Amid pressure to close, charter school chooses to become private

A Lauderdale Lakes charter school accused by the Broward School District of forgery and frivolous spending announced Tuesday it will convert to a private school.

The district went to court to close Pathways Academy Charter School after a damning audit and troubling site visits. Pathways opened in 2013, and the vast majority of its students come from impoverished families.

Administrative Law Judge Robert Meale ruled the district had good reasons to shutter the school, including program deficiencies, inflated student enrollment and forged teacher signatures on evaluations and other documents.

He also said the school failed to maintain vaccination records, misspent funds and failed to pay on time more than $13,300 in federal taxes. The order noted that the Internal Revenue Service placed a lien against the school until early 2016.

According to state law, student achievement should be the most important factor when determining whether to close a charter. But Christopher Norwood, who represents Pathways, said Broward disregarded that.

A larger percentage of Pathways students passed the Florida Standards Assessments tests in most grade levels and categories when compared with other area schools. About 69 percent scored a satisfactory or better on the English-Language Arts section while just 32 percent at nearby Park Lakes Elementary did, according to state data.

“They just don’t want us around,” Norwood said.

Some grades, though, fared far worse. No fourth-graders earned a satisfactory score on the math section of the FSA, nor did any fifth-graders on English-Language arts or science.

Meales said Pathways’ problems outweighed any consideration of student achievement.