For an hour and 45 minutes, Escambia County School District staff went over evidence at Friday’s school board workshop that documented the district’s case to terminate the contracts of Newpoint Pensacola High, Newpoint Academy and Five Flags Academy.
Newpoint Education Partners (NEP), represented by VP Carla Lovett, offered little evidence to rebut the information presented, although several parents, teachers and students asked the school board to keep the charter schools open.
To open the presentation, Superintendent Malcolm Thomas reminded the audience that charter school operate independently and have wide discretion and autonomy over budget, curriculum and personnel.
He said, “However, they are not free from the high expectations and standards of accountability, academic achievement and safety.”
Thomas said the district’s relationship with Newpoint is contractual and every section of the charter contract is important and must be followed.
In his recommendation to the school board, the superintendent outlined 14 sections of the charter contracts that had been violated by NEP.
“We are not going to discuss any violations or allegations that aren’t substantiated,” said Thomas.
He said he was obligated to recommend termination because he had the evidence and findings of the 14 violations and needed to get out the 90-day notice before the start of the 2014-15 school year.
In its written response to termination notice issued on May 8, NEP and the school’s board had said they had not received notice of a formal investigation until April. Thomas used a video clip from the Dec 12 school board meeting to rebut that. The clip showed NEP principal John Graham, with the Newpoint board chair Linda Brown in the audience, being told of several issues at the schools that needed to be corrected.
Superintendent Thomas said the problems identified in December 2014 had gotten worse since then, which prompted the termination notices. He also said that Florida Department of Children & Families had investigated the schools in January, February and March. DCF sent its findings to the district on March 26. While DCF found no child abuse, the agency was concerned about the safety of the students at the school.
Poor record keeping was a major contract violation. Every student, whether in a public or charter school, in the Escambia County School District has a cumulative folder that tracks completed courses, health, discipline and special needs. It follows the student from school to school.
A spot inspection in January found that 56 percent of the Newpoint students had no cumulative folder and the records clerk had no procedures to get the information. NEP hired a consultant to help correct the situation. The district was told in early March the work had been completed. However, a March 24 audit found all the students had folders, but nothing was in 52 percent of them.
Newpoint broke the law by not reporting in the district computer system a May 24, 2014 burglary and vandalism committed by five students and which resulted in a felony arrest of one Newpoint student. District staff pointed out that these students would have transferred to other schools with no record of the incident, possibly putting the students and faculty at the new schools at risk.
The school hired a custodian with a criminal record who had contact with the students from August 18-December 17, 2014. NEP failed to do the proper background check.
District staff brought up the “” incident. NEP misrepresented in the teacher’s letter of reprimand that the instructor had been sitting at his desk and the video had only run a few minutes. A photo provided by a student showed the teacher standing in front of the video instructing the class. The district found no detailed report on the incident or any proof that it had been fully investigated.
Drunkness and other inappropriate behavior during a 2014 senior trip was also presented. After the 2014 graduation, teachers chaperoned a senior cruise. Several teachers and students got drunk on the cruise. One teacher was so inebriated that a student helped her back on the ship. A female student was found drunk in a room with several men. Principal John Graham didn’t report the incident claiming it wasn’t a school event, even though it was promoted as a Newpoint senior trip and chaperoned by NEP faculty.
NEP ran an unlicensed after-school program that mixed elementary and middle school students. The teacher who ran it was paid directly. The district ordered the program shut down. Lovett told the district it was closed on Feb. 15. However, the school let it continue until Feb. 27.
The school allowed students to sign out of school whenever they wanted. Over a 37-day period, the district found 98 incidents of students leaving with no parental permission or any initial from a school official. Five parents were contacted. None had received a phone call from the school. One parent was distraught because her son doesn’t drive.
Students that were supposedly given suspensions for disciplinary infractions were recorded as being present according to the attendance records.
Despite assertions from the school that the attendance issues had been corrected, district said, as of May 15, it was still finding students missing two or three periods on a routine basis.
Newpoint Pensacola High touts on its website that it has an entirely digital curriculum provided by Apex Learning. In the Apex system, the total points a student can earn in a course are 1,625. District staff presented the APEX record for a Spanish student. She had 243 points by mid-April 2014, but received full credit for the course.
The average point percentage for all Spanish classes was 20 percent; Pre-Calculus Honors 20 percent; and Geometry 15 percent.
Lovett said she had not yet looked at the academic records of the students presented, but tried to argue that the students could have had outside work to help. School Board member Bill Slayton was skeptical that outside work could account for 85 percent of a student’s final grade, particularly when APEX is the core of the curriculum.
The district discovered three Newpoint students were given diplomas in 2014, even though they did not meet graduation requirements. For the current school year, the grade books for Calculus, Chemistry and English have not been established.
A parent of a Newpoint Academy eighth grader had called the district worried. She didn’t know if her child was going to pass and had no information from the school.
When it was her turn to speak, Carla Lovett, NEP vice president for curriculum and instruction, told the board, “We have a strong desire to foster a collaborative relationship with you.”
She claimed that NEP and its school board had been kept in the dark.
Paula Byrd, vice chairman of the Newpoint school board and who worked for the school district for 28 years, said there had been no communication with the district and her board until the termination notices were received on May 8.
“We want to make this school work, not throw the baby out with the bath water,” said Byrd. “If we aren’t aware of the problems, we can not insist the corrections are made.”
Lovett protested the district’s assertion that things have gotten worse at the Newpoint schools,pointing out the March compliance report that showed schools were in compliance in several areas.
She said NEP does not believe that the schools have to enter their grades in district’s FOCUS, insisting that NEP only has to give the district its report cards.
Lovett said that several people can attest that the evidence presented by the district is not the way it is at the schools. She said school staff has told her that they had been misled by the district during its inspections of the school, thinking the district was there to help, not investigate.
She could not believe the district wants to terminate a charter high school that has always been an “A” school; a middle school that has improved from a “F” school to a “C”; and an elementary school that has not finished its first year.
The Escambia County School Board meets at 5:30 p.m. on May 19 to vote on the termination recommendations.
On Monday, May 18, a Board Meeting for Newpoint Pensacola Academy and High School will be held at 6 p.m.