Yesterday, the Escambia County School Board held a workshop. A former Newpoint teacher attended and reported on the discussion to his fellow teachers. The email was share with me:
I attended the working group that started at 9 am and remained until 1 pm. The meeting was still going on when I had to leave for an appointment.
The board discussed many things such as a possible K-8 school, the need for additional schools in the area and possible alternatives until the discussion eventually came around to Newpoint Schools and Five Flags. The first thing that was done was to officially end the contract with Five Flags since that was still part of unfinished buisness. Once that was concluded Jeff Bergosh brought up the possibility of the building being used by another outside agency as Mr. Kelly had suggested earlier to utilize the existing facility for alternate school choice, this conversation was tabled.
Eventually the conversation returned to teachers and the possibility of their remaining pay. Mr. Thomas (Superintendent Malcolm Thomas) stated that he had no intention ever releasing the $170,000 dollar scheduled June payment since Newpoint officially pulled out on June 2nd. He stated the last day he would have paid and the payment that he is refusing to make would only include the first 4 days of June and passed on simple division this would equate to approximately $22,666.00 to which Mr. Bergosh responded that it was doubtful that would bring much leverage to bear.
At this point the board’s lawyer (Donna Waters) was asked to clarify the legalities of withholding payment from Newpoint and she said she expected it to be a lengthy legal battle. She then mentioned that she had a very brief (and she emphasized this) conversation with a lawyer who was board certified in Florida but resided in Ohio stating that they would be interested in making the teachers “whole”. Nothing further was discussed on this point except that she recommended that the teachers seek legal council if they wished to pursue this.
Mr. Thomas was then pointedly asked by Mr. Bergosh (School Board member Jeff Bergosh) what can they do in order to ensure that the teachers received their pay to which Mr. Thomas responded he envisioned something along the lines that if Newpoint paid teacher $2,000 then he would release $2,000 to Newpoint.
Realistically I do not see that happening.
Mr. Thomas stipulated he would have to review all teachers, what their annual income was, work with the financial company (AHOLA) to determine what is due them and then he could make a determination but once again he stressed that we were not employee’s of Escambia County School District and that he did not have the responsibility to pay it from those funds.
Mr. Bergosh then asked the question bluntly that once decided who would get the final funds Newpoint or 21st Century. No answer was determined at this time.
The board’s lawyer then stipulated since it was too official business entities that were arguing over funds what she envisioned being the final outcome was both sides present their case and the judge determines how much is owed and that will be the end of it.
Mr. Bergosh then raised the point of taking this issue national to help ensure Newpoint does not run to another state to start charter schools (such as North Carolina). There was some debate about this and then he ended the conversation with stating perhaps we should provide additional media coverage on this issue.
Ms. Moultrie (School Board member Linda Moultrie) then stated that she had attended a statewide conference where this issue was talked about in great detail and that the rest of Florida is waiting to see what the resolution is here in Pensacola, how the resolution of the teachers pay issue will be handled and how this will effect the rest of Newpoint’s charters in Florida as well.
This pretty much wraps it up.