A damning report released by the school district revealed that
Gilroy’s only charter school isn’t living up to expectations,
academically or financially.
A damning report released by the school district revealed that Gilroy’s only charter school isn’t living up to expectations, academically or financially.
District officials commissioned the report at a cost of $10,000 in response to the discovery that the parent organization of El Portal Leadership Academy had skimmed about $400,000 from teacher retirement funds to pay for salaries and programs. Officials will use the report to plot a course of action for the school and the Santa Clara County District Attorney could use it as a base for its investigation into whether to bring criminal charges against the school’s administrators. Despite the report’s harsh conclusions, school district officials would not say whether the report was enough to warrant pulling the school’s charter and the Office of the District Attorney will wait for the county Office of Education to finish a larger investigation – which will incorporate the report’s findings – before making a decision.
The report revealed that the independent consulting company that the district contracted to do the audit, Total School Solutions, found major fault with the Mexican American Community Service Agency’s School.
“Although a total liability amount of $144,165 may not be generally considered excessive and alarming for a normal operation of this size, the fact that the Charter School has not been able to make its statutorily required retirement contributions, continues to show operating losses, has smaller amount of assets (receivables), and maintains a negative cash balance, makes ongoing operations of the Charter School risky and uncertain,” the report read.
The audit confirmed that MACSA owes its El Portal employees $140,139.93 in late retirement payments. MACSA already made a $66,000 payment on Feb. 25, according to MACSA staff, and MACSA Chief Executive Officer Olivia Soza-Mendiola attached a repayment plan in a Feb. 19 e-mail to district Superintendent Deborah Flores promising to pay the outstanding balance in arrears by June 26.
“It is my hope that the partnership between MACSA and GUSD continues to be one of trust and support,” Soza-Mendiola wrote. Soza-Mendiola refused to answer questions Friday.
The report, however, does not address the $250,000 that the agency owes to teachers at Academia Calmecac, another agency-run charter school in San Jose.
Compiling this information will fall to the county Office of Education, which was requested by District Attorney Dolores Carr to audit the agency and create a report that will help decide whether the agency’s administrators will face criminal charges. Larry Slonaker, public information officer for the county Office of Education, said they were waiting for the report before consulting with the Gilroy Unified School District on next steps.
“It’s impossible to speak to the urgency until we see the initial review,” Slonaker said, adding that the county had not yet established a specific timeline.
According to Gilroy audit, MACSA was more than 18 months delinquent in making contributions to the employees’ retirement account. Yet, Lucy Patereau, a former office coordinator at El Portal, said the nonprofit’s misuse of retirement funds goes back to her tenure when the school first opened in 2001. When she received a letter from CalPERS, a state public employees retirement system, asking her if she wanted to cash out her fund since she was no longer working for a participating organization – even though she was still employed by MACSA – she learned that her contributions weren’t being correctly deposited. Though she was told the problem was rectified, she’s still doesn’t trust that she was reimbursed her fair share, she said.
“This has been going on for a long time,” she said. “This didn’t just start happening yesterday. I just assumed that they paid it. Now, I don’t know how much money I do or don’t have.”
Patereau said she took another job because she couldn’t trust that her employer was looking out for her best interests.
“I loved the school, the kids,” she said. “The fact of the matter is that lots of kids benefit from that school. But that has nothing to do with the way they use their funds. I left because of this very thing. I started distrusting how MACSA was administering its teachers.”
Though teachers and administrators argue the school helps students, the GUSD report shows dismal academic progress and many areas in need of improvement.
“The analysis of available student achievement data presented in this report indicate that … El Portal students perform significantly below district and county averages, and generally are not meeting state and federal accountability requirements,” according to the report.
Analysis of the school’s instructional program, courses, professional development, student achievement monitoring system, teacher collaboration and support, intervention programs, and fiscal support showed many deficiencies. Only 11 percent of El Portal students scored proficient and above on state language arts tests in 2008 compared to 42 percent of high school students in the district, according to report data. Less than one percent of El Portal students performed at the proficient or above level in Algebra I.
Only 34 percent of El Portal sophomores passed the California High School Exit Exam in 2008, compared to a 78 percent district pass rate and an 84 percent county pass rate.
On the bright side, 53 percent of El Portal students taking a standardized English language development test scored at the early advanced or higher level, far surpassing the district average of 25 percent. Though the school’s mission states that the school will serve students who are ethnically, economically and geographically representative of the greater Gilroy school community, 94.5 percent of El Portal students are Hispanic or Latino compared to the district average of 67.8 percent, according to the report.
But on the state’s Academic Performance Index, which measures performance on standardized tests, El Portal has “consistently underperformed, falling below the minimum API target every year from 2002 through 2008,” according to the report. The school had an overall score of 457 in 2008, its lowest since 2002 and significantly below the district’s score of 751.
“Obviously something needs to be done,” said trustee Denise Apuzzo. “That school really needs a major overhaul. It’s not doing a service to kids.”
The school board plans to discuss the district’s findings at Thursday evening’s board meeting. Flores said the board has several options before them that can range from continuing the school with much more academic and fiscal oversight to revoking the charter entirely.
“I fully expect the board to, at a minimum, ask for much greater involvement on our part,” Flores said. “And we’ve already stepped up our role.”
Like Apuzzo, other board members were not ready to talk about anything as drastic as pulling the school’s charter until they had more information.
“I’m very concerned about their academic performance,” trustee Rhoda Bress said. “We were anticipating better results and they haven’t measured up. There are some serious matters here from financial to academic. And there’s a wide range of options, from putting together an improvement plan to discontinuing the program. I’d like to start with ways to improve.”
Though trustee Mark Good said he needed more information about the school’s academics and finances – “a boondoggle all its own” – he said the situation has to be addressed thoroughly and quickly.
“We can’t allow them to continue to fail students,” he said. “While (the school district is) improving, El Portal is going in the opposite direction.”
You can also read the report online. Go to item 7c, labeled “MACSA El Portal Leadership Academy Report regarding Fiscal/Academic Performance”.
