Charter’s missing funds get look

The state Board of Education and the Charter Authorizing Panel in separate meetings Thursday set the stage for action today on the fate of the 114-student Covenant Keepers College Preparatory Charter School in southwest Little Rock.

The Education Board voted quickly and unanimously Thursday to review a January decision by the authorizing panel to accept the voluntary surrender of the Covenant Keepers’ state-issued charter at the end of the current school year, June 30. A charter, or contract with the state, is necessary for a school to receive state funding for its operations.

The Education Board voted to conduct the Covenant Keepers’ review — with an eye toward immediately revoking the school’s charter — at a daylong meeting Thursday in which it also approved the three-year renewal of the state charter for Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy.

Today’s state Education Board review of Covenant Keepers charter school will be the topic of a special meeting that will follow the board’s regularly scheduled 9 a.m. session. The meeting at the Arch Ford Education Building, 4 Capitol Mall, will be live-streamed at https:// bit.ly/1DMPinN

At the same special meeting, the Education Board will also decide whether to accept the Charter Authorizing Panel’s decision Thursday to amend Friendship Education Foundation’s existing charter to allow it to fill the void created by the anticipated revocation of the Covenant Keepers’ charter.

Today’s meeting comes in the aftermath of a complaint made to Little Rock Police against Covenant Keepers’ founder and former superintendent, Valerie Tatum. Friendship Education Foundation leaders have accused Tatum, who resigned from the school last fall, of withdrawing more than $188,000 from the school’s bank account, putting the school in peril of not being able to complete this year and forcing students to find new schools in the middle of the year.

Friendship Education Foundation, which has a charter school in Pine Bluff and plans to open the Friendship Aspire Charter elementary charter school on West 25th St. in Little Rock in August, has been managing Covenant Keepers this school year as part of a memorandum of understanding with the City of Fire Community Development Inc. City of Fire is the nonprofit sponsoring organization for Covenant Keepers and the holder of the state charter for the school.

Joe Harris, Friendship Education Foundation’s chief operating officer, said the withdrawals by Tatum were discovered by his staff earlier this month as part of the reconciliation of financial transactions for the school.

The Charter Authorizing Panel, at a hastily called meeting Thursday, accepted Friendship Education Foundation’s proposed amendment to its state charter for its Friendship Aspire Charter School on 25th Street to expand its current 480-student cap to 685 students to accommodate Covenant Keepers’ pupils.

Covenant Keepers’ pupils would move almost immediately to the as-yet unopened Friendship Aspire Academy that was initially planned for kindergarten through fifth grades.

Friendship Aspire is at 3615 W. 25th St., in south-central Little Rock, about 1.8 miles away from the Covenant Keepers campus at 5615 Geyer Springs Road. Friendship Aspire is housed in what was once Garland Elementary School in the Little Rock district. The building to be used by Friendship Aspire has been completely renovated with money from the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville.

Harris, the chief operating officer for the Friendship Education Foundation, and his staff provided the authorizing panel with a seven-day relocation plan that would make Feb. 25 the first day of class for any Covenant Keepers pupils and staff who choose to make the move to the new site. Students and their parents could choose to enroll in other schools.

The seven-day relocation plan envisions students and staff in classes today at the current Covenant Keepers site. There would be no classes all of next week so as to provide time for parent meetings, student and parent tours of the Friendship Aspire campus, and packing and moving of records, supplies and computers so that classes can start Feb. 25.

The state Education Board has the authority to make a final decision on the Friendship Education Foundation proposal that is on the agenda for today’s special board meeting.

Harris said at the authorizing panel meeting Thursday that Covenant Keepers has received a deposit for its child nutrition program, which will allow the organization to meet its payroll obligations in the current pay period.

Under the current memorandum of understanding with City of Fire, Friendship Education Foundation is responsible for financial oversight of school operations but does not have control of the finances or access to any bank accounts, Harris said. That agreement, he said, was put into effect July 21, 2018, and was set to expire on June 30.

“We are, as part of our duties in managing and operating, responsible for reconciling and giving financial reports to the board,” he said.

Harris said at the last City of Fire board of directors meeting on Jan. 31, before the discovery of the missing funds, Friendship Education Foundation had reported a surplus of operating funds in the amount of about $183,000.

“Friendship has been good custodians of the resources of the school and we were proud of the fact that we had put in tighter financial controls and we were seeing the fruits of those labors,” Harris said, “until this situation.”

At an Education Board meeting that dealt with several charter school matters, the Education Board approved the three-year renewal of the state-issued charter for the 270-student Lighthouse Academy in Pine Bluff with the stipulation of annual progress reports to the board.

The state’s Charter Authorizing Panel in December had voted against renewing the charter for the academy’s upper and lower schools, serving kindergarten through eighth grades, beyond the June 30 expiration of the current charter. That panel decision was at least partially in response to the fact that the academy’s upper school had received a D letter grade from the state for the 2017-18 school year and the elementary school had received an F letter grade from the state.

Also of concern was an escalating rate of chronic absenteeism by students.

Lenisha Roberts, executive director of Arkansas Lighthouse Schools, along with academy principals, instructional specialists and leaders in the national Lighthouse charter management organization, presented information about the campus to the board. That included a threeyear improvement plan and the accompanying goal that calls for every student who is enrolled in the academy for three or more years to meet or exceed standards for their grade levels.

“At our school, you will see scholars who are learning more, supportive of the community and each other, scholars who can articulate their needs, scholars who resolve conflict in a positive and constructive manner, scholars who feel safe to take academic risk and scholars who are being prepared for future impact in their community and the world,” Roberts said.

Rep. Vivian Flowers D-Pine Bluff, and Pine Bluff Mayor Shirley Washington were among those who spoke in support of the renewal of the charter for the academy.