CHARTER TO SHUT DOORS AFTER YEARS OF PROBLEMS

Suncoast had struggled with compliance issues

A small San Diego charter school is closing its doors after the San Diego Unified School District found several problems with its operations.

Suncoast STEAM Academy is a school of about 80 students based in Serra Mesa. It voluntarily surrendered its charter to the school district last week.

Charter schools are privatelyrun, publicly-funded schools that must be authorized by a school district or other education agency to operate.

Suncoast was one of four California charter schools that National University started. Last year National University, a for-profit La Jolla-based system of colleges and programs, cut ties with Suncoast.

The school will close at the end of the month and has been working with current students’ families to help them find new schools for the fall. Most of the school’s students, who are in grades 6-12, are socioeconomically disadvantaged and are

Black or Latino, according to state data.

Annette Kennedy, the school’s interim director, attributed the school’s closure to low enrollment.

“It’s just not been in the best interest of the school to continue,” Kennedy said in an interview. “It’s truly bittersweet. No one wants a school to close but, in reality, a school has to have enrollment to maintain sustainability.”

According to San Diego Unified, other organizational problems have dogged the school for years.

Suncoast, formerly named National University Academy, first applied to be a charter school under San Diego Unified in 2017.

The school at the time was authorized by Lakeside Union but had to switch authorizers to San Diego Unified to comply with a 2016 court decision that required charter schools to be authorized by the district where they are physically located.

San Diego Unified initially denied the charter school’s petition to operate in 2017, citing many problems it found with the petition, including “overly optimistic” enrollment projections, vague school goals and a budget containing inaccurate information.

The district also said the school was unlikely to succeed because National University’s three other charter schools had all closed after fewer than five years.

The school rewrote its petition and tried again in 2018, when the San Diego Unified School Board approved its petition. The next year, San Diego Unified’s charter school office found more problems.

It said the school lacked a safety plan and proof of criminal background clearances and tuberculosis screenings for its employees. It also couldn’t prove it had trained its staff to report child abuse, which also is required by law, the district said.

Last July, San Diego Unified told the school it was no longer in good standing with the district.

Suncoast also has had problems separating from National University’s charter network.

“They’ve struggled, really, since the beginning with setting it up and just being a wholly separate charter school,” said Deidre Walsh, charter school director for San Diego Unified. “It’s not an easy process to take one organization and break it up.”

The school suffered another blow when its parent organization, National University, cut ties with it.

In March 2020, National University told Suncoast — then called National University Academy 1001 STEAM — it was going to sever ties with the school. The university told the school to change its name.

In a letter to the school’s then-director Kimberleigh Kopp, National University Vice Chancellor of Finance Dave Lawrence said National University’s contract with the school “no longer serves our strategic goals.”

“1001 STEAM is currently in a position to pursue a more strategically-aligned relationship with a new service provider,” Lawrence wrote.

Neither National University nor Lawrence could be reached for comment. Suncoast STEAM Academy Board President Nancy Rohland, who works for National University, did not respond to requests for comment.