The Golden State Schools' Report Suggests Exorbitant Expenses And Overpayments To Chain Of Charter Schools

1. Superintendent of Instruction for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, initiated an audit more than a year earlier into the fiscal issues of the Alternatives for Youth and Opportunities for Learning (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent research study charter schools within the California schools system, which are privately run however funded by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually dropped out of the traditional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 store places throughout the state. These California schools trainees do many of their work at house, conference with instructors twice a week. According to state records, trainee achievement test and high school exit test ratings are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times article of August 10th, just 11 percent of OYO students finished during the 2003-2004 school year. The rest of trainees that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or transferred to other schools. The California schools' audit was conducted by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Help Group, who concluded their analysis and provided their findings in a report that was launched in August 2006. The audit mentions accounting defects, overpayments by the state, disputes of interest, nepotism, extreme compensation, and mixing personal organisation issues with public schools. The OYO was founded and still operated by John and Joan Hall, previous instructors from Hollywood High School. They have actually totally worked together with the California schools' audit, however disagreement many of the findings. Some examples from the audit report are: • Accounting Flaws and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their teachers as 1.92 full-time positions. Their representative, Stevan Allen, mentioned that this is a typical practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a legitimate technique for compensating school staff for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell thinks teachers ought to be counted just as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, citing that traditional California schools instructors spend much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors believed the 1.92 quantity is inflated. This example, alone, accounts for more than half of the $57 million overpayment. Additionally, the report noted numerous questionable expenditures. One example of unrestrained spending, given by the Times was an $18,000 personnel celebration held at Disneyland. Allen defended that event as an effort at relationship structure between personnel members, who are spread across the state. He kept in mind that the costs was less than $50 per employee. • Conflicts of Interest and Mixing Private Service with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and operate a number of private services that sell products and services to schools. The Times noted that the Alternatives in OYO was the not-for-profit car donation san fernando valley part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question. • Extreme Payment. The audit likewise questions the combined wages for the Halls, which is $600,000 annually. The report states that it may be excessive for the quantity of time the couple really works. • Nepotism. The Halls produced a different charity with $10.8 million of the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their child, Jamie Hall. Little money has been spent toward education thus far. The Halls compete that they previously had asked for guidance on their operation from the California schools

2. sometimes, but never ever got any reaction. Therefore, they tried to follow California schools requirements as finest they might with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell conceded that none of the pointed out practices are prohibited. The audit suggests the California schools need to attempt to recuperate the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has actually sent the report to the state's lawyer general's workplace for evaluation and any required action.