Arkansas’ Own ‘Empire’ Should Have Paid Finn Better
Edited January 18, 2019 to add the footnote designated ***.
Today, I learned about something called a “Mook-Face Turn.” This is a plot device in which an evil henchman becomes a righteous ally, for any of a number of reasons.
Consider the character Finn, in Star Wars’ “The Force Awakens.” He begins as a stormtrooper, known only by a number. However, when he witnesses the needless violence perpetrated by the First Order, Finn deserts his post and switches sides to fight alongside Rey (you know, the one who stole the sacred Jedi texts so she could train herself.)
What should Captain Phasma have done if she wanted to prevent Finn from deserting? I mean, she was already brainwashing her stormtroopers from birth. Propaganda was part of their daily lives. How else could she keep them from leaving the dark side?
Honestly, maybe Captain Phasma should have just paid the stormtroopers better. People will put up with all sorts of wrongdoing if they’re getting paid enough.
Consider the (nonfictional) example of former “Executive Director of Marketing and Communications” Heather Holaway, working at Arkansas’ own “First Order” school, Haas Hall Academy.
As you might remember from my previous blog posts, Haas Hall Academy (an open-enrollment charter school) is the top-rated high school in Arkansas. The State Board of Education has inquired into allegations of “creaming” (a phenomenon where charter schools deliberately — but illegally — exclude all but the brightest students from enrolling in their “public” schools, in order to get extra incentive money from state coffers,) but that has never slowed the school for long. Haas Hall Academy has been anointed to take over the charter school business in northwest Arkansas.
Soon, if Washington County Judge Joseph Wood* and the Republican Party of Arkansas get their way, Haas Hall superintendent, Dr. Martin Schoppmeyer, Jr., might get control of the charter school business for the entire state.
And yes, it is a business — complete with profits that come from taxpayer money— for Schoppmeyer, and for his investors. If you’re looking to make a buck in charter schools, Forbes has published a handy how-to here.
But back to my point: Heather Holaway took a job at Haas Hall Academy in 2015 — just in time to save the school from State Board of Ed criticism regarding its enrollment lottery. She testified in front of the State Board of Education on July 14, 2016 that she had updated the school’s enrollment lottery to meet a truly randomized (and thus, not racist or otherwise discriminatory) standard. Otherwise, Haas Hall would have had to answer for its history of enrolling only privileged students, despite being (technically) a public school.
In truth, it wasn’t Heather Holaway who wrote the computer code that Haas Hall ultimately stuck with, for its enrollment lottery. It was two AP Computer Science students, whom Dr. Schoppmeyer paid with envelopes of cash.
Unfortunately, Haas Hall Academy couldn’t leave well enough alone. First, they demanded access to the students’ code so they could make changes…
…Then, when Holaway expressed her objections (based on reasonable things like de-segregation laws and perjury) they fired her.
Holaway’s communications show she believes (even though it puts her at risk for perjury, since she testified — under oath, to the State Board of Education — that SHE was responsible for Haas Hall’s enrollment lottery) that Haas Hall got rid of her so that they could run a pre-recorded video “performance” of an enrollment lottery in 2018, without any objections from the her.
One of the (now in college) Haas Hall students who wrote the lottery program responded to this assertion by writing, “If the live video shows that the website crashed yet they still could get a spreadsheet of admitted kids, I’d be very curious to know how they conducted that without a functioning lottery site.”
Wait, that’s THIS school year. The current, 2018–19 school year! If Heather Holaway — as the person with the most direct experience with the Schoppmeyer family’s lottery process for Haas Hall — has reason to believe that Haas Hall is defrauding the public RIGHT NOW, why isn’t she coming forward to say something? After all, the State of Arkansas offers a cash reward to whistleblowers** whose reports of fraud lead to the recovery of state money. Why did I have to file FOIA requests (and sue to enforce them) to get this evidence?
It’s because she signed a non-disclosure agreement. Haas Hall compelled Heather Holaway to sign a confidential settlement agreement with a nondisparagement clause in order to pick up her last paycheck. Nondisclosure agreements are a ridiculous waste of paper for public employees like Heather Holaway, since they are unenforceable.
Still, she signed it. She has honored it. She needed that last paycheck. Heather Holaway was sick, and didn’t have health insurance.
Heather Holaway was scheduled to have surgery on December 7, 2017. However, effective December 1, 2017, Haas Hall Academy terminated her health insurance policy. Heather immediately expressed surprise to the school’s representative when she got the notice of termination from AR Benefits. She thought she was still employed by Haas Hall!
The school assured her she still had a job. They told her they were still paying her health insurance. Holaway kept doing her job as marketing director. She even volunteered to run the NWA School Choice Festival on January 20, 2018, in conjunction with Haas Hall superintendent Martin Schoppmeyer, as she had done the previous year.
Turns out, though, Haas Hall never really fixed their paperwork. It still says Heather Holaway resigned in July, 2017.
Even if she did change her employment status in July, that doesn’t explain why Haas Hall issued Holaway an IRS form 1099 (instead of a W-2) for the entire 2017 tax year. In protest, Holaway fired off a letter to Schoppmeyer, and sent copies to every member of the Haas Hall school board. (Of course, their public board meeting minutes show no record of their discussing this complaint.)
According to these communications between Heather Holaway and the Rose Law Firm (on behalf of Haas Hall,) Haas Hall insisted Holaway had switched to “independent contractor” status in July, 2017. That’s certainly when the school stopped withholding payroll taxes on Holaway’s wages, anyway — and when they started handwriting her checks at a higher rate.
Where was Holaway’s W-2 for January through July?
And how had the school kept her on state benefits until December 31 if she wasn’t an employee?
Arkansas would never knowingly award state employee benefits to someone who wasn’t a public employee. To me, this reeks of fraud.
Haas Hall dug in its heels and refused to fix their tax filings for Heather Holaway. In order to get her W-2 — even just for the first half of 2017 — Holaway had to:
- Play hardball with Mark Henry, of the Rose Law Firm, to “negotiate” a number for the settlement amount. (Spoiler alert: it’s the full amount she asked for, in back wages and reimbursement for things she paid on behalf of the school.)
- Allow the school to classify her as an “independent contractor” for the second half of 2017, even though she knew she had been collecting state benefits until the end of the year.
- Threaten to release a bunch of incriminating documents to the Arkansas Public School Resource Center (APSRC) and the Charter Authorizing Panel at the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE.)
I, for one, would like to know what those documents were. Heather Holaway started negotiating for her money back in January, when she wanted Schoppmeyer to sign an actual, paper contract for their ongoing “independent contractor” relationship. When that didn’t work, she sent Haas Hall an invoice. Although Haas Hall dithered and refused for four months, they certainly jumped into action immediately — and met every one of her demands — as soon as she wrote to Tripp Walter at the APSRC:
This situation will undoubtedly cause your team quite a few headaches, as I am certain that once these files are turned over, the Board of Education will want to do immediate investigations of the school’s unethical admissions (lottery) and human resources practices over recent years. I recognize that the purpose of the APSRC is to protect the interests of the school, not the Schoppmeyer family, so I am reaching out to let you know that if I again receive no response, and have to send my files to the Charter Offices this week, I will forward you a copy as well so that your team will be able to mount a proper defense that protects the integrity of Haas Hall Academy going forward. I assure you I understand the significant impact that the proof of fraudulent and frankly illegal activity being committed by the staff of Haas Hall Academy will be a devastating problem for the school in the near future, and I am very sad that it has come to this.
Dang, girl. I hope you finally got the surgery you needed.
Shall we pause and consider why the APSRC likely stepped in and insisted that Schoppmeyer acquiesce to Holaway’s demands?
Remember that Haas Hall Academy operates on money from the Walton Family Foundation. Remember that Jim Walton and his paid lobbyist, Luke Gordy, are the only two people in common between the the board of Arkansas Learns and the APSRC board — although the Zook family has a representative on both, as well.
Then, realize that a black eye for the Waltons’ “show pony” charter school in the Waltons’ home state, with Walton-funded politicians in power, would be a potential black eye for the entire Walton Family’s school privatization/charterization effort, nationwide.
You can see why the Waltons tried to dodge this one. Too bad they didn’t insist that the Schoppmeyers clean up their act, instead of just paying Holaway her hush money.
Look. Maybe you love the idea of charter schools. But do you really want every public school employee to have to fight THIS HARD to get the money they need for health care? It would take a lot of their time, energy, and focus away from the children in their care.
We have a limited amount of resources. Let’s stop wasting them on a charter school family dynasty that is proving, repeatedly, that they do not deserve our trust. Or, I guess, we could let things get bad enough that all their employees perform a “Mook-Face Turn” and become activists, like me.
I might still be a teacher if the terrible lack of employment standards enforcement hadn’t cost me my ability to nurse my baby. Heather Holaway might still be a dedicated advocate for Haas Hall Academy if they had maintained her health insurance. And Finn might still be a stormtrooper if Captain Phasma had paid him better.
Instead, Finn’s piloting the Millennium Falcon against the First Order, and Heather Holaway and I are gearing up for courtroom battles. Is this really the kind of war we want to fight, when our children are at stake?
Aren’t there better things we could be doing for our kids?
*BTW, Judge Joseph Wood isn’t the only Northwest Arkansas judge who has a personal link to Haas Hall.)
**There was another Haas Hall faculty whistleblower just a few months ago. In August, 2018, someone using the pseudonym “Bill Blast” (at least, I’m pretty sure it’s a pseudonym and not the actual artist) tried to report unlawful employment practices to the ADE. Instead of addressing the unlawful way the school had been treating its employees for years, the ADE’s response (cc’ed to Education Commissioner Johnny Key) was to assure Mr. Blast that they would look into how to advise the school to apply for the proper waivers that would “cover the teachers” for the employment practices the school wanted to use.
Hey, guess what? Waivers aren’t retroactive. If the school has been breaking the law for years and years, it is the state’s job to help the teachers get paid back for their stolen wages and extra time. Otherwise, Arkansas will be on the hook when the teachers sue the school. Just saying.
***I requested, via the Freedom of Information Act, Heather Holaway’s signed employment contract, from the 2016–17 school year. Here is the response, from Susan Bendure (who is an unpaid volunteer, and Superintendent Schoppmeyer’s sister.)
So, no contract.
