The State Of California Schools' Report Illustrates Extreme Expenditure And Overpayments To String Of Charter Schoo

1. Superintendent of Guideline for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, started an audit more than a year back into the fiscal concerns of the Choices for Youth and Opportunities for Knowing (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent study charter schools within the California schools system, which are privately run but funded by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually dropped out of the traditional high car donation without pink slip schools. They presently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 store areas throughout the state. These California schools students do the majority of their work at home, meeting with instructors two times a week. According to state records, trainee achievement test and high school exit test scores 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 trainees graduated during the 2003-2004 academic year. The rest of students that left school that year either left, were expelled, or moved to other schools. The California schools' audit was conducted by the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team, who concluded their analysis and provided their findings in a report that was released in August 2006. The audit cites accounting problems, overpayments by the state, disputes of interest, nepotism, excessive payment, and blending personal company 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 totally complied with the California schools' audit, but dispute the majority of the findings. Some examples from the audit report are: • Accounting Flaws and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their instructors as 1.92 full-time positions. Their representative, Stevan Allen, stated that this is a common practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a legitimate method for compensating school personnel for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell believes teachers must be counted just as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, mentioning that traditional California schools instructors spend much less time working each year than those at OYO. Nevertheless, the auditors thought the 1.92 amount is inflated. This example, alone, represent over half of the $57 million overpayment. Additionally, the report kept in mind numerous doubtful expenditures. One example of unrestrained spending, offered by the Times was an $18,000 staff party held at Disneyland. Allen defended that occasion as an effort at relationship structure between employee, who are scattered across the state. He kept in mind that the expenses was less than $50 per team member. • Disputes of Interest and Mixing Private Service with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and run several private organisations that sell products and services to schools. The Times kept in mind that the Options in OYO was the nonprofit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question. • Extreme Compensation. The audit also questions the combined incomes for the Halls, which is $600,000 yearly. The report states that it might be extreme for the quantity of time the couple really works. • Nepotism. The Halls created a different charity with $10.8 countless the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their daughter, Jamie Hall. Little money has actually been spent toward education thus far. The Halls contend that they formerly had requested assistance on their operation from the California schools many times, but never ever received any reaction. Hence, 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

2. 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 sent out the report to the state's attorney general of the United States's workplace for evaluation and any necessary action.