Orange charter school fails its students, teachers say

Feb 05, 2011 (The Orlando Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Imani Elementary Charter Academy promised parents a model school when it opened in one of Orange County's poorest neighborhoods in August.

The Pine Hills K-through-5 school said it would have the latest technology, field trips, bus service, before- and after-school care, a focus on reading and two adults in every classroom.

It has none of these things.

The troubled school underscores the limits of Florida's charter-school law, which strips away many of the accountability requirements faced by other public schools. Even when charter schools appear to have broken the law or failed their students, they have multiple chances to improve or appeal, a process that can stretch for months or longer.

Six months into the school year, there are no computers at Imani. Textbooks are still missing from some classes.

The 88 students, most of them poor and African-American, play in a dirt-and-grass courtyard. There is no physical-education teacher.

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They make art with shoe boxes their teachers bring from home. And the school is not offering the extra help for English-language learners and special-education students that is required by law, Orange school officials and former teachers say.

On Thursday, students sat down to eat cheese-pizza slices from Papa John's for lunch, as they do most days. They'd had breakfast bars and juice in the morning, paid for by a benefactor.

Orange County Schools stopped providing food there because Imani didn't have a valid health permit until Friday and still owes thousands of dollars for previous meals.

The state also cut off the school's grant funding because it misappropriated $160,000 earmarked for computers, school-district officials said.

The money was spent on construction instead.

Vivene Scott taught in Kingston, Jamaica, for 20 years before becoming a teacher in Florida about 3 1/2 years ago. In Jamaica, Scott said, there were at least enough books to go around.

"I never expected this to be happening in the United States of America," said Scott, who no longer teaches at Imani. "I feel we failed them. We failed to deliver a quality education, which they are entitled to." Barbara McAllan, who taught 16 first-graders in a cramped, windowless room until December, feels the same way.

"How do you teach first-graders to read without books?" McAllan asked.

Other former teachers said the school was little more than a warehouse or baby-sitting service for the children.

Principal LaCretia Daly said parents appreciate the school's convenient location and its emphasis on building character.

The president of Imani's new governing board acknowledges the school's problems, including the misuse of funds, and said the board and its advisers are working to fix them and turn the school around.

"There are so many things going wrong with this school," said Daina Davis, the board president, who had no involvement with the school until after it briefly shut down in late December.

"It's like walking in a minefield. You have to be careful where you step." At the end of last week, Orange County Public Schools sent Imani a notice that it had 90 days to clear up a litany of legal, educational and managerial problems or face closure.

According to the letter, the school must document and provide a repayment plan for about $160,000 that was misappropriated from a state charter-school-planning grant, more than $90,000 in payroll taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service, and unpaid bills of more than $22,000 for rental facilities and food service.

It also must provide missing documents, including fingerprinting, background checks and proof of state training for all board members; proof of employment contracts and more.

Finally, the school must provide proof of a viable instructional program. That includes copies of teacher certifications; a list of textbooks and other curriculum materials; evidence of compliance with class-size rules; and a master schedule that includes physical education, reading interventions for low performers, special-education services and accommodations for English learners.

If the terms of the letter are not met, the Orange County School Board could vote to close the school on May 10, well after state FCAT testing. The school can still request a hearing and can appeal any closure decision. So far, taxpayers have spent $680,134 on the school.

Problems began early Imani was struggling even before opening its doors.

The nonprofit Imani Elementary Charter Academy Inc. bought the property on Mercy Drive for $675,000 on July 1, and the former owner said he lent the group an extra $150,000 for construction.

Imani's registered agent and president is Barry E. Daly, husband of Principal Daly.

Florida's charter-school law prohibits owners and governing-board members from hiring or advocating the hiring of their family members. Barry Daly would not comment about his role in the school.

In August, with construction only partially complete, Imani's directors opened the school in rented space at Catalina Elementary.

Teachers said they started without books, chalkboards or appropriate desks and chairs for the children.

Former Imani cafeteria manager Mary Denizard and her assistant, Tracey Blythe, said they had to bring food home on weekends because the school's refrigerator and freezer worked only sporadically.

After several weeks, the teachers started moving to the U-shaped yellow-and-green building on Mercy Drive.

At first, the students ate in classrooms. With only a small bathroom sink to use at school, Denizard and Blythe washed the large pans at home.

According to staffers, the two routinely broke up fights and served as de-facto nurses when students were injured.

In mid-September, the school received $20,000 in books through Orange County schools for some subjects in grades three to five. No further orders were placed through the school system.

Teachers in the earlier grades said they borrowed a few battered, spare copies of reading textbooks from friends and passed them around, held them up or made copies. Many bought their own supplies and texts or read library books to their classes.

Orange County education officials who visited the school during this time observed missing textbooks, one uncertified teacher and no computers.

Though it may take a few weeks for a charter school to be running smoothly, "by November, we expect to see curriculum in place," said Christopher Bernier, who oversees charter schools for the Orange school district.

Imani was in dire financial straits. According to eight former school employees, they were routinely asked to hold their checks for days, and health-care coverage didn't start for months.

Teachers began calling Orange County's school-choice office with concerns that they wouldn't get paid. The school district's lawyers got involved.

On Dec. 16, Bernier accompanied school Principal LaCretia Daly to the bank to watch as the school's monthly check was deposited. He then ensured that checks were written to the entire staff.

The next day, parents were told the school was closing.

But a new board was created a few days after Christmas, with Davis, a computer consultant, at the helm. Board members voted to reopen on Jan. 3, and a lawyer for Orange County's School Board canceled a move to officially close the school.

"We think this neighborhood deserves a good community school. Parents and kids deserve it, but it needs to be exceptional," Davis said.

As the school was preparing to reopen, former staffers said they were called back in to interview with two new advisers, Ardonnis and Richelle Lumpkin. They also were asked to fill out a survey listing their minimum salary requirements.

Lumpkin is principal of two South Florida charter schools and runs several education-related companies. He also has a record with several misdemeanor convictions, including third-degree theft to deprive in the early 1990s and two DUIs.

All but two teachers declined to return, citing disarray and poor leadership.

The school reopened with more than 60 students and is up to almost 90 now. Principal Daly said a few enroll every week.

Lumpkin said he has put at least $20,000 of his own money into the school and expects to invest $100,000.

He said he is buying food for the children out of his own pocket and has brought desks and chairs from his South Florida inventory to outfit the school. He has been paying Kelly Educational Services for the substitute teachers who have been filling in for a month as new teachers have been hired.

Starting over Davis said the challenges at the school remain "herculean." Fifth-graders still have no textbooks for science, a subject in which the students will face FCAT testing this spring.

Teacher Zena Brooks said she personally purchased books on science topics and plans to have students conduct a scavenger hunt for important FCAT facts in their pages.

Down the hall, the kindergartners are starting over. Again.

Teacher Dondrea Stevens maintains a constant patter of encouraging words as she helps her 18 students copy the alphabet and numbers 1 to 20 onto lined paper. It's her way of seeing what students will need to learn.

"Good job, Endravious! I'm so proud of you, Elysee!" she says. When the class gets restless, she puts a finger over her lips and sings a few bars of a spiritual called "Ride This Train" until the children calm down.

The classroom has no texts, only a set of lesson kits. She plans to use the September kit, called "Welcome to Kindergarten: Look at Us," this week.

Stevens started Wednesday. Paraprofessional Natia Robinson was hired a few weeks ago.

One Imani parent, Clara Bailem, said her second-grader has had about six teachers.

"I've met them all," she said.

She said her daughter, Aiyanna Hayes, 8, has only begun to enjoy going to the Imani since January, when the school culture improved. "Before, those kids weren't really learning anything." Construction crews are all around. New classrooms are being prepared, and the empty cafeteria will become a library and computer lab, he said. A walk-in freezer will be repaired. There will be a teacher's lounge. And with more space, new children will enroll, and the additional money they bring will help turn around the school, he said.

Lumpkin hopes the building will be complete in two months.

"I really want this community to be enlightened by this," he said.

But several former teachers say the school should be shut down immediately. During the past few weeks, they've been sending letters to the Orange County School Board, pleading for immediate action.

"If you care about those kids, close that school down," said former teacher Vivene Scott. "It's a holding cell. Why would they allow this charade to continue?" Lauren Roth can be reached at 407-420-5120 or lroth@orlandosentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @RothLauren.

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