The Golden State Schools' Analysis Shows Excess Expenditure And Overpayments To Chain Of Charter Schools

1. Superintendent of Guideline for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, initiated an audit more than a year earlier into the fiscal issues of the Options for Youth and Opportunities for Learning (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent research study charter schools within the California schools system, which are independently run but funded by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually dropped out of the conventional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 store locations throughout the state. These California schools students do many of their work at home, meeting with teachers twice a week. According to state records, trainee achievement test and high school exit test scores are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times short article of August 10th, just 11 percent of OYO students finished during the 2003-2004 academic year. The remainder of trainees that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or moved to other schools. The California schools' audit was performed by the Financial Crisis and Management Help Team, who concluded their analysis and provided their findings in a report that was released in August 2006. The audit mentions accounting problems, overpayments by the state, disputes of interest, nepotism, excessive settlement, and mixing private organisation concerns with public schools. The OYO was established and still run by John and Joan Hall, former teachers from Hollywood High School. They have actually completely worked together with the California schools' audit, but dispute many of the findings. Some examples from the audit report are: • Accounting Problems and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their instructors as 1.92 full-time positions. Their representative, Stevan Allen, specified that this is a common practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a genuine approach for compensating school staff for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell car donation to the blind believes instructors ought to be counted just as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, citing that standard California schools instructors invest much less time working each year than those at OYO. Nevertheless, the auditors thought the 1.92 amount is inflated. This example, alone, accounts for over half of the $57 million overpayment. Furthermore, the report noted numerous doubtful costs. One example of unrestrained spending, provided by the Times was an $18,000 personnel celebration held at Disneyland. Allen safeguarded that event as an effort at relationship structure in between personnel members, who are spread throughout the state. He noted that the costs was less than $50 per personnel member. • Conflicts of Interest and Mixing Private Organisation with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and operate a number of personal organisations that offer products and services to schools. The Times kept in mind that the Alternatives in OYO was the nonprofit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for- profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question. • Excessive Compensation. The audit likewise questions the combined incomes for the Halls, which is $600,000 yearly. The report specifies that it might be extreme for the amount of time the couple in fact works. • Nepotism. The Halls developed a different charity with $10.8 countless the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their child, Jamie Hall. Little cash has been invested towards education so far. The Halls contend that they previously had actually asked for guidance on their operation from the California schools lot of times, however never got any reaction. Therefore, they attempted to follow California schools requirements as best they might with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell conceded that none of

2. the cited practices are unlawful. The audit recommends the California schools must attempt to recuperate the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has sent the report to the state's attorney general of the United States's workplace for review and any required action.