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I occasionally hear people say North Carolina’s charter schools get little or no oversight. They may be confusing charter schools with voucher schools, which are private schools that get public Opportunity Scholarship money with very few strings attached.
Charter schools are public schools run by private boards, subject to the same testing and accountability system as school districts. They go through a rigorous application process to win state approval before they can start getting public money.
There’s room for debate about having the applications approved by the fellow charter-school operators who make up the Charter Schools Review Board. But the board doesn’t rubber-stamp applications. Chair Bruce Friend, who’s head of school at Pine Springs Prep in Holly Springs, told the state Board of Education recently that the review board has so far ruled on 10 applications to open charter schools in 2025 and rejected four of them.
The review board is also scrutinizing academic data, financial reports and compliance information for 17 existing schools that are up for charter renewal. Those with the best records will get a new 10-year charter. Schools with shortcomings will have to demonstrate progress and come back sooner, in three, five or seven years. If problems are severe and persistent enough they can lose their charter, as two Charlotte schools did last year.
As I reported last week, the state’s Office of Charter Schools has recommended cutting off Gastonia’s Ridgeview Charter School, which is up for renewal five years after it opened. Two of those years were disrupted by the pandemic, and the two years of academic data on file are grim, with overall proficiency rates below 25%. That’s well below performance for comparable students in Gaston County Schools. But Ridgeview caters to some of Gastonia’s most disadvantaged kids and is still trying to find its footing after pandemic disruptions. The review board will decide next month whether to follow the staff recommendation or grant another five years, as school administrators have requested. And as The (Raleigh) News & Observer’s T. Keung Hui reported last week, the state Board of Education and charter-school advocacy groups are debating what the academic standards should be moving forward.
In this case there’s extra potential for private/charter confusion. Most private schools getting voucher money are religious, and some share space with host churches. As public schools, charter schools can’t promote any religion. But they can lease space in churches, as Ridgeview does.
Financial reviews raise flags
Charter schools must submit annual financial audits, which get extra scrutiny during renewal. The Office of Charter Schools put Charlotte’s Movement School Eastland on financial disciplinary status after getting budget details that revealed shortfalls at that school, despite the overall health of the Movement School chain.
And a Department of Public Instruction staffer told the review board it’s pursuing questions about relationships that could lead to poor financial oversight at Community School of Davidson, even though the school is in compliance and is on track for a 10-year renewal. Shirley McFadden said the audit revealed that until the end of 2022, the director had also been the school treasurer. It also showed that the contracted bookkeeper is the board chair’s spouse and three board members are school employees. Those aren’t violations, but “I feel like DPI needs to do its due diligence to follow up and ask some questions,” McFadden said. “There may have been some changes in those related parties already.”
Leslie Tomko, head of the lower school at CSD, shared a response the school has prepared. It boils down to: All of those relationships were legal and consistent with the school’s policies, with conflicts of interest disclosed and board members abstaining from votes where there was potential for conflict. She notes that the school’s bylaws require at least one employee to serve on the Board of Directors. Although all relationships were legal, she said, as of Dec. 31 the executive director no longer serves as treasurer and the bookkeeping company run by the board chair’s wife no longer works for the school.
Clean review before embezzlement report
But the process doesn’t catch everything. Corvian Community School in Charlotte got a 10-year renewal in 2022 with no financial flags. Late last year the school’s board fired its longtime executive director, citing “substantial evidence of misuse (of) funds,” and filed an embezzlement report with police. The director’s lawyer said the charges stem from disputes over two credit cards that had long been used for both school and personal spending, a practice he claims the board was aware of.
State Charter School Director Ashley Baquero told me that Corvian’s board appears to have properly handled an isolated incident. “Our office will be working to determine whether additional reviews or compliance related activities need to take place, but that process takes some time,” she said, adding that the state will soon have a 2023 independent audit to look at.
“I can also tell you that (the Office of Charter Schools) has revised its process for interviewing school boards during renewal periods to better address financial procedures and knowledge as a way to work toward ensuring charter boards are aware and diligent about implementing financial policies and safeguards correctly,” Baquero said.
