Charter check
School operations deserve oversight from the Texas Education Agency.
Don’t let the name fool you. Charter schools are still public school. They rely on taxpayer funding just the same and deserve the highest scrutiny by the Texas Education Agency.
Take the case of Accelerated Intermediate Academy, which has received more than $55 million in public funds since opening in 2001.
That charter system educates 500 or fewer mostly Hispanic and black students and, by all objective measures, meets academic guidelines. However, its fiscal governance raises all sorts of big red flags.
Rather than stick his head in the sand, Education Commissioner Mike Morath should fulfill his role as a public watchdog and direct the agency to find out what’s going on.
Most of the problems revolve around the superintendent, Kevin Hicks. He’s getting paid more than a quarter of a million dollars. Usually that kind of compensation is reserved for top executives at major, massive school districts. In fact, Hicks’ paycheck is $85,000 higher than any other superintendent of a comparably sized district.
Hicks rakes in even more than the superintendents of Houston’s two largest charter school districts — KIPP and Yes Prep, which serve more than 10,000 students each.
This exorbitant salary is particularly jarring compared to the system’s pennypinching pay scale for educators. Accelerated compensates its 20 teachers with below-average salaries, about $35,000 to $45,000 annually. By comparison the starting salary at traditional districts in the Houston area is around $50,000.
You would think that a top-dollar paycheck would guarantee a hands-on superintendent, but Hicks has barely been visible on the campus.
Seven parents and former teachers told Chronicle reporter Jacob Carpenter that Hicks rarely shows up at the Houston campus near the Fondren Gardens neighborhood. Two staff members told Carpenter that they had never met him despite working at the school for several months.
Another bright red flag waves over the charter’s facilities policy. While windowless structures resembling portable trailers are good enough for some student classrooms, Accelerated purchased a ninth-floor, one-bedroom condominium in the ritzy Uptown neighborhood currently valued at $450,000 for storage space and “back office support.” The deed bears Hick’s signature on behalf of the charter.
Accelerated doesn’t offer a playground for its students, but its records can enjoy being stored in a building that advertises all the amenities of a Galleria-area highrise, including floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood floors and access to a pool with skyline views.
It’s not as if the school district doesn’t have cash on hand. Reserves sit at $12.5 million, enough to cover six years of operating expenses — an unusually large financial buffer.
Responsibility for oversight on all these bizarre issues should fall on Accelerated’s independent board. So it is particularly distressing that board meeting minutes do not reflect any discussion of Hicks’ salary in recent years, as reported by Carpenter. Nor did any board member show up at the last board meeting.
Consider the lack of transparency as another red flag. “We owe YOU no further explanation,” a school representative who refused to be identified wrote to Carpenter.
That school representative is wrong. The public does deserve to know if Hick’s salary met with board approval. It deserves to know if the high-end condo purchased by the school system is used for records or if a school employee resides there. Everyone needs to know why a charter school system retains $12.5 million of reserves when its students are taught in substandard classrooms and its teachers are paid significantly below market.
TEA officials told Carpenter that a charter school superintendent’s salary is a “local-level decision” that’s never been subject to a state investigation. Morath should make this the first.