With just days before the start of the 2022-23 school year in Osceola County, American Classical Charter Academy in St. Cloud will not open, despite its best efforts — and those of the Osceola County School District to close it.
The district, citing its dire financial, staffing and regulatory issues, voted to suspend ACCA's charter on April 5. Superintendent Dr. Debra Pace called the situation “deteriorating financial conditions reaching a point of emergency. But despite having no charter, and no lease — their landlord ended its deal with the school in June after ACCA did not pay rent from December 2021 to March 2022 — the school had planned to open next week when school starts Wednesday.
Then, on Monday night the school sent a letter to parents saying that, since the School District would be withholding its funding, "it becomes impossible to continue operations." The school's chair, Michael Loeb, and founder and self-titled business manager Mark Gotz , signed the letter.
At Tuesday's School Board meeting, its attorney Frank Kruppenbacher addressed why the District stopped the funding — it can't fund a closed school, which is how the district regarded it after pulling the charter and not receiving an appropriate recovery plan from ACCA.
"We were told by the state of Florida we are not allowed to release public dollars to a closed school," he said.
That didn't sit well with some parents who, after getting word from ACCA staff the school would open, said they bought hundreds of dollars in uniforms that stores will not take back for refunds.
When ACCA appealed the district's decision, an administrative hearing was held in late June. The results of that were released Friday — Administrative Law Judge Lynne Quimby-Pennock denied ACCA's appeal, rendering the school's charter terminated.
"The School Board has proven by clear and convincing evidence it had good cause to terminate the Charter Contract for material violations of law," the judge said in the findings. "The Sponsor carried its burden of establishing, by clear and convincing evidence, a board array of facts and circumstances constituting 'other good cause' to terminate the Contract as detailed above in the Findings of Fact … Overall, the Sponsor has provided overwhelming evidence, of not one or two, but multiple serious grounds for termination."
While the school gave evidence of good test scores — principal Chiara Ajo made a point to release those rather impressive achievement numbers to the media over the last month — Quimby-Pennock noted, "ACCA’s attempt to overplay its students’ academic achievements as the main basis to avoid the termination falls far short."
While the school projected it would enroll around 600 students — state funding is based on the number of students enrolled in a charter school — ACCA enrolled about 100 students its first year (2019-20), 280 its second and 330 its third. An audit showed the school's expenditures were $460,000 more than revenues in 2020-21, and was $617,000 in the hole by early 2022.
Among the other evidence against ACCA in the findings: it had promissory notes due without means to pay them, lacked safe school assessment protocols required by the state, only 10 of 28 teachers held a valid teaching certificate last school year, did not hire enough exceptional education teachers to meet ESE demand, and ACCA has had six principals since opening in August 2019.
Gotz addressed the School Board Tuesday, noting these challenges are universal to many charter schools, especially those in "startup mode."
"When you close a school that has the quality education that ACCA has shown, the observation is that you're more into money than education," he said.
But Kruppenbacher, who shared the District's concerns back in April when it suspended ACCA's charter, further broke down the judge's findings as an agenda item Tuesday.
“For those who thought we were harsh, look at the parents of the kids who didn’t get the education required. Look at the kids who were put at risk for months. This board did what it had to do to protect those kids. I commend the Board for addressing this issue," he said. "This is far more than an issue about money. Mr. Gotz tries to tell a story that isn't the complete story. In one part of the decision, the judge found his responses were not credible, disingenuous and self-serving."
Board Member Robert Bass, whose district 5 includes the school, agreed, calling ACCA "from the operational side, a disaster."
"Your school tested 150 students. Hickory Tree Elementary has more than that in third grade, who scored higher in math than your school," Bass said, noting other area schools with higher achievement scores in other segments.
Jon Arguello was the only Board member coming to ACCA's defense, noting a high bar set by a District "that clearly doesn't like Mr. Gotz."
"There's no disputing they are performing better than the bulk of our schools," he said. "If we as a district were held to the same standard as ACCA, we would be closed.”
