Are some charter schools putting profits before students education?
For the better part of a decade now, pleas to Florida legislators and education officials to take a more cautious approach to charter school growth has largely fallen on deaf ears. Such pleas have mostly been written off as sour grapes from traditional public school advocates afraid of change.
Never mind that local districts are left with the costly fallout when a taxpayer-funded, privately run school falls into financial or operational difficulties. Too often, it’s the district that must pacify irate parents and absorb their children back into a public school, after the state money to educate them is lost.
That may not be the fate of the 680-student Eagle Arts Academy in Wellington in the wake of allegations its founder was cashing in as the school struggled to open last year, but the revelations drive an even bigger wedge between local charter advocates and the Palm Beach County School District charged with overseeing their schools’ success.
Gregory James Blount, chairman of the board of directors of Eagle Arts Academy during a board meeting for the charter school last month. (Bill Ingram / Palm Beach Post)
As The Post’s Andrew Marra reported, Eagle Arts founder and board Chairman Gregory James Blount awarded one of his companies a contract to design the art school’s curriculum. Blount had no education background, but his company made more than $125,000 off that contract. Another company Blount owns earned $7,500 from the school in consulting fees and stands to earn thousands in interest from a reported loan it made to the school for nearly $39,000.
Blount — who emerged from personal bankruptcy in 2010 — says he “made mistakes” but defended his business deals. The former model and events producer said that he deserved compensation for his efforts to start the school.
He also says he will recommend to the school’s governing board that it conduct its own forensic accounting investigation, after learning that the school district’s inspector general opened a probe this week.
That makes it an issue for the
Even if Blount did nothing illegal, Schools Superintendent Robert Avossa told The Post Editorial Board Thursday that it was important to ask, “Is it immoral, unethical? “
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