Hours after rebuffing parents and voting to shut 19 public schools, education officials announced plans to end most programs at Alfred E. Smith High in the Bronx and replace them with a charter school.
That charter school, however, has its own troubled history.
It's called the New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries (AECI), and it has been in operation fewer than two years.
Last June, a Manhattan federal grand jury charged its founder and chairman, Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, with stealing more than $200,000 from a nonprofit South Bronx housing organization.
Prosecutors say Izquierdo spent the money on designer clothes, fancy restaurants and trips to the Caribbean for his grandmother, state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, and his aunt, City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.
Another board member of the school, Margarita Villegas, an employee of the housing group, was indicted with Izquierdo. Both have pleaded not guilty. They immediately resigned from AECI's board and from the board of the South Bronx Charter School, where Izquierdo was chairman.
Virtually all the teachers who began at AECI when it opened its doors in September 2008 resigned within the first year.
This month, 17 of the 19 new staff members at the school filed a state labor petition to have the United Federation of Teachersrepresent them.
Read more:http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/01/29/2010-01-29_rush_to_create_charters_a_recipe_for_cash_scams.html#ixzz0e0blNS4w