Charter Teachers Want Assurances of Their Pay: Sponsor Uncertain of Toledo Site’s Future

By Ignazio Messina, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

May 11–Teachers at a troubled West Toledo charter school demonstrated outside the office of the Ohio Council of Community Schools and demanded assurances that they will be paid through the summer.

“Since it is in question that the school will be kept open, we’ve asked for a guarantee that we will be paid,” said Brady Bancroft, a math teacher at the Performing Arts School of Metropolitan Toledo.

Mr. Bancroft was among five teachers and two students carrying picket signs outside the council’s office on Executive Parkway in West Toledo.

Mr. Bancroft and other teachers said their health insurance coverage was allowed to expire without their knowledge.

The teachers said the Ohio Council of Community Schools assumed control of the charter school at 2740 West Central Ave. earlier this year and is responsible for their contracts, which state they must be paid over 12 months.

“We fear we are not going to be paid for what we deserve,” teacher Aaron Sherman said.

Allison Perz, executive director of the Ohio Council of Community Schools, said the 11-member council has not made a decision whether to keep the school open or shut it down.

Ms. Perz said she was unaware if the teachers had current health insurance benefits.

The performing arts school has had a series of problems involving operating deficits and has relocated several times in recent years.

The situation escalated during January when the three-member governing board fired the school’s executive director, Kari DiCianni, and hired a management team headed by Tom Baker, former superintendent of the Lucas County Educational Service Center, to take over.

Two of the three governing board members resigned after The Blade reported that Vince Buccirosso, Sr., one of the two other partners in the management team with Mr. Baker, was convicted of fraud in 1997 involving a United Way chapter he formerly headed in Washtenaw County, Michigan.

Jim Copley, the president and only remaining governing board member, was removed Feb. 15 by Ms. Perz.

At the time, Ms. Perz told The Blade Mr. Copley was removed because he was impeding her ability to get the facts about the school. Ms. Perz assumed control of the school, one of 45 charter schools in Ohio that the council sponsors.

State Auditor Mary Taylor started an investigation in February into the financial activities of the Performing Arts School of Metropolitan Toledo.

Ms. Perz requested the investigation after several unsuccessful attempts to obtain important financial records from the school.

The last audit of the school — for fiscal year 2004 — reported a deficit of $355,127 and a lack of proper internal financial controls to ensure the integrity of tax dollars provided to fund the school’s operation, the auditor’s office said.

Ms. Perz said the council will wait until the audit is complete before making a decision.

She estimated the school’s current debt between $200,000 and $400,000.

Ms. Perz also said it has been impossible to get new governing board members to run the school because she is “not allowed to simply appoint members.”

Additionally, “we have had tremendous trouble finding people to serve,” she said.

J.C. Benton, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education, said a charter school’s sponsor can remove governing board members when a school is on probation.

“We have received complaints and passed this on to the sponsor for resolution and required a response from the sponsor,” Mr. Benton said in a statement.

The school is now being run by Vallrey Crump, a regional representative employed by the council in the Dayton area.

The school has 94 students in grades seven through 12, Ms. Perz said.

It employs seven full-time teachers and three part-time teachers.

Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

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