SD Unified renews Audeo Charter, raises concerns
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego school board has awarded the Audeo Charter School a five-year charter renewal for seven storefront campuses despite concerns about the way the organization is managed and public funds are spent.
The independent-study program is one of a network of nonprofit groups governed largely by one person, Mary Bixby, who retains near-virtual control over all decision-making and spending.
“Audeo’s governance structure allows for a single individual, Bixby, to be delegated full authority to make any and all real estate transactions, personnel decisions, etc. without any agendized items to have these actions presented, reviewed, and approved by the Audeo board,” district officials wrote in its Dec. 1 report.
“The district’s concern is that a single individual, rather than a board that meets and reports its actions in open public meetings, has decision-making authority over a public charter school’s operations,” the staff report said.
Nonetheless, trustees approved the charter extension through June 2021.
The California Charter School Association supports Audeo’s charter renewals. But Miles Durfee, the association’s managing regional director for Southern California, said “the partnership between the charter and the district needs to be enhanced.”
“The governance structure has evolved. The school district should be looking at it to make sure it is designed to be legal and effective in supporting the students they serve,” Durfee said. “I don’t think anyone argues that students are not being served well. Isn’t that the point?”
The campuses are designed to educate students seeking an alternative to the traditional classroom under independent study programs. Thousands of students transfer to the charters from San Diego Unified campuses each year and eventually return to district-run schools on track to graduate.
The Audeo charter operates as one of at least four nonprofits owned by another nonprofit called the Altus Institute, a growing corporation that legally is the sole owner of the other tax-exempt organizations.
The best-known school operated by Bixby and Altus Institute is the Charter School of San Diego, which opened 22 years ago under the first charter ever issued by the San Diego Unified School District.
“I am the founder of all of the organizations,” Bixby said. “I have been delegated as the keeper of the dreams, the keeper of the visions.”
Since she first opened the Charter School of San Diego, Bixby has created an educational empire that stretches across five counties and collects tens of millions of dollars a year in state and federal education dollars. Altus and its four schools — each with multiple storefront centers — take in a combined $26.5 million in annual revenue, according to its most recent nonprofit tax filings.
The organization also has begun setting up a charter political action committee, and a professional Charter school network raises concerns | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:
