I’m pretty sure a lot of readers won’t get my tongue in cheek title to this article unless you happen to like the Righteous Brothers. And not just the song from “Ghost”. What is going on at Academy of Dover now? In their most recent board minutes, from 6/23/16, there were several items that raised red flags. To a casual observer, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal. But knowing their history, it spoke volumes.
There are financial issues going on. There was discussion about the settlement with Mosaica, their former management company. Last year, the school was ordered to pay on a judgment by the Superior Court for an amount over a million dollars. Along with some academic issues, this caused them to go under formal review with the Delaware Department of Education. The eventual outcome was probation until 6/30/16.
Academy of Dover reached a $650,000 settlement with Mosaica, of which $500,000 has been verified as paid. The remaining $150,000 due to Mosaica was broken up in three payments of $50,000 due by the end of July for the next three years. A payment of $50,000, based on the original settlement, was due to Mosaica by 7/31/16. At their June board meeting though, there was discussion about settling again with Mosaica. There was talk about “the monetary issues dealing with the Mosaica issue”. The board voted on a motion regarding this “monetary issue” with a bizarre footnote that one of their board members, Dr. Charles Fletcher, had voted no on the Mosaica settlement.
Further adding to the financial mystery, the board announced they had a silent auction for “items sitting in the shed for two years” on June 16th. They didn’t reveal how much revenue they received from this endeavor nor why it was held. There was talk during a board meeting some months ago about trying to sell items former Principal Noel Rodriguez purchased illegally with school funds. Rodriguez returned many of the items to the school.
While not completely verified, the school is having some staffing issues. Rumor has it they got rid of their entire special education staff and will have about nine new teachers this year. While they showed increases in their Smarter Balanced scores across the board, that doesn’t always translate into more students. They appear to be down in enrollment but not to the level where their charter would be affected. But they are up for charter renewal this fall, so expect to hear a lot more about this.
Back to their finances, what is interesting is their final FY2016 budget. It appears the school overestimated on a lot of their expenditures. As a result, they will have to base their FY2017 budget on those final expenditure amounts based on Delaware state law. This could be causing some of their financial issues as well.
I got the above part wrong folks! Sorry about that!
And then there is always the looming shadow about Noel Rodriguez. Will Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn ever press charges against him? As always, we wait… and wait… and wait…
The Season Of Myths 