NC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework
In (or after) March 2017, the North Carolina State Board of Education is supposed to decide whether or not to close Kestrel Heights High School. Information on Kestrel Heights was presented to the board on March 1 and 2, 2017. It seems that the state board has indeed decided to close the school.**
Kestrel Heights made the news in January 2017 following the release of an internal report by the Kestrel Heights board of directors.
It seems that over an eight-year time span, Kestrel Heights graduated 160 students who lacked all of the necessary coursework to graduate.
From the report:
In September of 2016, the Board of Directors (“The Board’) of Kestrel Heights, a public charter school located in Durham, North Carolina, currently providing K-12 education to 1,016 students, was informed of discrepancies in the transcripts of approximately 22 seniors in the graduating class of 2015-16. The discrepancies appeared to indicate that 22 of the 71 graduating seniors were missing at least one state-mandated core curriculum course required to graduate with a Future Ready Core designation on their transcript. The printed student transcripts disclosed that the student graduated with a Future Ready Core designation, but also disclosed that the student was missing one or more of the state mandated core curriculum courses, such as “English 4.”Upon learning of the discrepancies, the Board ordered a subsequent review of the analysis conducted by staff for the 2015-16 graduating class. After receiving a verified report, the Board self-disclosed the discrepancies to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s (“DPI”) Office of Charter School (“OCS”) and scheduled an advisory meeting. At the meeting, the school disclosed the results of its initial investigation and a corrective action plan to the assembly of DPI staff, including representatives from Accountability, Instruction, OCS, and Legal. The staff of DPI was unable to provide any technical support or assistance during the meeting. The school was subsequently advised by the OCS to handle the matter in the best way it saw fit. The school undertook a second review of its corrective action plan by retaining the services of an outside education consulting firm. The outside education consulting firm assisted the school with the development of student centered options to address the transcript deficiencies in a timely and efficient manner.In the interim, the Charter School Advisory Board (“CSAB”) met with the BoardNC Charter School Graduated 160 Students Who Lacked Coursework | deutsch29:
