Charter School Makes Closure Official

“Over, finished, gone, done, out!”

– Fīnalē by Anthrax

After punting last week with a resolution to “suspend educational operations,” the North Valley Military Institute (NVMI) Board of Trustees was forced to meet again on Friday, August 25, 2023. The meeting began with an announcement that five members had resigned, reducing the size of the Board to five. For some reason, members whose terms had expired on June 30, 2023, were still included, highlighting the continued incompetence of this body.

The only action item on the agenda of the meeting was the consideration of "a resolution to voluntarily surrender the charter of the Charter School and close due to lack of viable facilities effective close of business August 31, 2023, and appoint Kellie Jackson…responsible for closure-related activities." Before voting, the public was allowed to speak.

The leadership at NVMI had been lying for so long about the allegations made against the school that parents and students seemed to have a hard time accepting the severity of the operational deficiencies. Teetering on bankruptcy and lacking a legal space to operate, the board had no path forward. Yet, the parents who spoke begged the Board to vote against the proposal to surrender the charter.

Even worse, the concerns expressed over the past several weeks about the negative effects resulting from the school's lack of an orderly transition plan seem to be borne out by the experiences of these parents. One has a child who is still not enrolled in another school:

"My student has been sitting at home all week. The home school to which he is supposed to attend, I don't like that school and I don't want to put him in that school. I'm asking you to please keep the school open."

Another has children whose views against other schools have been so poisoned that they have both rejected their new educational homes less than a week into the new school year:

My kids tell me: "Mom, I don't like the school... Mom, I don't want to go. I'm a single mom and I don't know what to say to them. I don't know what to do. They don't want to go to school.”

With cult-like devotion, these families are convinced that NVMI is the only school that can meet their needs. This goes against a reality where test scores showed that the school was failing badly. Only 1% of the students were meeting or exceeding math standards on the CAASPP.

As the agency that allowed NVMI failures to go on for so long, the Los Angeles Office of Education (LACOE) needs to devote resources to help these students. This includes supporting their new schools as they assist students in dealing with the emotional trauma of the closure and recovering from academic deficits. The 20.8% of NVMI students who have documented disabilities need to have their IEPs revisited to ensure that they are receiving the services they need.

LACOE also needs to ensure that a complete investigation is performed to document precisely what went wrong at this charter school. This includes directing the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) to finish the ongoing extraordinary audit looking into the over $90,000 spent on a staff retreat to Las Vegas that has been classified by LACOE as a possible example of "fraud, misappropriation of funds, and…illegal activities." Having a final audit report is the only way that controls can be put into place to prevent these types of abuses from occurring in the future. It will also provide the foundation for possible criminal prosecution if any laws are found to have been broken.

On several occasions, NVMI leadership has called me out personally for bringing about the closure of the charter school. With the multiple ways that NVMI and VOCES students were harmed by this school, including those who were traumatized by alleged sexual abuse at the hands of a man said to be the Godson of "superintendent" Mark Ryan, I will eagerly take responsibility for the part I played. I also recognize the difficulties faced by former students and want to do anything possible to help them to succeed. Should they want to reach out to me by email, my address is [email protected].

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.