Lawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools
It's not often that Florida's lawmakers try to further regulate charter schools, which operate with fewer restrictions than public schools.
So it's refreshing to see that Sen. John Legg, R-Lutz, and Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah Gardens, want to tighten at least one area to make charters more accountable for how they spend taxpayer dollars.
Legg and Diaz have said they will push for legislation prohibiting charters from paying founders and investors for start-up costs incurred years before a school opens. Their effort is in response to a Palm Beach Post investigation that found one of Palm Beach County's largest charter schools is paying its founder's company for a loan that doesn't exist.
The revelations the newspaper has uncovered make it appear like Eagle Arts Academy Charter School for the Arts founder and board chairman Gregory James Blount is using the school as his personal piggy bank.
Blount claims the $38,000 loan, according to the report, was for expenses his company, Sound Tree Entertainment, incurred writing a charter school application years before the Wellington school opened. Only there are no documents to verify the loan exists. And no invoices to document most of the expenses.
Yet Eagle Arts is not only "repaying" the so-called loan, but also paying thousands in interest.
Charter schools are run privately but financed publicly, so the money Blount's company is pocketing is taxpayer dollars for educating students.
Though highly unusual — and some say unethical — Eagle Arts' payments to Blount's company do not violate state law. That's because lawmakers do not hold charter and private schools to the same standards as public schools. They demand increasingly more accountability from public educators while keeping the reins loose on private companies that profit from educating Florida's students.
This latest discovery about Eagle Arts has at least prompted Legg and Diaz to act.
"It would be my intent to prohibit retroactive payments that are prior to a charter contract and that are not stipulated in a contract," Legg, chairman of the Senate's education committee, told The Post. "I just don't see how a board can offer reimbursement for something there's no invoice for or no receipt for."
It certainly isn't good business practice.
Diaz said the terms of repayment for start-up loans from founders and investors should be outlined upfront. "In cases like this, it needs to be very clear that there is a loan," said Diaz, chairman of the House's Choice and Innovation subcommittee."In the normal business world you don't go around loaning people money without setting terms."
In Florida's business world it's OK for charter schools to do that.
The Palm Beach County School Board is already auditing Eagle Arts in light of an earlier report by The Post on the school's questionable financial dealings with Blount.
In addition to the alleged loan repayment, Eagle Arts paid Blount's company Artademics $7,500 in consulting fees. Blount also awarded another company he owns a $125,000 contract to design Eagle Arts' curriculum.
The conflict of interest in Blount's position as board chairman is blatant. He appears to be violating a provision in Eagle Arts' charter that prohibits board members from profiting from the school.
A former model, Blount has no background in education. Florida, though, doesn't require charter school applicants to have any knowledge in education. State law allows school districts to consider only the plan for instruction and budget when evaluating charter school proposals. Florida statutes do not require background checks or financial screenings that private companies seeking public dollars typically undergo.
Lawmakers have rejected legislation that would allow districts to better vet charter school applicants.
Florida's lax oversight of charter schools is a disservice toLawmakers finally consider tighter rules on charter schools - Sun Sentinel:
