Providence Academy for Student Success AKA Renaissance Academy - A School for the Multi-Media Arts

“Former charter-school leader must repay $10,000.” The Columbus Dispatch (OH) 29 Jun 2011 
A gospel singer who helped start a Columbus charter school misused more than $10,000 in taxpayer money and has been told to repay it, a state audit says.

Michael Stuckey, the former project manager at the Providence Academy for Student Success, wrote himself eight checks totaling $2,084 for "vending services," the audit released yesterday said.

He also endorsed $8,750 in checks from a day-care center that leased part of the P.A.S.S. building off of S. Hamilton Road on the East Side. The audit says there weren't proper, board-approved contracts for vending or the day-care lease...

The school opened for the 2009-10 school year. It attracted attention at the end of that year because its founder, Isaac Simpson, who also is a gospel singer, had built a $22,000 recording studio in the school with public money. One of the school's features was to be a music recording and engineering curriculum, but former school employees have said students were rarely, if ever, allowed to use the studio.

Simpson's gospel group became so entwined with the school that the treasurer said he could not be certain whether public money was being spent to launch records and hold concerts. The state audit did not list other instances of illegal spending.

At the end of its first year of operation, the school board voted to end its relationship with Simpson and Stuckey. A new director who had experience running a charter school was hired...

In March, the school board voted to change the school's name to the Renaissance Academy - A School for the Multi-Media Arts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah and then let go of the multi media art teacher who was AMAZING because they couldn't afford to pay her and several other teachers. This place is horrible and should be shut down and the new director has not improved anything. Teachers who want jobs be warned, don't accept a job! They let go so many last year and obviously didn't respect their hard work.
- Caring former parent

Anonymous said...

This School is a complete JOKE!!! Please!! If you have an ounce of character, do not-I repeat DO NOT send your child to this school,no matter what name changes have taken place. Administration has no limitations or boundaries on how the school is ran because the children are the ones who run it! The worse part of it all is that students are GRADUATING from this "school". How will thiose babies operate in a cut throat society if they've never been given the adequate tools?? This school will never succeed at this rate. I used to associate the word 'charter' with 'better' or "alternative". Not the case at all....

Anonymous said...

Parents of PASS/RAMA please send your students to a real school. There are several in the area with great track records, improving tests scores, and people who care. Just down the street is Millennium Community School, another Brice Christian, A+ Arts Academy, and many more. Why take the risk!

Anonymous said...

It's unfortunate that the commments that were made blatantly skipped over what the article stated. The school started off WRONG and was a JOKE from day one and I guess you all approved of the prior administrators behavior that put the school in a negative manner in the first place? "With that type of thinking uuummmm... and you wonder what's wrong with society?"

Former Employee

Anonymous said...

I worked at this school. It was an absolute circus. Teachers had no idea what was going on and it was truly the students ran the show. Also I just learned that they took in 1.8 million from the government per year. I have no idea where that money goes. I shudder to think.