DENVER – An assistant football coach at KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy has been fired after being accused of making an online sexual advance toward a student, FOX31 News has learned.
The coach, whose name has not been released, allegedly made the remarks on a student’s Facebook page.
A Denver Public Schools spokesperson says the coach is a part-time employee of the charter school and not a DPS employee.
A charter school that opened this year with high expectations and wealthy, powerful backers scored at the bottom of all schools in all of Northeast Florida in School Grade score.
KIPP Impact Middle, a college preparatory school, earned an F in its opening year.
“We’re disappointed,” Principal Robert Hawke said. “We fell pretty far short of where we wanted to be.”...
The school opened this past school year with about 90 fifth-graders. It will add another 90 fifth-graders in the next school year and grow a sixth-grade class. The school lost a handful of students during the school year...
One of the nation’s fastest-growing charter-school models may be stumbling in Kansas City.
Concerns over the local management of the KIPP Endeavor Academy have prompted its sponsoring college to put the public school through the same kind of comprehensive site review the state conducts for struggling school districts.
According to state documents, the middle school did not establish programs to use certain federal money that will have to be returned. The school also has had too few classroom teachers meeting the state’s criteria for “highly qualified.”…
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Parents at one local school are holding a town hall meeting Saturday because they said they want the principal fired.
The parents said the mistakes the principal has made this year have hurt students.
Students at KIPP Endeavor Academy went home Friday like any other regular day, but behind the scenes a group of parents said the charter school has failed to live up to its own motto.
“Their motto is no excuses, no short cuts," said parent Cherise Ellison. "And we expect the same from them.”
Ellison is just one of the parents that met Friday afternoon to organize the town hall meeting on Saturday to address several problems.
She said she is upset the principal decided to disband the parent association with little explanation…
The biggest concern for the parents is the fact that the charter school applied for federal Title 1 money. They were granted $256,000, but the school never came up with a plan on how to use that money. And parents said at a time when most school districts are struggling financially, it makes no sense to have all this money just sitting there…
The principal told KCTV5, "We did discontinue the KIPP parent association as I felt it needed to be reorganized. There were disagreements between parents about the proper direction and leadership of the committee. We are currently planning for a new parent organization, which will pick up in the fall…
INDIANAPOLIS -- The co-founder of an Indianapolis charter school is facing new allegations he defrauded schools and small business owners out of thousands of dollars. 6News' Kara Kenney reported Monday that Dimitri Snowden, the co-founder of the Indianapolis-based Paramount School of Excellence, was named in a lawsuit brought by the KIPP Academy, another Indianapolis charter school, which is sponsored by Mayor Greg Ballard and funded by public tax dollars. [More about KIPP Indianapolis HERE]
The school accuses Snowden and his information technology company, Ion360, of breach of contract, fraud and deception totaling $45,796 in damages.
The Paramount School of Excellence also contracted with Snowden's company, but fired him and is now seeking legal action…
Tom Wagenhauser with Indy IT Professionals said small-business owners should always ask for references, certifications and accreditations before doing business with a Web company…
Ion360 is listed as a member of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. The chamber refused to comment on Snowden's membership due to the ongoing lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit brought by KIPP, Ion360 pressured the school to purchase products and services it did not need and could not afford and failed to provide the promised "responsive service and rapid resolution" to technology issues and problems.
It's unclear whether KIPP Charter Academy investigated Snowden prior to hiring him…
KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University.
“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come.”…
A charter network that has two schools in Baltimore has a high level of student attrition and of private and public funding that have positioned it to be successful, according to a national report published Thursday.
The report on Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), which opened its first school in Baltimore about a decade ago and recently reached a long-term deal to remain in the city for another 10 years, suggests that the national charter school network's high performance is a result of having advantages over its public school counterparts.
The study, which was published by Western Michigan University and jointly released with Columbia University, "What Makes KIPP Work: A study of student characteristics, attrition and school finance," based its conclusions on publicly available KIPP data measured against districtwide data…
Nationally, the report found, on average about 15 percent of students leave KIPP every year, compared with 3 percent in public schools. Moreover, between grades six and eight, about 30 percent of students drop off KIPP's rolls.
The majority of students who leave are African-American males, the report found, and the schools primarily serve African-American students.
The lead researcher, Gary Miron, called KIPP's attrition a "tremendous drop-off," concluding that he believes "their outcomes would change" without the attrition.
The study also concluded that KIPP's high performance, when compared to public schools, could be a result of serving significantly fewer special-education students and English language learners — two populations that are often less competitive academically and more expensive to educate…
The report's researchers found that in addition to receiving more public funding per pupil than its public school counterparts, KIPP also received $5,760 per pupil from private funding…
"Kids who persist at KIPP do well," Miron said. "But the question is, is KIPP lifting the public schools, or are they lifting the kids who have the support to persist?"
…The school says it will close June 30 if it cannot reach a long-term deal with the Baltimore Teachers Union over pay or garner enough support for legislation in Annapolis that would allow teachers to set their own working conditions.
KIPP's model requires a longer-than-typical 9 1/2-hour school day, which has caused tensions with the union, in order to achieve its results: some of the highest test scores in the state and a 100 percent college-acceptance rate…
Unlike many of its counterparts around the nation, Baltimore's KIPP schools are bound by the teachers union contract regarding pay, which has earned the state criticism for having a restrictive charter school law. Therefore, KIPP has had to compensate teachers for the extended days — a demand that the school says is costing an additional $400,000 to $500,000 a year.
KIPP is also negotiating with the school system in hopes of getting a long-term lease for the building Ujima now occupies. It is willing to take on debt to fix up the building, which is in poor condition, but only if it can get a long-term agreement….
Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, said the union is willing to negotiate with KIPP, as it does with several charter schools in Baltimore that want to implement individual models that may conflict with the union's contract.
"What we have is the most innovative contract in the country — and we're expecting student achievement to rise in all of our schools, and I would hope KIPP is going to be a part of that," English said. "But, at the same token — I think it's unfair to expect teachers to work a 91/2-hour day and not pay them for that time."
The school put the district on notice last winter that it would leave Baltimore if a long-term agreement could not be reached. KIPP had threatened to pull out of the district last year when the school and the union were at odds over the union's contract. The two parties then agreed that KIPP teachers would receive 20.5 percent more in pay — making them among the highest-paid teachers in the district. That agreement ends June 30…
One of the most sought-after public charter schools in Baltimore has stopped administering an entrance placement exam after city schools CEO Andrés Alonso expressed concern that the practice — the only one of its kind in the city — could discourage some applicants.
The test at Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Ujima Academy in Northwest Baltimore, Alonso said, could deter families of lower-performing students from seeking enrollment.
Since 2003, a year after opening in Baltimore, the school has used a diagnostic exam to determine whether students seeking to enter sixth grade were performing at comparable reading and math levels as KIPP Ujima's fifth-grade classes. If potential sixth-graders did not pass the test, they could enroll, but would have to repeat fifth grade.
Alonso said he became aware of the test last year and asked the school to stop administering it after reading a description of it. Until it agreed to stop the practice, KIPP Ujima's website said the test was a way to determine whether a "student has the skills necessary to succeed" at the school…
KIPP Ujima agreed to stop administering the placement test that would have been given early this year, realizing that it could be misinterpreted as a way of attracting only high-performing students, said Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore. The school primarily serves students who are below grade level and are from low-income neighborhoods…
The school used to advertise that sixth-grade students who passed the test would be accepted, while those who did not would be entered into a lottery to vie to repeat the fifth grade…
My name is Jasmine Crawford and I’m a parent at Achievement First in Crown Heights. On Monday night, after stories surfaced about dozens of children being mistreated, more than 70 parents came together and attended the Achievement First Crown Heights Board meeting to call for a change to the school’s discipline policies. This was the most parents they had ever seen at a board meeting.
As parents, we are outraged at the excessive disciplinary actions taken against our children in Achievement First schools, and, at the meeting, we let our feelings be known. Many of the scholars have had detention almost every day of the year! Trivial infractions such as dropping a pencil, not making eye contact and “slouching” have landed our children in after-school detention. Students have received demerits for having tissues in class if they were sick; one scholar stood up and told of how, after she’d used her asthma inhaler, she laid her head on the desk and received a demerit…
Even at the onset of our press conference, held before the board meeting, AF staff tried to silence parents and challenged students as liars.But we would not be silenced then, and we won’t be now…
Parents recanted stories of terror on the parts of their children in the school. With each story, a constant theme was being developed: a lack of respect from the school’s administration for parents and students, especially from Principal Blanchard and Dean Solomon.
More alarming and disturbing is that Chi Tschang, who has a history of emotionally and physically abusing children, was brought in as Superintendent of their schools. Mr. Tschang had been reported in California to have put his hands on students and using harsh punishments like sitting out in extreme cold/sun for hours. We are calling for the removal of Mr. Tschang immediately…
UPDATE: Retribution on our kids was seen the very next day at school. Scholars were forced to sign a statement in support of Mr. Solomon and praise the school and staff on videotape. More disgusting, a teacher denied a scholar a high school recommendation because of the board meeting. All was done without parent knowledge and the penalty for not following was an automatic detention…
A Brooklyn charter school administrator who gave up his old gig in California amid charges that he had been physically and emotionally abusive to students is at it again, fed-up parents told The Post.
Just over a year into Chi Tschang's role as assistant superintendent of middle schools for the Achievement First charter school network in Brooklyn, a student’s mother said he aggressively grabbed an 11-year-old boy he was kicking out of class last month.
READ THE CALIFORNIA REPORT
"[Tschang’s] not supposed to do that," said the AF Crown Heights mom, who asked to be identified only as Lorna. "He’s supposed to speak with his mouth, not grab him."
Several other parents at the Crown Heights school questioned Achievement First’s judgment in hiring an educator who resigned as head of KIPP Fresno, part of the Knowledge Is Power Program charter network, in February 2009 after an investigation into his disciplinary practices.
Achievement First officials, who have fielded complaints about their strict discipline in the past, stood by Tschang, despite the ruckus raised earlier this year when he took a misbehaving Crown Heights student home in his car.
That incident prompted the network’s co-CEO, Doug McCurry, to write parents a six-page letter in May that qualified Tschang’s move as a misunderstanding of school policy…
Tschang resigned following a report issued in December 2008 in which the school district of Fresno, Calif., found that he had pushed students against the wall, repeatedly yelled at them and instituted various forms of punishment that "exceeded the bounds of the law."…
In response to an allegation that he had picked a student up, held him against the wall by his neck and dropped him, Tschang told probers, "I don’t remember picking up and dropping a student, I do remember shaking a kid."
A message left at a number listed for Tschang Friday was not returned.
Fresno district officials dismissed the characterization of their probe as biased, noting it had been conducted by an independent investigator.
After wrestling down a unionization attempt and struggling with academic performance, a Brooklyn KIPP school is bringing in a new principal and letting go of teachers.
Concerns about high teacher turnover surfaced at the KIPP AMP (Knowledge is Power Program: Always Mentally Prepared) school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, two years. The concerns were the driving force behind teachers’ decision to join the teachers union against the will of the school’s board. A year later teachers opted out of union membership, kicking off a prolonged fight in which the United Federation of Teachers accused KIPP of intimidating teachers who wanted to unionize.
Now, the school could experience what teachers initially feared: turnover and instability. It’s unclear how many teachers will lose their jobs…
KIPP AMP has also been struggling academically. Of the four KIPP schools that have been open long enough to get progress reports, KIPP AMP’s C-grade put it at the bottom last year. Like most public schools, its test scores were hurt when the state made it more difficult to pass the annual math and English exams last year. The percentage of KIPP AMP students who tested proficient on the English exam fell from 78 to 34 percent and from 87 to 47 percent on the math exam…
The pervy pedagogue who allegedly bedded an underage student and seduced another teen into snapping X-rated pics has another classroom gig - teaching aspiring educators.
Twisted teacher Wayne Bartley is an adjunct professor at Touro College's New York School of Career and Applied Studies - despite getting canned by the city's Department of Education for an alleged sexual affair with a student.
Bartley, 46, has been teaching a course on Sundays called Foundations of Parenting, which focuses on the roles of family and teachers in a child's development.
After inquiries from the Daily News, school officials last night announced Bartley was suspended pending an investigation into "possible violations of Touro College's code of conduct."
Earlier in the day, Bartley's students said they were freaked out that he was still affiliated with the school.
"I'm like having a heart attack now going to this class," a student told The News. "There's no way that I'm going to be able to look at him."
Last week, Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon released a report on a probe into Bartley that began in April after a parent complained. Investigators discovered that he had a 14-month affair with a Bronx student at a hot-sheets motel starting when she was 13.
He also coaxed a 13-year-old Brooklyn student into sending him naked profile shots and photos of her feet. At another Brooklyn school, he showered a 15-year-old student with gifts, a trip to the nail salon and foot rubs.
The Bronx and Brooklyn district attorneys are now investigating, and Bartley has been banned from working for the Department of Education…
Bartley also worked at three city middle schools in the past five years. He was fired from his last school, KIPP AMP Academy Charter School in Brooklyn, in June.
An utterly depraved junior high school teacher carried on a yearlong affair with a 13-year-old student and attempted to seduce two other teens before he was finally fired, investigators said yesterday.
Wayne Bartley, 46, a former science teacher at KIPP AMP Academy Middle School, held his illicit trysts with the 13-year-old girl, at the Paradise Motor Inn, a hot sheet motel in the Bronx, from March 2008 to May 2009, according to the Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon…
He convinced another 13-year-old he met when he taught at IS 392 in Brooklyn to send nude photos of herself to his cell phone. He also gave cash to a third teen, one his KIPP AMP students in Brooklyn, and massaged her feet after paying for her pedicure…
Bartley, who earned $60,000 a year, worked at IS 229 from 2005 to 2008 then transferred IS 392 in Brooklyn. He was "discontinued" in July 2009, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.
But, he landed a science teacher position at KIPP during the 2009 to 2010 school year and was fired in June after administrators learned of the investigation.
…By the numbers, KIPP Tech Valley Charter School is Albany's best public school. Virtually every eighth-grader passed the 2009 English and math exams. The fifth-through-eighth-grade school sends graduates on full scholarships to some of the nation's top boarding schools, as well as to the advanced classes at Albany High School. The minimum passing grade on an assignment is 70 percent…
Despite solid test results, critics point to a different number -- an attrition rate of more than 50 percent -- that they say is evidence the school hasn't changed public education but is instead cherry-picking the best students and sending the rest back to the Albany district. Eleven KIPP students have returned to Albany schools since the end of the last school year, and the school does not enroll new seventh and eighth graders.
"The point is to educate every kid," Albany school board President Dan Egan said. "When you set up a different funding system and different rules, it's a diversion from what ought to be our main effort."…
…As many have undoubtedly already heard, 10 KIPP football players have been suspended for Friday’s game for their role in a fight last week on the campus of Northwest Halifax High School.
Northwest Halifax staff, the school resource officer and deputies from the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office were called to the scene last week to break up the fight. Once it subsided — authorities say with little in the way of actual injury — the fallout was significant.
Seven students (one from Northwest Halifax, six from KIPP were arrested), last week’s KIPP football game against the Central Virginia Disciples was canceled and the Roanoke Valley was left buzzing with questions of how students from the area’s highly-regarded charter school could be part of such an ambush-style attack.
On the surface this appears not to be a one-on-one fight but a coordinated effort by nearly a dozen students to leave one school’s campus and drive to another for the purpose of singling out a student for a brawl.
Without comment or explanation from KIPP staff, the community was left with rumor and innuendo.
In the days since the fight took place, The Daily Herald made numerous phone calls to KIPP’s main office, principal Tammi Sutton’s cell phone and the school’s board of directors chairman Ron Smith. No one has answered. No one has spoken up…
It is in times like these when we all need school leaders to stand up and be accountable.
KIPP leaders, where are you?
AURELIAN SPRINGS — Students fighting in a high school parking lot led authorities from the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office to take five youths into custody and charge one with assault, and led to the forfeit of a football game at KIPP Gaston College Prep. Friday afternoon, according to Halifax County Schools Public Relations Coordinator Keith Hoggard, two cars rolled up to Northwest Halifax High School, the sheriff’s office said one was a Crown Victoria, and parked behind the school’s 1000 building. Hoggard said school assistant principal Dennis Taylor and school resource officer Daniel Jones went out to investigate the cars, which Hoggard said were filled with young men.
Those in the cars told Taylor and Jones they were there to pick up a cousin, and the school officials told them they had to check in at the office to pick up any students. One of the cars, Hoggard said, left the school, but the other circled to the teacher’s parking lot and attempted to conceal itself behind a larger car.
“The young men got out and got on campus,” Hoggard said.
“And they did assault one other student. It does appear that student was singled out.”…
Evans arrested Cooper, 17, and Jones arrested four others, according to Evans. Cooper, a player on the KIPP Gaston College Prep football team, was charged with assault and trespassing…
Ricky Riddick, head coach of the KIPP football team, confirmed he had 10 of his players involved in the altercation, but he does not know the motivation behind it.
“All I know is the kids left school and went over to Northwest Halifax. The Northwest Halifax coach called me and told me there was a fight. The administration is dealing with the kids.”
Riddick was forced to forfeit Friday’s football game against Central Virginia Disciples out of Richmond, Va. Riddick said the season may have to be re-evaluated, depending on what happens to the students involved…
…Before the Charter School Association went to court to block the State Comptroller from conducting audits and from having oversight authority for how charters spent public funds, the Office of the State Comptroller did complete a handful of charter audits that found:
The KIPP Academy Charter School’s director took the entire teaching staff on a five-day Caribbean retreat at the end of the school year for two years in a row. School personnel lodged at an all-inclusive resort that provided meals, alcoholic beverages, and overnight lodging, and the school paid for the airfare for the staff. The Comptroller’s audit said, “There was scant evidence that any educational type of program was provided during the trip, or that any learning activities were involved.” School officials contended that these trips were an appropriate use of donated funds, although they could not document that the trips were paid for by using donated funds. The audit also found the school director granted a 19 percent pay raise to the school’s chief financial officer without board approval…
…Management at the KIPP Academy Charter School-Bronx used $68,000 of taxpayers’ money to fund five-day staff retreats to resorts in the Bahamas and Dominican Republic, as well as on alcohol and parties. The school sent 21 staffers to the town of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic at a cost of $1,119 per person and 49 employees to the Radisson Cable Beach in Nassau, the Bahamas, for $907 per person. KIPP officials told auditors the retreats were educational and the agenda included “reflection sessions” and “solutions conversations.” In response to claims by KIPP the money came from private donations, the auditors said it was impossible to verify where the money came from because of sloppy bookkeeping…
A new study of the five Bay Area KIPP schools by the respected research firm SRI International confirms what we already knew: KIPP students overall perform well academically, usually outperforming their peers in other schools.
But it also confirms what those who look beyond the test scores have found: Those KIPP (two in San Francisco, one in Oakland, one in San Jose, one in San Leandro) schools suffer from very high student attrition. .
Sixty percent of the students who enter the Bay Area KIPP schools in fifth grade leave before the end of eighth grade (page ix of the study, repeated in several places throughout). And the study also confirms what some might suspect -- it's consistently the lower performers who leave:
"On average, those who leave KIPP before completing eighth grade have lower test scores on entering KIPP and demonstrate smaller fifth-grade effects than those who stay," the study reports on Page ix…
It’s crunch time for an embattled Indianapolis charter school.Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) College Preparatory School faces its seventh—and final—review this year, a review that could determine its survival.KIPP officials insist they’ve solved the management issues that led to financial problems and a revolving door of staff and leadership. Not only is the board bulked up with more expertise, they say, but test scores are rising, leading to hope the San Francisco-based organization will be reauthorized by the mayor’s office…Through its first six years, KIPP Indianapolis dealt with considerable staff turnover—last year the rate was 55 percent—and episodes of questionable financials…In two on-site monitoring reviews by the state Department of Education, the school was found to have maintained an imbalanced budget and made undocumented transactions, among other problems.In 2008, KIPP Indianapolis returned more than $8,000 in Title I funding that had been improperly used on items ranging from teacher salaries to spa services at a professional development retreat.“There was a lack of oversight,” said Pelino, who didn’t join KIPP until the following year. “The school simply did not have the operational expertise that was needed.”…
The mother of a 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by four male students during an out-of-state trip has sued an Indianapolis charter school, claiming negligent supervision.The incident occurred three years ago in a Boston hotel room, according to the lawsuit, which names KIPP Indianapolis College Preparatory.The suit alleges that the girl -- who is mildly mentally retarded, her attorney says -- was made to perform sex acts on the boys.Such an allegation illustrates the increased risk of liability schools assume when they take students off school grounds, legal and education experts say. School officials could be at fault for any harm if they fail to provide a reasonable level of supervision.Whether KIPP staff did so is likely to be a central issue.Indianapolis attorney Robert D. King Jr. said the girl had finished the seventh grade and was among students who qualified for the five- or six-day reward trip to Boston and New York.The lawsuit, filed July 14 in Marion Superior Court, provides few details about the incident. King said the boys, who were visiting the hotel room the girl shared with three other girls, exploited her disability and coerced her into performing sex acts…Many of the school's staff and administrative positions have turned over since the June 2007 incident…
Leaders of KIPP San Antonio, a branch of one of the most successful charter school programs in the country, are reeling after learning a former employee may have embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the school district's accounts.
According to KIPP board member Michele Brown, a member of the district's financial operation's team who was working from home last Thursday stopped returning phone calls and e-mail after 12 p.m.
The next morning, one of KIPP's financial institutions contacted officials to alert them to suspicious activity on an account. The employee didn't show up to work Friday and has not been located since.
So far, officials have determined that a sum “in the low six figures” was missing. Brown declined to reveal the total amount because officials still are going through all their accounts. The employee was fired for not showing up to work.
The Police Department's white-collar crimes division is investigating, and police say the former employee, whom KIPP and SAPD declined to name, is a suspect...
Students and parents lined the streets outside the KIPP Academy in Fresno, outraged over the recent and sudden resignation of their principal Mr. Chi Tsichang…
But at a news conference Friday, the Fresno Unified School District offered a little more insight.
Coordinator of Charter Schools, Debra Odom said a lengthy report prepared by the district alleges Tschang was using inappropriate forms of discipline including: slamming students against the wall, placing trash cans over their heads, forcing kids to crawl on their hands and knees while barking, and enforcing unreasonably strict bathroom rules, resulting in students having accidents and vomiting on themselves inside the classroom.
"The information that is received in the report was all brought to our office by parents and by students," said Odom…
* * * * * *
Backers of KIPP Academy press case: Fresno Unified refuses endorsement for charter school. (The Fresno Bee, March 2, 2009)
KIPP Academy, housed in a recycled building in a shabby neighborhood of central-west Fresno, has attracted intensely loyal students, parents and staff -- who are now mounting a fight to keep the school open…
The school has 288 students in grades 5 through 8. The nonprofit KIPP Foundation, founded in 2000, trains principals and has helped launch 66 college-preparatory charter schools in 19 states. KIPP schools, which date to 1994, are known for strict discipline.
KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program, and the school's motto is "Be Nice. Work Hard."
Most students left regular public schools in Fresno for KIPP, which opened in 2004. The school is highly diverse and largely low-income, with 80% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, said Principal William Lin.
Bren Flowers, whose fifth-grader attends KIPP, said her daughter was lazy when she attended Fresno Unified's Powers-Ginsburg Elementary School but still got A's…
Flowers said she and most parents had no idea the school was in trouble until two weeks ago, when they were told Principal Chi Tschang had resigned. They also learned the school had defaulted on a $2.3 million loan that was obtained in 2006 to buy KIPP's building on Dakota Avenue near Marks Avenue.
The school had counted on a $5 million grant from the state for charter schools to repay the loan and continue financing payments on the building.
But Fresno Unified has refused to submit a key letter of endorsement for the school, which KIPP needs to obtain the state grant.
It's unclear -- given California's dire budget crisis -- whether the state will distribute any of the grant money.
Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson said the district won't send the letter until many problems at the school are fixed. In a 63-page report recently made public, the district dinged the school for a variety of missteps, including hiring uncredentialed teachers, failing to secure state testing materials and not fingerprinting staff.
The report also said students were disciplined with "unwarranted physical force and willful infliction of physical pain." Most of the criticism targeted Tschang, a graduate of Clovis West High School and Yale University.
The inquiry was conducted by a private investigator hired by the district. Debra Odom, Fresno Unified coordinator of charter schools, said the report reflects accounts from more than 50 individuals -- students and parents.
But KIPP officials counter that the school's money problems stem from the district's refusal to help them get the state grant.
While KIPP runs independently of Fresno Unified, the district grants its operating charter. The district said it launched an investigation of the school last summer after receiving complaints from parents, and most members of the KIPP board resigned.
Former KIPP Fresno board member Annette LaRue said Tschang "worked his heart out," but that when the board made suggestions, "There was some difficulty getting things carried out…"
As a charter school, KIPP is funded by the state but allowed greater leeway in how it runs -- without some constraints of the education code -- as a way to encourage innovation. KIPP students attend school longer each day, starting at 7:25 a.m. and leaving at 4 p.m. They go to school about three more weeks in the summer than students at traditional schools.
Students who miss class must attend Saturday school. Teachers hand out their phone numbers and take calls after hours. Students read books as they stand in line to use the bathroom.
Students and their parents must abide by a strict discipline policy. Flowers said when her daughter, Milan, applied to the school, they both had to attend meetings -- totaling about three hours -- about the rules and sign a contract.
"It was pretty intense," Flowers said. "It was clear, 'If you don't play by the rules, we don't have to keep you here.' "
She said parents must every day sign off that their child's homework was completed neatly…
…Flowers said she's not surprised at the outpouring of support for the school, because most parents who send their children to KIPP are dedicated.
"These parents get up at the crack of dawn to drive them. These are parents willing to give their kids the best opportunity," Flowers said.
Monika Chancey, parent of a former student, said she once filed a complaint with Fresno Unified against the school. She felt school officials were excessive in the privileges they had taken away from a group of students who had broken rules. Even so, she does not want the school shut down.
"Did I have concerns about Mr. Tschang's actions? Yes. But they were always addressed," said Chancey, whose ninth-grade daughter now attends boarding school in Claremont…
Her daughter, Sarah, said she got into her private high school because KIPP tailored curriculum for her: geometry in eighth grade and other high-level classes.
"I won't lie. Mr. Tschang has some anger in him," Sarah said. "I did see that sometimes he let the anger get the best of him…"
Larry Powell, superintendent of Fresno County schools, said that even if just one or two of the pages of allegations in Fresno Unified's report were accurate, they "carried dire consequences for the school."
He said in a letter to Tschang that after reading the district's report, he found that Tschang's discipline methods "border on abuse…"
Hanson, Fresno Unified's superintendent, said the district supports well-run charter schools, and he was "deeply disappointed" when it had to issue a negative report on the school.
Said Hanson: "This isn't about Fresno Unified vs. anyone."
* * * * * *
Additional details from Mark Garrison who provides excerpts from the report which can be found here.
Discipline practices
Witnesses saw Mr. Tschang (the school’s principal) “pick up a student off the ground, hold the student by the neck against a wall, and then drop the student.” When asked about this incident Mr Tschang stated, “I don’t remember picking up and dropping a student, I do remember shaking a kid.”
Witnesses report Tschang push another student’s face against the wall and saying, “Put your ugly face against the wall, I don’t want to see your face.”
Another student reported witnessing Mr. Tschang “draw a circle on the ground and force a student to stand in the circle for two hours in the sun during the summertime.”
A student at KIPP from 2004 to 2007, stated that in the 04-05 term he saw “Mr. Tchang pick students up and drop them. If a student wasn’t sitting correctly he would pick them up by their shirt, move the chair, and drop them on the floor.”
A student said that in December of 2007, Mr. Tschang told him to get on his hands and knees and bark like a dog.
Students who were late to school “would not be allowed to eat their meals provided by the state.” Student (name deleted) stated that Mr. Tschang told her, “People who are late don’t get to eat.”
A parent reported that Mr. Tschang took a student’s “glasses away from him because” he “was constantly adjusting his glasses.” The student is totally dependent on his glasses and cannot see without them. “Mr. Tschang admitted to taking (name deleted) glasses away.”
“Several students stated that students are not allowed to talk or socialize at all during school hours.” When asked about this policy, Mr. Tschang stated, “If parents are not happy with the school program, it is a school of choice. They are free (and indeed encouraged) to remove their kids from the school. There are plenty of other public school options for their children.”
A parent “confronted Mr. Tschang about yelling at her daughter who was a student at the school.” She reported that she told Mr. Tschang she did not appreciate Mr. Tschang yelling at her daughter. Mr. Tschang responded, “well next time I won’t yell, I will ask you to leave the school.” Mr. Tschang told the investigator, “my thought on this is if a parent or child is not happy with our disciplinary methods; to get the results we do, discipline and structure is a part of the way we instruct; you can’t have it both ways. This is a school of choice.”
It was reported that Mr. Tschang put “the entire 5th grade class into a two stall bathroom and kept them there for 20 minutes. …
Mr. Tschang admitted that he did ask students to go into the bathroom and figure out a way to solve the bathroom vandalism issue.”
“Mr. Tschang put a garbage can on a student’s head. Mr. Tschang admitted to putting the garbage can over the student’s head because the student, (name deleted), had been clowning around.”
“A 5th grade class had their behavior tested by being left unattended in the cafeteria where a video camera recorded their actions. Mr. Tschang told the investigator that this was an exercise to ask the students the question, “What are you doing when no one is watching?”
“A common complaint from students was that teachers were not letting student go the bathroom.” One student reported that “there was a student in Ms. Sosa’s class who urinated in his pants because he was not allowed to use the restroom.” Student who started with the Charter School in 2004 and just graduated in 2008, stated, “They would not let us use the bathroom during classes. Parents heard about this and they had to have a meeting to get hem to alow us this, to allow us to go to the bathrooms.”
Testing Irregularities
The report indicated that “tests were stored in a location where students and parents had access to the tests;” two years in a row, the Charter School failed to abide by mandated testing procedures, and the testing coordinator failed to report testing irregularities for the 2005-2006 STAR testing session; “the school adopted a policy that students were required to check their answers again and again after they had finished their tests and were not allowed to do other activities”; “teachers recorded students’ answers during testing, reviewed students’ tests, and told students which page to correct”.
In a staff meeting in May of 2006, staff were told by the principal that the legal and ethical guidelines for testing were, in fact, only guidelines that could be ignored.
Alleged Efforts to Cheat the National School Lunch Program
“Vincent Montgomery was the Charter School’s Chief Operating Officer from February 2005 to April of 2006. He told investigators that Mr. Tschang would ask him why the school was losing so much money on the school lunch program and instructed Mr. Montgomery to count students as present whether they were there or not. Mr. Montgomery disagreed because he thought that this practice was illegal.”
Suspension and Suspension Procedures
Throughout the school years from 2004 to 2008, the Charter School failed to abide by the California Education Code grounds and procedures for suspension of students.
The report found that a student was “left outside without supervision for three hours for a minor infraction that occurred during breakfast.”
Witnesses report “students being forced to stay in small rooms near the school’s office for hours or even entire days without supervision”. Parents “of suspended students were frequently not notified of the suspensions.”
Students were routinely sent home for non-serious offenses like talking in class, chewing gum, and bringing a mechanical pencil to school.
The report also found that “students were routinely transported from school without their parents being notified.”
A south Fulton County charter school following one of the most lauded education programs nationwide is embroiled in a dispute over discipline that has led at least seven parents to yank their children out midyear.
The parents were so angry at what they saw as excessive punishment at KIPP South Fulton Academy that they complained to several agencies, including the Fulton school board and state Department of Education.
The parents said a group of children were mistreated by teachers who separated them from their peers in class and at lunch. The students, parents said, reported sitting on the floor and said one girl urinated on herself after not being allowed to use the restroom immediately.
School administrators said they erred in not calling parents as soon as their children got in trouble. First-year principal Jondré Pryor said he also should have done more to warn parents about the high expectations for conduct, as well as academics.
“I’m really saddened that the kids are gone,” Pryor said.
David Jernigan, executive director of KIPP Metro Atlanta, said the group has no plans to remove the administrators or teachers involved, adding, “We sincerely have learned from this mistake.”
Parents file complaints about Georgia’s 113 publicly funded charters infrequently, state Associate Superintendent Andrew Broy said. The schools, approved by local district boards or the state, are excused from some state mandates so they can try innovative approaches.
This is the first parent complaint the state has received about KIPP South Fulton, which opened in 2003 and teaches about 300 students in grades five through eight in an old public school building in East Point.
Discipline is a hallmark of the Knowledge Is Power Program, which operates 66 schools nationwide. KIPP is known for bringing high test scores and college-prep skills to children at higher risk of academic failure. The school is a big commitment, with long weekdays and Saturday and summer sessions.
The dispute erupted in December, after a teacher made a group of fifth-graders she said had been disrupting class sit in the back of the room. Kofi Kinney, who is also dean of operations, dubbed the group “The Little Rock Nine,” a reference to the African-American children who were blocked from, then allowed into, high school in Arkansas in 1957. The KIPP students, who are African-American like most of their classmates, later became the “KIPP Nine.”
The punishment continued in several other teachers’ classes. Kinney and the parents disagree on how long it lasted, but they say it was at least seven school days. The students — 17, eventually — ate lunch in silence and missed some school activities.
Parents said when they found out about the punishment, they demanded it end and asked for an apology.
Parent India Wood withdrew her son in February after he told her, ” ‘I can’t take them yelling at me 10 hours today.’ “
“They cannot be emotionally abused,” she said.
Some parents said their children needed counseling afterward.
“I just feel like these kids have been mistreated,” said Cordelia Johnson, who withdrew her son in January. “They shouldn’t have to sacrifice the emotional for the academic.”
KIPP leaders said no child was maltreated. Pryor and Kinney said they ended the punishment and apologized to parents and students. She said she had hoped separating the group, a common KIPP strategy, would motivate them to behave and return quickly to the class.
Kinney said she regretted the “Little Rock” reference, which she chose because she felt the students had encountered a barrier to their education. “I do feel the parents could have misunderstood or felt hurt by that,” she said. “That was not my intention.”
She and Pryor said the children’s learning was never disrupted and they were not forced to sit on the floor. Furthermore, Pryor said teachers told him they didn’t see the girl raise her hand asking to go to the bathroom during a gradewide session. She is still enrolled at the school.
Former KIPP teacher Reginald Christian, however, said the girl told him afterward that she had asked a teacher and was told she could not use the restroom.
Kinney said some punished students stayed and are doing better than before.
Parents have also complained to the KIPP board and the state Division of Family and Children Services, which said no child neglect had occurred.
The Fulton district found the school did not appear to have broken its charter agreement, spokeswoman Susan Hale said. Broy said it’s the district’s job, not the state’s, to make sure KIPP follows its charter.
Wood, who filed the state and Fulton complaints, said she wants Kinney fired.
Pryor said he won’t do that. He declined to discuss personnel matters but added, “I held my staff member accountable.” He and Kinney said they attempted to repair the rift with parents. “We tried, and we tried and we tried,” Kinney said.
Enrollment has dropped to 287 from 320 at the school’s start, but leaders said such attrition is not unusual. Pryor said he would welcome back the withdrawn students: “I feel like this is the ideal environment for them.”
