AllPrep charter school network leaves hundreds in lurch
By The Oregonian staff and wire reports
May 10, 2010, 5:38PM
SISTERS --Suzanne Moore spent almost two years teaching at Sisters AllPrep Web Academy, but what she described as the "best job in the whole world" became a precarious one in mid-March.That's when administrators told Moore that the Clackamas-based company that operated the school was struggling to pay her March salary. She was told to expect a paycheck in her bank account by April 5.
The paycheck didn't appear, and on April 9, the school closed.
She is one of hundreds of people affected when a network of at least 10 publicly funded charter schools ran into deep financial troubles this year. Three of them, based in Sisters and Marcola but serving students across the state, shut their doors in March and April.
Teachers have gone unpaid or lost their jobs, students have had to find new schools, and some families have been asked to pay community college tuition after the charter schools failed to make those payments.
Schools in the network mostly offered online instruction or college-credit courses in partnership with local community colleges. Most were calledAllPrep academies and all were founded by educational entrepreneur Tim King, a former North Clackamas School District teacher.
Trail of financial problems
Nearly a decade ago, King founded three charter schools in that district: New Urban High, Clackamas Middle College and Clackamas Web Academy. In 2008, he left to start the AllPrep and other charter schools in a half-dozen small districts across the state, from Sheridan to Estacada to Sisters to Burns.
After he left, serious financial problems were discovered at the Clackamas charters, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in questioned