired for a teaching position.
Once touted as a solution to Detroit's public school woes, charter high schools are often doing just about as poorly — and in many cases worse — at educating students and getting them ready for college, a Detroit News analysis of recent test data shows.
Of 25 charters in Detroit or nearby, only six had higher math or science proficiency scores than Detroit Public Schools' average on the most recent Michigan Merit Exam, with most of the others doing worse than the district.
More charters did poorer in reading and writing as well; only in social studies did more charters surpass rather than trail DPS.
The results raise questions about the district's plans to authorize additional charters in its search for improvement and could also renew the debate over whether charters are the answer to the riddle of urban education, where multiple strategies are often producing the same poor results...
One of the largest nationwide charter-schools studies found that nearly half of charter schools do as well as the local public school; more than a third did worse, and just 17 percent did better...
Concerns about the quality of the DPS schools and student safety have caused tens of thousands of parents to choose charter schools or leave the city altogether in search of better educational opportunities. In the past decade, DPS has lost nearly 100,000 students as charter schools and suburban classrooms have swelled with the arrival of former DPS schoolchildren.
Charter schools remain an important part of the reforms proposed by the district, though plans to turn over dozens of schools to charter operators, proposed by former DPS Emergency Manager Robert Bobb, have been scaled back to five new charter schools authorized by DPS...
Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, said research in Michigan has shown charters routinely exceed DPS on the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) tests given to children in grades three to nine.
But he said the relatively poor performance of high school students in charters raises questions. Quisenberry said students perform better the longer they are in charter schools and it's unclear how long the high school students have been in the charter school setting. "These numbers are important, and they should make us concerned," he said...
Cincinnati's newest charter school will be managed by a national for-profit company that has faced lawsuits for allowing religious instruction and denying services to special education students.Grand Rapids, Mich.-based National Heritage Academies will manage Alliance Academy in Evanston, which is renting the former St. Mark's Catholic School and will open in late August…In 1998, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of parents who alleged that NHA was violating the separation of church and state at its Vanguard Charter Academy in Grand Rapids. The suit was dismissed in 2000 after the school put policies in place to prevent the types of actions alleged…
DETROIT -- Acting on behalf of five parents, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today challenged a Kent County charter school for violating the First Amendment's protections of separation of church and state.Vanguard Charter School Academy sanctioned prayer in the school, allowed the distribution of religious materials during class, allowed a nearby church to use its facilities rent-free to conduct worship, conducted a mandatory staff retreat with distinct religious overtones and taught creationism as an accepted scientific theory, according to the amended complaint filed today in United States District Court.Vanguard Charter School Academy teaches children from kindergarten through seventh grade. Like all other charter schools in Michigan, Vanguard is a public school and must follow Michigan's code for public school academies. It is managed by National Heritage Academy, one of the largest management companies in Michigan.The ACLU is suing on behalf of five parents of students at the school…
Highland Park— The former treasurer of a charter school has been charged with embezzlement for allegedly writing herself a $25,000 check on behalf of the school to buy a house in Detroit.
Attorney General Bill Schuette announced today the felony embezzlement charge was filed against Shantell Bell, formerly of George Washington Carver Academy, which has 527 students.
A Michigan State Police investigation revealed Bell allegedly wrote the check to an Ohio title company and recorded the expense as "textbooks" for the kindergarten through eighth-grade school. She was arraigned Friday in Highland Park's 30th District Court on one count of embezzlement over $20,000. The crime is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $75,000 fine…
According to Schuette, Bell had said Platinum Title Services was a textbook company. In reality, it was the company used to complete the real estate transaction.
Bell's former boyfriend reported the theft to authorities and the investigation began, Schuette said…
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. — The teachers and principal at George Washington Carver Academy, a charter school here, have learned firsthand what happens when an official probe concludes that the staff cheated on a standardized test.
Monitors sent by the Michigan Department of Education have watched over teachers here for the past two years as state tests have been administered. As a group, teachers have been forced to review, line by line, all of the state's testing rules…
Educators at Carver cheated on the tests in many ways, stopping just short of giving students the answers, the state investigation found. Plastic-wrapped exams were opened days before the state allowed, so students could be coached. Teachers gave students hints during the exams in classrooms where interior windows were covered with paper to keep anyone from looking inside. And when students asked questions, teachers showed them how to get the right answer, the state said…
"We had the test booklet," a fifth-grader told investigators about the writing test. The teacher "was teaching us how to do it. It was nice and clear."
A fourth-grader called the test "pretty easy" because the teacher "gave us ideas for the topic sentence and the ending sentence. ... She was trying to help us do our best."…
KALAMAZOO -- The sign outside Kalamazoo Advantage Academy reads: "Enrolling for fall," along with a phone number.
But inside the two-story building at the corner of Burdick and South streets, the heart of Kalamazoo's downtown, staffers and students are bitterly mulling the shutdown of the decade-old charter school, which serves about 270 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Although summer school is in session for about 40 students, Advantage will not reopen this fall. Grand Valley State University has declined to renew the school's charter, and there's no other sponsor to be found.
GVSU maintains Advantage has long been a failing school, with faltering enrollment and low test scores, and says it is being a responsible charter authorizer in pulling the plug, now that its 10-year contract has expired.
But dig a little deeper and a more complicated story emerges, one that raises questions about GVSU's practices and procedures…
Advantage had its own data analysis done by Sharif Shakrani, co-director of MSU's Center for Education Policy. An expert in educational data, Shakrani is a former director of the design and analysis division of the National Center for Education Statistics and a deputy executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board.
Shakrani's report said Advantage performed "significantly lower" than similar schools in 2005-06. But in the past two school years, he says, the Advantage students have shown much stronger results. His report highlights the strong academic growth among students who have been at Advantage for more than a year, and concludes the school is doing an "admirable job" with a very high-risk population.
"I'd keep (the school) open," Shakrani said this week. "My analysis indicates they're making significant progress. ... Usually you would close a school when it's regressing, but this school is getting better, not worse."
Ed Richardson, head of GVSU's Charter School Office, said his office has "carefully reviewed" the analysis by Shakrani.
"Nothing in them makes us think that our decision not to renew the contract was incorrect," Richardson said in an e-mailed statement.
Policy questions
In two other areas of contention by Advantage, GVSU's Charter School Office seems to have different policies and practices than other charter-school offices in Michigan.
For instance, after putting Advantage on notice in November 2006, GVSU did not establish specific academic goals or targets for the school to work on to keep their charter…
But he said the Advantage situation points out what he sees as the biggest problem in the charter-school movement: The failure to establish clear goals and then hold a school accountable for meeting those goals.
From his standpoint, Advantage wasn't held accountable for years. Now GVSU may be forcing accountablity -- but without clear goals, it gives the appearance of acting arbitrarily.
"I want these closures to work well," Miron said. "If they don't work well, what does that say to other authorizers who need to do the same thing?"
Outsiders also express surprise that GVSU's Charter School Office could let Advantage's contract expire without a vote by the GVSU Board of Trustees.
The other five charter school authorizers said such a decision would have to go before their board…
"Contracts have a beginning date and an end date for good reason," McLogan said. "Possession of a charter agreement is not an entitlement to perpetual operation."
Others say that philosophy can lead to disrupting the lives of charter-school students and employees with little or no explanation.
Because of the state's cap on the number of charter contracts, schools that lose their contracts have limited ability to find another authorizer, which means nonrenewal of a charter becomes, in effect, an order to close. And why would anybody would want to risk starting a charter school if authorizers can just walk away at the end of a three- or five- or seven-year contract?...
McLogan says GVSU dropped the contract because they don't want to continue sponsorship of a school they see as failing.
Huth says she wonders if there might be another motive. She speculates GVSU might want to grant charters to more middle-class academies, which tend to be larger than urban charters and have much better test scores.
She notes that GVSU receives about $225 per student from its schools as an administrative fee -- the GVSU Charter School Office generated more than $3 million in revenues last year among its 30 academies -- which means larger schools offer much more profit…
A kindergarten class wasn't in the plan when Walter French Academic opened in 1996.
The academy was Lansing's first fling into the new world of junior and senior high charter schools. Applicants typically were at least 11 years old, and computer literacy was preferred. After all, Walter French was billed as a high-tech alternative to Lansing's traditional public schools.
But today, 5-year-old frolic with crayons and counting beads. And the school this year dropped "Business and Technology" from its title. The changes have helped the school nearly erase a $3 million deficit caused by startup problems in 1996.
When schools close for the summer in a few weeks, Michigan's charter school industry completes its first five years. Many of those schools, including Walter French, have altered course since debuting as an alternative to traditional public districts…
But some parents say the schools wind up with the same problems as traditional districts. They view the schools as strapped for cash and faced with too many diverse needs to be as effective as promised.
"The concept is good, but I wonder if it's working," said Brenda Petite-el, a Lansing woman who recently pulled her son out of Walter French Academy. "It's not from a lack of effort. But there have been struggles."…
Walter French is a dramatic and somewhat extreme example. The school ran up a $3 million deficit mainly because of opening a week late in 1996. Key equipment had not arrived in time for the scheduled start of classes.
Enrollment plummeted from 650 on opening day to about 400 at the end of the school year. As students left, state financial aid vanished…
Walter French's initial mission was to have all its students geared toward computer technology and business applications. The school still has an internship program with General Motors Corp., and is developing programs to match students with their potential careers as early as seventh grade.
The school has 230 computers for its 600 students, and started a certification program for Microsoft technology in 1998-99. The program was suggested and largely run by the students -- a freedom 1999 Walter French graduate Paul Curtis doubts he would have had at a traditional school.
"Teachers didn't take us for granted," said Curtis, now a Spring Arbor College freshman. "It was a very trusting, open environment."
But just 56 percent of Walter French students took computer technology classes in 1998-99. Some students aren't interested in the subject; others are not academically prepared for it…
A former student launched a petition drive at the school in late February, protesting enforcement of the school's dress code and the school's limited extracurricular offerings. The letter, sent to the Lansing City Council in March, was signed by more than 70 students.
"I definitely think improvements are being made," said Noemi Delgado, a Walter French sophomore. "But there is too much emphasis on the dress code, and not enough on the extracurriculars."
School officials counter that charters don't have the money and weren't designed to offer as many extracurricular activities as traditional schools. They say most of the students didn't know what they were signing, and most didn't know the petition was headed for City Council.
But the incident, sparked by student defections and suspensions for fighting and dress-code violations, reflects that Walter French still has issues. Enrollment has fallen from 641 at the start of this school year to about 600 in April.
Some parents discover their children aren't any happier at charters than they were at traditional schools. Others grow resentful of the dress code or other disciplinary measures.
"Some parents can't hack it, and some kids can't hack it," said Magdalena Renderos, who has four children enrolled at Walter French. "You are going to have your problems like at any other school."…
Two former employees of the Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences charter school allege in a lawsuit that the school engaged in cheating on standardized tests, staff embezzlement, the downloading of nude photos and fire code violations. Aarmond Atkins, former dean of students for the academy's middle school, and Arnold Boyd, the middle school's in-school suspension director, say they were fired in November when they refused a demand from the principal to place students at desks in a middle school hallway and a utility closet in violation of the city fire code. Both men said they notified the Detroit Fire Department, which subsequently issued a citation to the school.
SPELLING SLIP SNARES STUDENT, September 28, 2010, Daily Press & Argus (Livingston County, MI)
Cory Keir was so proud and excited about designing the yearbook cover for Brighton's Charyl Stockwell Preparatory Academy for the 2009-2010 school year that he overlooked one thing.
The 17-year-old Hamburg Township boy misspelled his own school's name, calling it "Shockwell" instead of Stockwell.
He figured he would have to apologize for the mistake, along with the teacher who signed off on the cover, and have to do something to make up for it. After all, he maintained, it was an "honest mistake."
Instead, Keir said he was called down to the principal's office, grilled by school administrators and accused of doing it on purpose.
He said he was suspended for 10 days and initially asked to creatively raise $1,000 for the school…
Donna Diment, Keir's mother, said she met with school administrators two times as well as the school board because she felt the punishment was excessive and didn't like how she and her son were treated. If he had taken a knife to school, she said, she could understand a tough punishment, but not for a spelling mistake.
"I just can't let this go," Diment said. "I felt Shelley Stockwell was a bully. I felt bullied, and I felt my son was bullied."
When she couldn't get the issue resolved or the suspension removed from her son's record, she decided to take the issue to the Daily Press & Argus.
A teacher at Aisha Shule/W.E.B. DuBois Preparatory Academy has been removed from duty pending an investigation into whether he improperly restrained one of two students who got into a fight on a school playground last week.
Teachers separated the students, but one, a fifth-grader, was inconsolable and went after the other student again, said Hasina Murphy, deputy director of Aisha Shule/W.E.B. DuBois, a public school academy with 250 K-12 students on Detroit's west side.
The student and her mother later alleged that the teacher choked the girl while restraining her, Murphy said.
The mother also filed a report with Detroit police. Spokesman John Roach confirmed police were investigating the matter but declined to comment further...
