Sponsor to revoke charter of KC school

WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- Central Missouri State University has rescinded an earlier decision to revoke the charter of one Kansas City charter school while notifying another that it plans to revoke its charter.

The university's Board of Governors on Wednesday rescinded an Aug. 15 decision to revoke the charter of Benjamin Banneker Charter Academy of Technology. Also Wednesday, the board voted to tell the financially strapped Kansas City Career Academy that it plans to revoke its charter in two months.

Central Missouri State oversees 10 of the city's 18 charter schools.

Banneker came under fire last spring when the university discovered the school was housed in a building that did not have a school occupancy permit. The building is a former convent that later served as a crisis pregnancy center. The university also raised concerns about the school's financial management.

The school began the fall semester in a different building. A Jackson County Circuit Court judge allowed the school to continue operating, while a judge reviewed the revocation.

The Board of Governors will permit Banneker to operate under its charter if it follows an agreement signed by both parties. The agreement stipulated that Banneker will provide several types of documentation to Central Missouri State on an ongoing basis. Also, the site director at Banneker will meet with a university representative once a week at the school.

The Kansas City Career Academy had been open just one year before failing to reopen this fall. The university had put the school on probation in June and had given it until Monday to shore up its finances.

Kyle Carter, university provost, told the governors Wednesday that the school had failed to fix its problems by the deadline.

The school could appeal the decision. But Principal Paul Williams, who founded the Career Academy with his wife, Barbara, said he was not sure whether the school would do so. He had been trying to reopen the school if it could retain its charter agreement with the university.

Financial problems

The school's financial problems stemmed from overestimating expected first-year enrollment and collecting state money based on the original estimate rather than actual enrollment. Based on the inflated numbers, the state gave too much money to the Kansas City School District, which parcels out state funds to all Kansas City charter schools.

To make up for the overpayments, the state cut its payments to the school district, which demanded that the Career Academy repay it about $450,000.

The charter school, which had about 235 students last year, could not pay the district back. Teachers at the school have not been paid throughout the summer.

Also, the state attorney general's office is looking into complaints that money withdrawn from the paychecks of Career Academy teachers was not deposited into their retirement funds.

Williams said the school thought its accountant and payroll company were putting the money in the retirement system. He added that the school made some contributions to the retirement system.

"What we wanted to do was be able to reopen so all those moneys could be repaid," Williams said. "Now I don't know how any of that could be repaid."