WA State Charter Group Used Uncertified Teachers...for an Entire School Year

Via KUOW:

Teachers who lacked proper accreditation taught at charter schools in Seattle and Tacoma, in violation of state rules. This was discovered through an audit; State Auditor Pat McCarthy called these findings “unprecedented.”

The state audit found that Summit Sierra and Summit Atlas, schools in Seattle, and Summit Olympus, a school in Tacoma, received nearly $4 million in funding related to the positions, which may now need to be repaid. 

The Washington State Auditor's Office made the discovery in the course of routine 2019-2020 school year accountability audits of the three schools, which are the Washington locations of a California-based charter school network. Summit Sierra and Olympus are high schools, and Atlas includes middle and high school.
Now charter law says that the school must have certificated teachers OR, à la Teach for America, the teacher must be in the process of getting certificated. This does not appear to be the case here.

"What's unprecedented about this is the fact that it extended over the course of the full academic year," McCarthy said. "It wasn't that somebody didn't have it for a month or two months, and then was able to start the process."

Unbelievably, this is the reply from the charter group's lawyer answer:

In a formal response to the audit findings, an attorney for Summit Public Schools challenged all of them, and the state's repayment calculations.

Interestingly, here's what the charter group says:

"We have since strengthened our systems to ensure these inadvertent reporting issues will not happen again," said Kate Gottfredson, spokesperson for Summit Public Schools. "We will work with the [Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction] to develop an appropriate plan to address the findings."

Now, as Diane Ravitch says, why Summit thought this was a "reporting" problem and not an actual going-against-the-charter-law problem is unclear but I say - good luck with that.

OSPI is putting together a bill for the Summit Public Schools group.

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