Charter school sued as options evade displaced students
A major local developer is suing for $870,000 after an Akron charter school closed this summer with three years left on a rental agreement.
Welty Building Co. filed the lawsuit in Summit County this month alleging that Colonial Prep Academy, a tenant at 2199 Fifth St. SW in Akron’s Kenmore neighborhood, was short on rent for nearly a year before mysteriously moving out June 27. The school’s forprofit operator, Cambridge Education Group, is named in the civil suit along with the school’s public board.
“This is kind of a routine business dispute,” Don Taylor, president and CEO of Welty, said of the alleged breach of contract. “But we don’t believe it’s all aboveboard, the way they closed the school. We believe they took all the teachers, students and assets and just moved them to another school.”
State law requires shuttered charter schools to sell off all assets to settle any outstanding debts. Taylor said one of his property managers followed a moving truck from Colonial Prep to Middlebury Academy, an even lower performing Cambridge-managed charter school across town. Public school officials trying to help the displaced students say they also suspect that the private company is shuffling its enrollment and assets, which were purchased with tax funding, over to Middlebury.
In Ohio, charter schools must have a public board and nonprofit sponsor to operate. The board accepts state funding and decides whether to hire a management company, in this case Cambridge. The sponsor — not the state — holds the school directly accountable for hitting academic standards, day-to-day use of public tax dollars and compliance with state and federal rules.
“The sponsor is closing the school due to insufficient academic performance,” said Dave Cash, president of Charter School Specialists, a forprofit education consultancy hired by St. Aloysius Orphanage, a Cincinnati nonprofit social services provider that sponsors Colonial Prep and 10 other schools run by Cambridge. “The school is following the state of Ohio closing procedures, and we are monitoring as required,” Cash said. Cash gave no more details. An operator at Cambridge’s headquarters in Fairlawn said CEO John Stack is away and the head of the K-8 schools was in the hospital.
A message left on Stack’s cellphone was not returned. Messages also were left with the attorney for Colonial Prep’s school board and a former head of elementary education.
Not the worst school
Last year, Cambridge’s 21 managed charter schools received $37 million to educate 4,300 students, about half struggling 16- to 21-yearolds in dropout recovery programs like Towpath Trail on Market Street and the other half in K-8 schools like Colonial Prep, Middlebury and Main Prep academies, all in Akron.
According to 2016-17 test scores reported by the Ohio Department of Education, eight of the company’s 10 remaining elementary schools scored lower than Colonial Prep on overall student performance. Four did worse on a measure of whether students advanced to the next grade.
But only Colonial Prep appears to have closed this year. And its students may end up in one of the lowest performing schools run by Cambridge. The website for the school says, “Space is limited — Reserve your spot today!” The Facebook page hasn’t been updated since April. The phone is disconnected.
Where are students?
When the school closed, administrators sent records for 80 of the 230 students at Colonial Prep last year to Akron Public Schools, the obligatory steward of all information for students living in the city.
Colonial Prep got $1.9 million in state funds, including $25,000 for four children who live in the Columbus suburb of Westerville — an oddity the Ohio Department of Education could not readily explain.
Dan Rambler, director of student services for Akron Public Schools, said he won’t see updated information on where the students land for about a month when the state’s student database is updated. For now, state payment reports reflect a jump of only 20 students in other Cambridge schools in Akron.
Rambler said based on conversations with staff at the other two local elementaries run by Cambridge, most of the students are headed for Middlebury Academy this fall. That school has the lowest student growth scores in the Cambridge network, lower than 258 of Ohio’s 276 elementary charter schools.
Contract breached?
Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 33 last used 2199 Fifth St. SW to train apprentices before selling the property in 2007 to Kenmore Schoolhouse LLC, a subsidiary of Welty Building Co. Welty sat on the investment for six years, hoping to repurpose what would otherwise turn to blight.
“Not having an abandoned building there, we thought, was good for the neighborhood,” said Taylor, who is married to Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, a proponent of charter schools.
In March 2013, Kenmore Schoolhouse sold the property to 123 S. Miller Road LLC, another Welty subsidiary that began what would total nearly $870,000 in renovations to convert the space into a school. In the next few months, Colonial Prep fired its former operator, White Hat Management, and hired Cambridge Education Group, which negotiated a lease for the new space.
Colonial Prep moved in that September after signing an eight-year lease. Monthly installments would be $20,741 before jumping to $22,744 in September 2017. Welty alleges in its lawsuit that the charter school never paid the extra $2,003 each month.
By June of this year, Welty sent Cambridge a notice of default for $18,032. Colonial Prep reportedly paid $14,000 of the missed payments, then made another $20,741 monthly installment — again $2,003 short. Then the school quietly moved out June 27, according to the suit. Welty is suing for attorney and other fees, plus the $869,462 it says it spent to rehab the building.