In a week filled with showdowns, the last one —Superintendent Malcolm Thomas vs. Newpoint Education Partners—could be the biggest.
At 1:30 p.m. today, the Escambia County School Board will hear the superintendent’s case to terminate the charter contracts for the three schools run by NEP. The Newpoint administrators, teachers and students are expected to attend the workshop and defend the schools.
Earlier showdowns involved city of Pensacola:
- Community Maritime Park Associates Board vs. Pensacola City Council – CMPA won a split decision
- Downtown Improvement Board vs. Downtown bars and restaurants – Draw, with both sides bruised but friendly
- City Council & Mayor vs. Local commercial film and photography industry – Fight postponed.
The school showdown is much more serious. At stake for NEP is nearly $70,000 in payments from the school district and its ability to open other charter schools in Florida. Earlier this week, the Florida Department of Education denied NEP’s grant request to open two new schools in Bay County.
Newpoint’s problems came to light in late March when a school employee contracted School Board member Jeff Bergosh with allegations of grade tampering and other improprieties at the Newpoint Academy and Newpoint Pensacola High. Furthermore, the whistleblower claimed that Superintendent Thomas had known about the allegations in May 2014 and done nothing.
Bergosh went to the superintendent. He said Thomas got “livid” with him. Bergosh said the superintendent said he was jumping to conclusions, and “that I was dead wrong about the school, their grade, and the bonus money they received from Gov. Scott on March 16th. I was wrong, and it would be proven so with emphasis, Supt. Thomas told me.”
The allegations were so serious and the documentation provided so compelling that Bergosh took the information to the State Attorney’s Office, which has opened an investigation.
On May 8, the superintendent notified the school board and Newpoint that he was recommending the terminations.
While Thomas claimed that the school district had been investigating the school for months and provided minutes of several monitoring plan meetings with school officials as proof, Newpoint officials have said—through a press release sent out last night—they had not been informed of a formal investigation until early April 2015 when a letter was delivered to the school regarding the intent to conduct an on-site investigation.
The Newpoint officials have asserted that certain district employees have worked to shut down it schools by not communicating about the investigation and then exaggerating areas of concern that Newpoint believes could have been easily addressed and corrected.
The school said that it had tried to meet with the district staff over the last several months, but the staff had refused to communicate with school leaders. The district had failed to complete a public record request made in April on a timely basis.
NEP said that it has addressed mistakes made by staff and students when they happened. It said its record isn’t much different than other public schools.
“In fact, we challenge the district and the public to find one Escambia County district school that has not had errors made by staff or inappropriate actions taken by students,” said Newpoint. “The important point is that when mistakes are made, they are corrected, and steps are taken to prevent them from occurring again.”
“While we prefer a non-adversarial relationship with all district staff members, even those who struggle accepting that charter schools are authorized under Florida Law, and desire a professional relationship with the district staff in order to foster the education of all students, we will not be intimidated by those who refuse to work collaboratively with us.”
Thomas has told the media that his staff could have kept the school board better informed.
On 1620 News Radio, he said, “We should have brought the school board in when we decided to bring in the monitoring plan, and we’ve corrected that…That should have happened. That didn’t happen.”
Thomas said that his staff had tried to work with Newpoint. “You’ll see in the backup that’s posted on the school board website. You’ll see meetings that are outlined to the charter school administration and the corporate administration from Newpoint. You’ll see meetings that are discussing these issues, trying to get them to work through it, trying to get the school to step up and solve issues.”
The decision could boil down the hard evidence proved by Thomas and by NEP to the Escambia County School Board. The district should give its evidence for termination and the NEP will need to provide its rebuttal.
Both Superintendent Thomas and NEP will have to make their cases. It will take more than well-written press releases and emotional pleas to win over the school board.
The Escambia County School Board voted last night to terminate the charter contracts of Newpoint Pensacola High and Newpoint Academy, each by a 4-1 vote. The board unanimously agreed to postpone its vote on Five Flags Academy at Newpoint pending discussions between Newpoint Education Partners and the school district concerning the viability of the school operating on its own.
School Board member Jeff Bergosh was the lone vote against the terminations, saying that he wanted to wait for the outcome of the State Attorney’s investigation into the schools.
Over the course of three hours, Newpoint school board members, NEP executives, their attorney, parents, teachers and students fought the terminations.
Linda Brown, chair of the Newpoint board, said the termination notices were a surprise.
“Yes, on occasion, concerns have been expressed but action was taken to address those concerns,” she told the school board. “No indication was ever given that termination of our contract was being considered.”
She said the school had made “significant improvements” from January to March and the contract monitoring document showed that.
Brown said, “Newpoint Education Partners has a plan to assist and address any remaining issues. Please give us the opportunity to complete our five-year charter agreement and see the improvements we can make.”
She asked the board to give the school another year.
Brown said, “Please do not throw the lives of our students into any more chaos and uncertainty about the upcoming school year.”
The Newpoint Board vice chair, Paula Byrd, took a more aggressive posture with the school board, accusing the district staff’s presentation at the May 15 workshop of being “carefully orchestrated” and its documentation “filmsy.” She wondered aloud if the terminations were politically motivated.
“I wonder why, if the situation at Newpoint Schools appeared to be so dire, not one member of distract staff contact any member of the Newpoint board of directors so that we could collaborate toward improvement,” said Byrd. “And why we would learn of the issues at hand through the media, late on a Friday afternoon right before Spring Break? And why the notice of intent to terminate the contract and a copy of the binder was only delivered to the Newpoint board chair on a Friday afternoon a week before the board workshop?”
Byrd said that the superintendent and district staff had quit communicating with the school, which made it difficult to rectify any problems.
She said, “Nothing in the list of fourteen items in question is different from anything that occurs at any district school at any given day. Nothing on that list can’t be corrected under the right leadership, with a strong plan, and collaboration with the district staff.”
Byrd added, “Or is the motivation political? Doesn’t make you wonder as well?
Jeff Garthwaite, a retired Escambia County principal, said he was contacted by Newpoint to help the school come in compliance and mentor the school director, John Graham. On March 6, he met with the Alternative Education Department was told the three priorities were the sign in and out procedures, cumulative folders and graduation requirements. On March 20, he scheduled an appointment with the teacher on a special assignment for charter schools to report the status, thus far, of the identifying and the implementing corrective actions.
“However, the progress seemed to be met with disdain and disappointment that real improvement had actually begun,” said Grathwite. “Questions and actions were raised as to my efforts, my credentials, which slowed that progress. Reasonable doubt began to rise as to authentic desire by the district to be of assistance.”
He placed much of the blame for the friction between Newpoint and the district on the former school director, John Graham. when resigned on April 17. Garthwaite has been the acting principal since April 22.
Garthwaite said the allegations that three seniors were allowed to graduate last year without meeting graduation requirements were untrue.
“The allegation that some students last year were given high school diplomas that they did not earn is false,” he said. “One of the first things that I did was to go through the channels that I had available to me to find out exactly what is the problem. Through the district’s data system, it appeared to me and shown to me that the requirements necessary were, in fact, met.”
He said part of the problem maybe the different software systems.
“The lack of understanding of different instructional software programs has led to confusing perceptions as to the validity in grades,” he said. “The FOCUS system was problematic for everyone. Data often simply disappeared, causing district data clerks to print screen in an effort to change, or to reserve and maintain the changes that they had just made.”
He said there are not problems with this year’s graduating class. “I directed that this year’s seniors have had a thorough examination of records and requirements for this year’s graduation,” he said. “It has been a double check and a triple check of records, and transcripts, and grades.”
Superintendent Malcolm Thomas rebutted many of the claims, especially the ones that the Newpoint board and NEP didn’t know of the issues.
“They keep saying, ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.’ Well, they did,” said Thomas.
He said the school had not been cooperative. The school staff had been told not to talk with investigators or give them what they need, according to Thomas. He said, “The internal auditor waited a day and a half to get information to try to bring answers to questions that, quite frankly, some of those questions remain unresolved because of the lack of cooperation that occurred with Newpoint.”
The Alternative Education staff said the three students from last year did not meet the graduation requirements because they never took Geometry, which is a state requirement to receive a diploma from the State of Florida.
“These students were never enrolled in the course, never received credit for that course,” said staff, “So that is why they never met the graduation requirements.”
The alleged contract violations didn’t deter the Newpoint supporters in the audience. Newpoint students and parents asked for the school board to give the schools another chance. Several pointed out the issues and problems at the school are also happening daily in public schools. They talked about how they enrolled in Newpoint to escape the bullying in the public school system. Students with learning disabilities were given special attention that their parents said was missing in other public schools.
Fighting back tears, one parent said, “There’s nowhere else for them to go.”
In the end, the majority of school board found the evidence too compelling and had lost any confidence in Newpoint Education Partners being able to fix the contract violations. Since few of the violations involved Five Flags Academy, the board agree to withhold its final decision on the elementary charter school for another 30 days.
Newpoint notified the school board at the end of the meeting that it would appeal the terminations.
