It doesn’t just happen in charter schools. According to WBOC, former Dover High School teacher Brian Ogbin gave himself up to the Dover Police last Friday and was charged with theft under $1500 and unlawful use of a payment card under $1500. So how does it work that this guy gets arrested for theft under $1500 but charter school leaders and employees from Family Foundations Academy, Academy of Dover, and Providence Creek Academy get away with stealing funds in the five to six digits and NO arrests have been made? It has been over nine months since the State Auditor report came out on Academy of Dover.
Ogbin resigned as a teacher with the Capital School District at their February board meeting. According to the article, the theft of funds using the debit card and funds taken from a wrestling fundraiser were discovered following an investigation. The article does not state who held the investigation. I would imagine cash advances from Dover Downs totaling over $500 would have sent some red flags flying though. How many debit or p-cards (state procurement cards) are floating around out there ready for someone to use at a moment’s notice for stuff like this? While I’m glad this situation was discovered relatively fast compared to the charter school stuff going on out there, where are the controls that could stop this from happening in the first place? Should school “clubs” or “organizations” be allowed to have their own control over funds generated by the district and fundraisers?
My biggest concern with all of this is the sheer hypocrisy involved. I’ve been told by some in the know that something will happen with these charter school leaders. That was in November. I have asked “larger organizations” about this. How long does it take to build a case against a charter school employee while a traditional school district employee is arrested for something similar but less egregious? It makes it very hard to believe there will be accountability for the charter thieves in light of this. They absconded with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Matt Denn, what is the Department of Justice doing about this?
The Season Of Myths 
Public School has teacher arrested for spending $55 on groceries because he was short in a checkout line, which he paid back. Charter Schools not only ignore theft of $2.5 million by Charter school authorizers but ask for more state funds… So tell me, which one is the more accountable?
WE need to get rid of all charter schools.. Time to bring up that bill being floated which makes all districts the authorizer of all charter schools within their boundaries… Let’s ban Charter Schools in Delaware….
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I don’t think that banning charter schools is the answer, but arresting criminal certainly is. The bullshit with FFA is going to come to a head. As Kevin reported, there is a D&O claim. You’d better believe is a D&O claim is paid out to FFA, that insurance company is going to want to have somebody’s ass!!!
Instead of banning schools, why not make them ALL accountable. Treat them like grown ups, and hold their asses accountable.
The state is on the way to doing something right, they did revoke Brewington’s teaching credentials. Now maybe they will throw her in jail too. You never know.
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I agree. Banning all charters for one large infraction IS an over-step of grand proportion. I certainly wouldn’t want to be penalized simply by an association I had, with someone who did wrong of which with I had nothing to do.
I also agree we should treat them like grownups. Unfortunately the Charter system of running schools independent of oversight, almost “prevents” the treatment of its officers as grownups. They don’t really break the law because in Charter schools, there is no law. That was the whole point of establishing charters, to find ways creatively to educate children free of the encumberments current laws on public schools imposed. To protect this clause, charters keep a powerful lobby in the Charter School Associations on rotation through Legislative Hall. It has vast resources which can if not be used explicitly, be used implicitly to threaten lawmakers to look to their own best interests in the next upcoming election, over those of all children of their constituents.
And I’d agree, even that is a stretch…
But if I happened to tell you that for every student who goes to a charter, 4 public school students get hurt by it, would that be a good reason to reign in charters?
Just the math alone, gaining 4 negatives to achieve 1 positive, sends the overall total in the wrong direction.
That is enough reason to ban charters altogether. Simple math.
The corruption of charter officials, is just being used by me to draw attention to the fact that charters are like leeches who suck the blood out of public schools, based off an old fashioned idea, and we’d be all better off without them.
Bottom line. Is that on most of what you wrote, we agree.
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Kavips, Can you tell me how sending 1 kid to a charter hurts 4 other students? Serious question. Thanks.
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I’ve illustrated it extensively over the past years with charts, proof from other districts, etc… I ‘ll come back to refer you to those at some later time. But a very quick answer, is that there is a finite pie of resources available to all students, both Charter and Public…. In Delaware, we are approximately around 18% charter, so for math purposes I round that up to one in five.
So since the total financial pie is finite, for every amount of money you move to follow a child from public to charter, those other four still in public schools, now have less money being spent on them…
That is the gist. In personal terms, if you have an income of $50,000 and loose 20%, you now have an income of $40,000… You can’t tell me your children benefit as well in a $40,000 environment as they did in a $50,000 one. Your other costs remain the same…
That is how siphoning money away from public schools actually causes detriment to 4 out of 5 children based on our states charter attendance percentage…
I hope that helps with the BIG picture.
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I appreciate you responding….I am relatively new here, so likely have not seen the illustrations and charts.
I am not trying to be obtuse, but if both the charter and public schools have say $50,000 split between the two, then if a child moves from a public school to a charter isn’t the money just being reallocated, not really being taken away from the other children? If say 5 kids have $50,000 in public schools, which is $10,000 for each kid, then when that one child moves to a charter they only take their $10,000 and that leaves each child at a public school $10,000….I might be missing something here.
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