Columbus City Schools are getting plenty of calls from anxious parents after a charter school in Columbus closed its doors.
Some 300 students were left scrambling to find a place to land at the start of the school year.
The Focus on Collective Integrity Academy had survived financial trouble a year ago but its sponsor has now pulled the plug.
The authorizer or sponsor of FCI Academy, the Education Service Center of Lake Erie West or ESCLEW. Ohio Department of Education spokesman Kim Norris says the sponsor sent letters of warning 2 weeks ago to the academy that it was not in compliance.
“The school has failed to meet student performance requirements, the school has failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management, the school violated state or federal laws…”
The letter stated that FCI had 5 years of decreasing academic performance earning a grade of F by the state. Student files were even missing state test results. FCI was managed by Bishop Edgar Posey and his wife Tracey at their church Living Faith Apostolic Church.
Each student at the school brings 6000 dollars in state funding and its sponsor, the Toledo based ESCLEW collected up to 3% of those state dollars for its management fees. ESCLEW sponsors more than 60 charter schools around the state. The Columbus City schools have been getting calls from the parents of the children left without a school.