There are too many unanswered questions on the use of tax dollars in this latest local politicians make money by running a charter school into the ground.Who was involved and how much did they pocket? More importantly what did they provide to get the money. An audit from start to finnish needs to be run by an outside law inforcement agency. If State money was used then the State AG needs to investigate and if needed prosecute.

   ADELANTO • As Adelanto Charter Academy loses its charter two years after opening, details are emerging about the school’s desperate shape and ties it had to locals caught up in what’s been called the largest corruption scandal in San Bernardino County history.  

  Last week the Adelanto School District revoked the charter of the small school that now has about 63 students at the former George Middle School off McCoy Circle, citing concerns over rampant charter and education code violations revealed in a November audit.   

Day-to-day operations at the school were the responsibility of Principal Jennifer Ruiz, a former Hesperia assistant principal, and Professional Charter Management Inc., run by local developer John Dino DeFazio.   

Ruiz asked her boyfriend of 18 months, Bill Postmus, former county assessor and 1st District supervisor, to help with the charter school project, Postmus said Tuesday by email.   

“I agreed to do what any boyfriend would do and assist her where I could. Once we broke up, I ceased to talk with her and I moved on from her and everything associated with her,” Postmus wrote. “It saddens me to see the closure of this local charter school.”   

Postmus pleaded guilty in March to three felonies for his role in a far-reaching bribery scandal centered around a $102 million settlement the county paid to private developer Colonies Partners LP. DeFazio, a personal friend and real estate partner of Postmus, is facing two felony perjury charges for allegedly lying to the grand jury about a political action committee prosecutors say was secretly controlled by Postmus and used to funnel a bribe from Colonies. Postmus faces up to five years in prison, and if convicted DeFazio faces up to four.   

And while Adelanto’s first charter school crumbles, so have plans Postmus , Ruiz and DeFazio reportedly had to build a network of charter school programs across the country. The venture would have involved a parent company overseeing an educational firm that handled preparing charters for approval, along with potential real estate and financing arms.   

“Once Ms. Ruiz and I broke up the entire plan was discontinued and we decided not to move forward with the potential project,” Postmus said by email.   

DeFazio acknowledged a plan with Postmus involved opening charter programs outside of California, including Arizona, Florida and Idaho — but DeFazio stressed it had nothing to do with the now-embattled ACS.   

When ACS opened in fall 2009, it had wide support from San Bernardino County and city officials and community leaders. The school aimed to serve low-income students struggling in traditional settings through character-building curriculum and after-school programs at the Boys and Girls Club of the Victor Valley.

The original site was at the club, on Montezuma Street west of Highway 395.  

  In October 2009, the ACS Board of Directors entered into contracts with two of DeFazio’s companies, Professional Charter Management and Educational Development Inc., school records show.   

ED was hired to develop the school’s structure and boost enrollment, and DeFazio said it wasn’t intended to have a longterm contract.   

“My whole thing was to help start it up to help the kids,” DeFazio said, having personally loaned the school about $40,000 for startup costs. He said most of that loan was repaid but overall he lost money on the project.   

PCM was hired to perform the daily operations of the school, and DeFazio said he worked with consultants in Florida to help Ruiz.   

But a scathing audit conducted by the Adelanto School District in November found PCM wasn’t doing its job.   

“The contract for services is not strictly enforced and even minimal administrative requirements are not being accomplished,” states a letter from ASD Superintendent Darin Brawley to the charter school, also noting the district had to step in to submit required data on students, staffing and special education.   

The audit found the school was mired with fiscal mismanagement, shoddy record-keeping, hazardous food handling, overstaffing — at five teachers for 75 students — and more violations. The situation put both students and the district at risk, the audit found.   

On Oct. 26 the ACS board fired Ruiz and terminated contracts with DeFazio’s companies . Re quests to speak to the ACS board members, which now include William Flores, Helene Harris and Peter Lounsbury, went unreturned.    Ruiz denied any violations under her leadership.    “When I was there everything was in place. ... For the current administration of Adelanto Charter Academy to project their current situation on me is completely unfounded,” Ruiz said by phone Monday. “It’s just unfortunate that this is where it’s come to and I wish them well.” She declined to comment further.   

The district’s probe was triggered largely by a complaint filed by Jill Watson, human resources consultant and former Spring Valley Lake board member.  

DeFazio had hired Watson around August to look into “rumors” the school wasn’t keeping proper records. She found no employees, including Ruiz, had fingerprint checks as required by state law and improper reporting of student records, daily attendance and employee files.   

On Sept. 17 DeFazio fired Watson. She sent the district a letter about her findings five days later.    “(Watson) made accusations which ended up being true but she didn’t produce the documents ...” DeFazio said. “I wanted the proof to see what she was doing wrong and I wasn’t going to act without proof.”   

Both DeFazio and Ruiz said an independent audit, which wasn’t available as of Tuesday night, had found no major issues prior to the district’s report.   

“On the surface when I went over there it looked really good,” DeFazio said. “Maybe as a management company I should have asked to see the actual fingerprints but I was told it looked good ...”    Despite the violations, DeFazio said he thinks the students were getting a quality education. He noted Ruiz was well liked by parents and students, organized popular field trips and provided its poorest families with food, rent and utility help.   

Hesperia Unified School District board member Anthony Riley was hired to boost enrollment and help the school expand into kindergarten and independent-study programs. He was paid $6,500 for five months of work through March 2010, but said to his knowledge Ruiz didn't execute the plans.   

During the school’s first year, Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Mark Sawyer made some concerning  observations, such as students not having the books or materials they needed to do their homework. He was not able to get the school to pay for damage to the club’s equipment.

The school moved to its new site near the former George Air Force Base for the 2010-11 year.  Peggy Baker, who was hired in November to help train teachers and improve special-education services, said she arrived to find a school unlike any she’d seen in her 30 years of teaching.    “It was a nightmare; there wasn’t even a telephone, no working computers ... we had to construct everything from scratch,” Baker said.  

But over the past six months, she said she’s watched a “miraculous turnaround.” She called the revocation a “crushing blow” to students who’ve excelled through improved resource s , incentives and structure.   

David Pike, the interim director hired to fix the school’s issues, said he’s confident all past violations have been corrected and, if given the chance, the school could move forward successfully.   

“The learning atmosphere has become much less strained than when I got there and there seemed to be a lot of tension or anxiety,” Pike said. “We came in to try to salvage and save the school, and I thought our team did a real good job of that. Unfortunately I’m sad to say our mother district didn’t with it.”

Citing concerns over fiscal mismanagement, shoddy record-keeping, hazardous food handling and other egregious violations, the Adelanto School District has revoked the charter from Adelanto Charter Academy.   

The move followed a scathing audit of the school conducted by the district in November that concluded “the overwhelming number of operational, fiscal and programmatic issues with the Adelanto Charter Academy has impacted the ability of the district to continue to authorize the school.”   

However David Pike, the school’s new interim director, said since he arrived in late October the school has been working to remedy all issues and has since resolved most of the problems.   

He called the revocation the board voted on this past week “unjustified.” He plans to appeal the district’s revocation before the San Bernardino County Board of Education in coming weeks.   

“We’re not arguing there were issues here in November. It’s just that those have been fixed,” Pike said by phone Friday. The school will continue to finish out its school year ending in June.   

The school’s deficiencies in food preparation and service constituted “a severe and imminent threat to the health and safety of students,” the November audit found, and a litany of problems including deficit spending, overstaffing and insufficient long-term planning put both the school and district at risk.   

“It’s one thing to address them. I for one was not convinced they were remedied,” Board President Carlos Mendoza said by phone Friday. “We had some serious concerns with how it was set up, how it was run, how it’s being funded.”   

In a letter he sent home to parents, Pike said the district’s concerns “were directly related to the poor decisions and actions of ACA’s previous administration.”   

ACA , wh i c h n ow serves 63 students at McCoy Circle and Nevada Avenue, opened in 2009 as the district’s first charter school under the leadership of then-Principal Jennifer Ruiz.   

Against the advice of ASD Superintendent Darin Brawley and legal counsel, the school board approved the charter on a split vote in August 2009. District staff had cited concerns over a non-comprehensive governance structure and insufficient three-year budget plan before it went up for approval.   

Ruiz had touted the school’s focus on small classes, character building and after-school programs.   

The charter school’s board fired Ruiz in fall 2010 and brought on Pike, who has 13 years of experience teaching at charter schools and last taught at Excelsior Education Center.    Ruiz did not return a Friday call for comment. Requests to speak to the charter board members also went unreturned Friday.   

The school’s current board members are William Flores , Helene Harris and Peter Lounsbury, according to Pike. Hesperia Councilman Russ Blewett served on the board until he resigned in October, when he accused other board members of Brown Act violations and making decisions outside of the appropriate forum.   

Pike acknowledged that by the time he got to the school, the recordkeeping was horrible and there were rampant education and charter code violations.   

Nobody on staff had a food handler’s card, and lunches were frequently prepared off site or provided by outside vendors such as restaurant delivery, Pike said. There was no monitoring of food temperature. There were no menus and eating surfaces weren’t sanitized, the audit found.   

Pike said shortly after he arrived he obtained his own food handler’s card. The school began contracting with the district for appropriate food services.   

The school was also overstaffed, with five teachers for about 75 students, according to Pike. The district pegged the school’s Average Daily Attendance at 60 students.   

“We actually had to let two of the teachers go,” Pike said. “There was one teacher who had a class the size of five or six students. The ratio didn’t warrant having so many people on board.”   

Now, three teachers run a grades K-1-2 combination class, a grades 6-7 combination class and a grades 8-9 combination class.   

Along with too many teachers, the district audit found the school did not have evidence of fingerprinting employees or conducting criminal background checks.   

Records of charter school board meeting minutes, payroll tax reports, bank statements, student immunizations, special education student programs, personnel files and emergency procedures were incomplete or missing.   

School officials failed to report student outcomes to the public so the district had to step in and do it for them. They also failed to submit financial interim reports, make multi-year budget projections and have a longterm debt repayment plan — even though the school took out a $250,000 startup loan from the state Department of Education and another $10,000 from a charter management company.   

The school’s growth model would not sustain its operating expenses, the district audit found.  But Pike argues with reduced staffing the school’s budget is now sustainable. He said they’re operating at about $15,000 a month and that much of the trouble has been dealing with payments deferred by the state amid the budget crunch.   

He added the school has cleaned up the bulk of its record-keeping problems, contracted for special education services and filed its updated financial audit.   

ASD Board Member Elaine Gonzales voted in support of the charter school in 2009. She said she doesn’t regret her vote. She believes Ruiz had a good idea that was poorly executed.    “Some of the things she was doing with the kids were definitely good intentions,” Gonzales said. “I don’t know where along the lines that broke down. ... I don’t know what happened. I’m just sorry it did.”   

For a closer look into the management, finances and supporters of ACA and insight into what went wrong, read Wednesday’s Daily Press.

This is a cut and paste explaination from www.thehesperiafreepress.com on the Adelanto Charter Academy and the involvement of Hesperia City Council candidate Russ Blewett. Interesting to me is the partnership between DeFazio and the star prosecution witness in the Postmus-Eyler trial -Adam Aleman in the incorporation of the "company" Educational Development. Aleman looks to be playing both sides of the fence.

Adelanto Charter School Politics                             

10-28-2010
 
     Five years ago an audit was completed and forwarded to the county district attorneys office regarding the California Charter Academy (CCA) and a series of individual charter schools.
     Those persons being named in the audit were Tad Honeycutt, Steven Cox, and the now indicted former county tax assessor Bill Postmus as well as several others.
     For years there has been a political connection between Postmus, Mitzelfelt, Honeycutt, Cox, Kirk, Riley and Anthony Adams as well as others.
     Both Honeycutt and Cox were indicted as the result of the audit.  During a review of documents relating to the Adelanto charter school several names became prominent such as both Bill Postmus Jr., (former county tax assessor) Bill Postmus Sr., Russ Blewett (current Hesperia City Council candidate), Jesse Flores (Assistant to county supervisor Mitzelfelt), Dino DeFazio (currently under investigation), Cox (believed to be Steven Cox, under indictment) and other persons who act in management and administrative capacities. As of noon, 10-26-2010, Russ Blewett was the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Adelanto Charter Academy.
     Under the original CCA audit, a technique of doing business was revealed in which those manipulating the charter school money streams were making huge profits through the sales of goods and services back to the schools. There was also reference to buying and selling real estate and giving money from the schools to persons who apparently had not supplied any goods or services in exchange, and who may have had contracts under which no responsibilities were defined.
     Documentation regarding the Adelanto charter school reveals the same business structures as found in the CCA audit.  It is alleged that Mr. Anthony Riley was given $6,500 in the form of a check from the Adelanto Charter Academy for which he was required to design a program and obtain young students for a new charter school. It was said that to this date Mr. Riley has retained the money and has not performed any service under a contract. Mr. Riley is currently a HUSD board member who was defeated in the primary election this year for the 59th assembly district.
     These charter school issues, it appears, will be investigated by the local media. Of immediate importance to voters in the November 2, 2010 elections are a couple of possible local connections.
     Russ Blewett, then Adelanto Charter School Board Member, and best friend of Thurston Smith, is a current candidate for Hesperia City Council as is Thurston Smith. Both candidates are receiving campaign funding from special interest groups and Smith has received money from at least three unions.
     These unions are attempting to "buy" seats on the Hesperia City Council from which they can attempt to manipulate new wage and benefit contracts for themselves at the expense of Hesperia taxpayers.
     That Smith is knowingly associated with Blewett casts grave doubts regarding the ability of either of them to make rational decisions for Hesperia voters.