School founder who had plans for expansion in Santa Fe loses Phoenix charter
PHOENIX — The founder of a financially troubled Phoenix school that had its charter revoked earlier this week by the state of Arizona is disputing allegations of misspending, including questionable expenses for a trip to Santa Fe.
The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools unanimously voted Tuesday to initiate revocation of the StarShine Academy’s charter. The decision comes about a month after a bankruptcy court and the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the school and recommended last month that StarShine close to prevent further spending by founder and leader Trish McCarty.
A review of expenses for the school found that McCarty had used school money to pay for her home electricity bill and had racked up thousands of dollars in car rentals, WalMart purchases and cash withdrawals, even taking out a cash advance at a Santa Fe casino. McCarty said those were all related to the opening of a school in Santa Fe.
McCarty told The New Mexican in August that she planned to revive the Secondary Learning Center, a small, private school on St. Francis Drive that closed abruptly last spring amid child sexual abuse allegations against a tutor. Parents of two students later filed a lawsuit accusing the tutor, Joel Abraham, of having sex with a 14-year-old female student and making sexual advances toward another girl. The complaint also named Antony Berzack, former principal and owner, as a defendant, saying he did nothing to stop
Abraham’s behavior and retaliated against a teacher who had voiced concerns about him.
A trial in the case is scheduled for July 2019 in the state District Court in Santa Fe.
Several people filed police reports accusing Abraham of abusing students, but he was not charged with a crime.
McCarty said she was a friend of the school’s founder and operator for more than two decades, Dana Rodda, who sold it to Berzack in 2014 when she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Rodda died two years later. McCarty was hoping to negotiate a new lease with the property owner and reopen the school in September, she said, as a way to preserve Rodda’s legacy.
“I would say it is 98 percent certain,” McCarty said at the time.
But apparently it never happened. A phone number listed on a website for the Secondary Learning Center — a StarShine School remains disconnected. The site provides another number to call to set up a tour of the small campus on St. Francis Drive; that number belongs to Berzack, according to a recorded message. He did not respond to a voicemail message from The New Mexican seeking comment on the school’s status.
McCarty also did not return a call from seeking comment on whether she would pursue a plan to reopen the school.
The Secondary Learning Center wasn’t McCarty’s first attempt to open a Santa Fe school. In both 2011 and 2012, she applied to the New Mexico Public Education Commission, which oversees state-chartered schools, to open the StarShine Lisa Law Peace School on the campus of the former St. Catherine Indian School. The commission rejected the effort both times.
The StarShine Academy in Phoenix filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2016 after being unable to meet payments on a $12 million expansion. Recent records show the school was nearly $3 million in debt.
Its academic standing also has dropped in the last few years. The charter school currently ranks 48.96 on a 100-point scale, placing it below the minimum standard for Arizona schools.
The low rating was due to half of the students being refugees and decreasing enrollment, McCarty told The Associated Press.
She denied that StarShine would close in June following the charter revocation, saying she was negotiating with another charter operator to buy the property and continue operating the school, which serves about 90 students. She declined to identify the charter operator.
“My purpose was really to transfer the charter at the end of the school year to the new charter,” she said. “The other charter has been around for a long time and they have a good record.”
She disputed the allegations of inappropriate spending.
“It’s almost ludicrous. My mom taught me to look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, ‘Did I do the best I could for the most people and did I do it in service and gratitude?’ I’ve lived my life like that,” McCarty said.