The State Of California Schools' Analysis Lays Out Exorbitant Spending And Overpayments To Chain Of Charter Schools

1. Superintendent of Instruction for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, started an audit more than a year back into the financial 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 moneyed by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have dropped out of the conventional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 shop places throughout the state. These California schools trainees do many of their work at house, meeting with teachers two times a week. According to state records, trainee achievement test and high school exit examination 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 students graduated throughout the 2003-2004 school year. The remainder of trainees that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or moved to other schools. The car donation to veterans California schools' audit was conducted by the Financial Crisis and Management Support Team, who concluded their analysis and presented their findings in a report that was launched in August 2006. The audit cites accounting problems, overpayments by the state, disputes of interest, nepotism, excessive settlement, and mixing personal business concerns with public schools. The OYO was established and still run by John and Joan Hall, former instructors from Hollywood High School. They have actually fully complied with the California schools' audit, but conflict 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, mentioned that this is a typical practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a genuine 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 conventional California schools instructors spend much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors believed the 1.92 amount is inflated. This example, alone, represent more than half of the $57 million overpayment. Additionally, the report noted numerous doubtful expenditures. One example of unrestrained spending, provided by the Times was an $18,000 staff celebration held at Disneyland. Allen safeguarded that event as an attempt at relationship structure between team member, who are spread across the state. He noted that the expenses was less than $50 per personnel member. • Disputes of Interest and Mixing Private Business with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and run several private businesses that sell products and services to schools. The Times noted that the Choices 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 every year. The report specifies that it may be excessive for the amount of time the couple in fact works. • Nepotism. The Halls produced a different charity with $10.8 countless the California schools' financing, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their daughter, Jamie Hall. Little cash has actually been spent toward education so far. The Halls compete that they previously had actually asked for assistance on their operation from the California schools often times, however never ever got 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

2. mentioned practices are unlawful. 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 evaluation and any needed action.