California Schools' Review Suggests Excess 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 Options for Youth and Opportunities for Knowing (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent research study charter schools within the California schools system, which are privately run but moneyed by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually left of the standard high schools. They presently have about 15,000 students in 40 storefront places across the state. These California schools students do the majority of their work at home, conference with teachers twice a week. According to state records, trainee achievement test and high school exit exam scores are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times post of August 10th, only 11 percent of OYO trainees finished during the 2003-2004 academic year. The rest of students that left school that year either left, were expelled, or transferred to other schools. The California schools' audit was conducted by the Financial Crisis and Management Help Team, who concluded their analysis and provided their findings in a report that was launched in August 2006. The audit mentions accounting flaws, overpayments by the state, conflicts of interest, nepotism, excessive payment, and mixing private service concerns with public schools. The OYO was established and still run by John and Joan Hall, former teachers from Hollywood High School. They have actually fully cooperated with the California schools' audit, but conflict most 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, stated that this is a typical practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a genuine technique for compensating school staff for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell thinks teachers should be counted just as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, citing that standard California schools instructors invest much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors thought the 1.92 quantity is inflated. This example, alone, represent more than half of the $57 million overpayment. Additionally, the report kept in mind several doubtful expenditures. One example of unrestrained spending, given by the Times was an $18,000 staff celebration held at Disneyland. Allen defended that event as an attempt at relationship structure between team member, who are spread throughout the state. He kept in mind that the costs was less than $50 per staff member. • Conflicts of Interest and Mixing Private Organisation with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and run a number of personal companies that offer materials and services to schools. The Times kept in mind that the Alternatives in OYO was the not-for-profit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into concern. • Extreme Compensation. The audit also questions the combined wages for the Halls, which is $600,000 each year. The report specifies that it might jpr car donation be extreme for the amount of time the couple in fact works. • Nepotism. The Halls produced a different charity with $10.8 million of the California schools' financing, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their child, Jamie Hall. Little cash has been invested towards education therefore far. The Halls contend that they previously had asked for guidance on their operation from the California schools sometimes, but never ever received any reaction. Therefore, they tried to follow California schools requirements as best they might with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell yielded that none of the cited practices

2. are prohibited. The audit suggests the California schools ought to attempt to recuperate the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has sent out the report to the state's attorney general of the United States's office for review and any required action.