Charter board has new hearing
ALA says it violated law by blocking comments
A contrite charter school board for American Leadership Academy held an emergency budget hearing Saturday night, acknowledging it did not follow state law when it blocked public comment at a similar meeting two days earlier.
The new meeting was announced after The Arizona Republic reported that ALA had refused to allow public comment at its original budget hearing Thursday, possibly violating the state’s Open Meetings Law. At least three people at that meeting said they wanted to address the board, but were barred from speaking.
A day earlier, the Republic first published an investigation on azcentral
.com that found businesses tied to ALA founder Glenn Way had made millions of dollars building campuses for the charter chain.
The Republic found that Way or his companies — thanks partly to Arizona’s favorable charter-school laws and lucrative no-bid deals with ALA — have made millions of dollars building, leasing, selling and managing the 12-school chain. Way was ALA’s board chairman until last year.
The board on Saturday took questions and comments on teacher pay, conflicts of interest regarding Way and whether ALA was properly accounting for its spending during the one-hour hearing at its Gilbert headquarters.
It also again approved a nearly $71 million budget that includes 13 percent pay raises for its teachers, which for years have been paid far below the state average for teachers in district schools, according to the records ALA files with the state.
The meeting attracted about 80 people, including many ALA families who brought their young children. The audience was told that ALA’s 12 East Valley campuses were expected to have nearly 10,000 students when classes begin in August. That’s a roughly 24 percent increase from last academic year.
The board allowed members of the public to speak as long as they wanted if the questions were about the 2018-19 budget.
The tenor was in contrast from Thursday, when the board ended its meeting in 30 minutes and refused to allow the public to comment, saying it did so on the advice of its attorney.
During that meeting, ALA executive Brent McArthur confronted Jim Hall, a charter schools watchdog who has been critical of ALA and had filed a complaint against ALA with the state Charter Board.
After Saturday’s meeting, McArthur told a reporter that The Republic had an “anti-charter agenda” and did not focus on the good things happening at ALA.
But ALA board and staff at the meeting offered Hall an olive branch.
After Hall raised several questions about whether ALA was properly documenting its spending, the board and ALA’s Chief Financial Officer Robert Plowman offered to privately meet with Hall regarding his concerns.
Hall had claimed in his Charter Board complaint that financial records ALA had submitted to he Charter Board and the Internal Revenue Service had “significant errors and omissions that could be hiding millions of dollars in waste and possible fraud.”
Board Chairman Dal Zemp also spoke with Hall after the meeting, assuring him ALA wanted to be transparent and accurate in its financial reporting.
“I’m willing to do it,” Hall said about meeting with ALA. “I’m the one filing complaints against them.”
During the meeting, community member Travis Miller asked why ALA didn’t get competitive bids to build its schools and whether there was a conflict of interest in awarding multi-million dollar contracts to Way.
He was told ALA, like other charter schools, is exempt from the state’s procurement laws. But Zemp assured him ALA paid less than market value for the schools, and the profit made by Way’s companies was less than a traditional developer.
After the meeting, Zemp told The
Republic that board members no longer have related-party business transactions with ALA.
Zemp in an interview said the contracts with Way were legal, yet he acknowledged “the optics” are not good.
“We are not hiding pockets of money,” he said.
He added the meeting was held Saturday because the Charter Board requires a budget be submitted by July 15, the next day.
The board also said they wanted to get ALA teachers on par with traditional public schools, but said charter schools do not receive the same level of total funding that traditional public schools receive.
Charter schools get about $1,000 less, on average, per student than traditional public schools when all funding sources — local, state and federal — are included. Charters, however, on average get up to $2,000 more per student in state tax dollars because they cannot get local-approved bonds or budget overrides.
Two former ALA teachers told the board there was a significant pay disparity between men and women at ALA and also with neighboring traditional public schools. Board members said they wanted to close the pay gap.
The 13 percent raise being given to ALA teachers is more than what many traditional school district boards are giving their teachers. Teachers around Arizona are receiving sizeable pay increases this academic year because of additional state funding.
The pay raise the charter chain is offering teachers will increase the average ALA teacher salary to $41,641.
That’s about $11,000 less than what Gov. Doug Ducey projects the average Arizona teacher salary ($52,725) will be this academic year.
American Leadership’s teachers were paid, on average, $37,389 in 201617, according to records ALA filed with the state Department of Education. That was about $10,000 less than the average for traditional public schools.
ALA teachers on average made even less last year. Records show the average pay in 2017-18 was $36,814.
The board on Saturday took questions and comments on teacher pay, conflicts of interest regarding Way and whether ALA was properly accounting for its spending during the one-hour hearing.