#AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal

Nick Melvoin’s Vote In Support Of Failed Charter School Repudiated

School board member was in the minority on the vote to deny Prepa Tec’s renewal. California’s State Board of Education upheld the board’s decision.

“The CDE (California Department of Education) notes that a negative year-end fund balance could jeopardize PTLAH’s (Prepa Tec High School) fiscal sustainability since the school’s liabilities could not be satisfied even if all of PTLAH’s assets were liquidated.”

- LAUSD Charter School Division

There are not many better examples of a failed charter school than Prepa Tec High School. It is so unstable that it admits to having had a 100% turnover in its administration and a loss of 50% of its teachers. Academically, only 3.26% of this school’s students met state standards in math. Its audited financials show that at the end of the last school year, the school was $485,718 in debt and had no cash reserves. Despite all of these failures, the leadership of this sinking ship is so clueless that it describes the school as being the gold standard model of education.

Ignoring the school’s lack of seaworthiness, LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin joined Monica Garcia in voting to allow it to sail for another five years. Fortunately, the five other members of the board did not ignore Prepa Tec’s inability to serve its students and denied the request to renew the charter petition.

Instead of concentrating on a plan to wind down operations and assist their student body in transitioning to new schools in August, the school’s leadership appealed the LAUSD’s decision to the State Department of Education. Following the rare unanimous recommendation of the state Advisory Commission on Charter Schools to deny the renewal, the state board upheld the denial by the Los Angeles School Board.