Silicon Valley Flex Academy leadership is in disagreement with county education officials over just how serious a list of concerns are regarding the local public charter school’s operations.
While SV Flex’s head of school Caroline Wood downplayed the severity of the matter this week and praised having a “healthy” relationship with county staff, Santa Clara County Office of Education’s charter school division stressed “significant” discrepancies with its finances and enrollment numbers.
“Ultimately, I don’t think this is going to slow the school down,” Wood said. “We have a great working relationship with our authorizer.”
Wood’s declaration that things are being worked out amicably comes in stark contrast to the county staff’s March 2 board report, which questioned the charter school’s operational viability moving forward.
In November 2015, SV Flex was granted a five-year renewal through 2021 from the County Board of Education, which tied conditions—and deadlines for meeting them—to the Memorandum of Understanding between the two entities. The board approved the conditional charter renewal by a 5-2 vote. Trustee Claudia Rossi of Morgan Hill was among those in favor back in November, but has changed her tune after hearing from county staff.
“My concern, as a trustee, is that these matters keep coming up again and again (when it comes to SV Flex),” Rossi said.
Earlier this month, SCCOE’s charter school division—which provides county oversight for all of its authorized schools—brought up several concerning issues to the county board about SV Flex’s book keeping and future enrollment.
At that March 2 meeting, Natalie Zaderey, Financial Administrator of Charter Schools for SCCOE, cited habitual and untimely submissions, as well as incorrect calculations, of CALSTRS retirement payments; inflated cash flow statements; and inconsistencies between unaudited and audited fund balances submitted by SV Flex.
This week, SCCOE spokesman Ken Blackstone confirmed that county staff is keeping a close eye on SV Flex’s operations and will be meeting with their representatives, including Wood, to clear up the inconsistencies uncovered by Zaderey. The county board has regularly scheduled meetings April 6 and April 20 with a special meeting scheduled for April 8. However, the agendas have not been made public, although the board requested an update at the first meeting in April.
SV Flex, whose charger was originally approved by the SCCOE in 2011, is one of two county-authorized charters operating in Morgan Hill. A third charter, the Charter School of Morgan Hill, is authorized through Morgan Hill Unified School District.
County calls out financial pitfalls
Located at 610 Jarvis Drive in Morgan Hill, SV Flex serves 6th through 12th grade students, using a blended learning model by combining an online K12 curriculum with offline lessons and breakout sessions with smaller groups of 10 to 15 students.
While its educational practices were not recently called into question, the charter school’s inability to meet CALSTRS deadlines is a “trend that has been going on every month” since July 2015, according to Zaderey.
Zaderey, who presented SV Flex’s shortcomings to the county board at the March 2 meeting, said county staff has continually offered their assistance in rectifying the situation to no avail.
Wood, however, said they remain in “constant dialogue” with county staff.
“It is our job to listen, respond and then correct the situation,” Wood said.
Additionally, Zaderey noted that the charter school has failed to present any clarifying documentation about its finances and is routinely delinquent in paying the county’s monthly oversight fees and submitting its monthly cash flow balances to the county office.
“I’m not feeling very confident in this school’s ability to function,” said County Trustee Darcie Green, who called it a “very frustrating process” for staff during the March 2 meeting. “This is very, very serious. These are serious issues.”
Enrollment projections meet requirement?
Also brought to the board’s attention was the fact that SV Flex fell short of its enrollment goal that is written into its MOU with SCCOE. SV Flex submitted an enrollment of 291 students (207 returning students and 84 new applicants for Fall 2016) out of the required 312, according to SCCOE Associate Superintendent Angelica Ramsey. That enrollment deadline was set for the end of March. Other binding conditions were for K12, the company that supplies Flex with its online curriculum, to retool its educational program to address county staff’s concerns and for a SCCOE appointed fiscal advisor to be placed at Flex if finance issues persist.
Wood explained since the March 2 meeting Flex’s enrollment numbers have actually increased with 90 percent of existing students expected to return and another 100 new student applications received. She said they now are projecting 314 students for the 2016-17 school year with possibly even more committing before the fall.
“The enrollment targets, we met them days later. We knew that was going to happen,” Wood said. “We just feel like we’re working with very reasonable, caring individuals across the board (at the county). We feel that logic will prevail.”
At the March meeting, Ramsey said county staff was going to contact a 25 percent sampling from those SV Flex applications to verify them and gauge their actual interest in attending the charter school.
Responding to Trustee Anna Song’s question about a county staff recommendation on what to do with Flex, County Superintendent Jon Gundry said it was still premature to make a determination. But he did admit to a dangerous pattern of lack of cooperation, attention to detail and reporting of finances by SV Flex.
“If there’s sufficient cause, we will bring a recommendation to revoke their charter but we’re not prepared to say at this time,” Gundry explained.
