Charter school king pleads guilty to felony
Former Mountain Empire superintendent Van Zant must return stipend, serve 30 days under house arrest
SAN DIEGO — Steve Van Zant, a key figure in the expansion of charter schools in San Diego County and elsewhere in California, pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony violation of the Political Reform Act.
Van Zant’s financial interests in growing independent charters, and his efforts getting them into school districts without notification, have raised questions about widely perceived shortcomings in state law that now even advocates say allow for exploitation.
While superintendent of the rural Mountain Empire Unified School District, Van Zant received a stipend through his contract for each charter school the district authorized. The arrangement was in violation of conflict-of-interest laws, said Deputy District Attorney Leon Schorr, who heads the public integrity unit.
“This plea shows that they have to be cognizant of how government funds are spent,” Schorr said. “This felony has a huge impact on Mr. Van Zant — professionally, personally and financially.”
Under the terms of his plea agreement, Van Zant must reimburse Mountain Empire for the charter stipends that amounted to an estimated $50,000 to $60,000. The agreement also calls for him to serve 30 days of home confinement with an electronic monitor, five years probation, and 300 hours of community service.
Van Zant and his attorney Garland Peed declined to comment after a Superior Court hearing Thursday. However, Van Zant said “There will come a day” when he’s willing to discuss the matter.
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Under Van Zant’s leadership, Mountain Empire authorized 13 charters that were located in other districts, in some cases without notifying those districts in advance. The arrangements have stirred costly legal fights and animosity among districts that have lingered since Van Zant resigned from Mountain Empire in 2013.
By approving charters for other districts, Mountain Empire earned a percentage of revenue (up to $500,000 a year under Van Zant) from the charters without losing its own students to those schools — or the average daily attendance money they generate from the state. Meanwhile, Van Zant received the equivalent of 5 percent of the revenue brought in from each charter under his stipends.
Some of the charters went on to hire Van Zant’s consulting firm, EdHive, which charged as much as $100,000 to provide back-office services among other billable offerings. According to the business website, “We can find an authorizing district for your charter and cut a deal that provides the financial incentive for the district and still save your school money.”
Van Zant continued to run EdHive since he took office in 2013 as superintendent at the Sausalito Marin City School District, a three-day-a-week job that paid $172,000 in 2014. The terms of Van Zant’s plea agreement required his resignation from the district, which he submitted earlier this month.
Before Van Zant was hired in Mountain Empire in 2008, he ushered in charters while superintendent of the Charter school king pleads guilty to felony | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com:
