A state audit released this week cited Next Frontier Academy, a defunct West Akron charter school, for shoddy record-keeping and taking money for students it couldn’t prove existed.
The audit also found the school was overpaid by the Ohio Department of Education, which failed to inform the school’s public board about issues handled by Next Frontier’s private management company.
Auditors could not quantify the cost of misleading enrollment figures but did ask that the shuttered school repay $47,688 in money for career education. Where the other $450,000 in state aid went remains a mystery as the state adds the misspending to the more than $25 million in penalties yet to be repaid by Ohio charter schools.
Next Frontier opened three years ago in a Copley Road church; it failed to find success teaching farming to city students and sparked a state investigation.
Auditors have concluded their examination of the academy, which received more than $500,000 in taxpayer funding between 2013 and 2015 before becoming the 200th charter school to fail in Ohio.
A Beacon Journal investigation last year found incomplete student records and police reports detailing assaults on staff and students.
The charter school encouraged hard work and promised to pay students for washing dishes and cooking food, which they grew through partnerships with local farms. The food was subsequently sold in area stores. But students who were promised compensation received no pay.
The Ohio Department of Education approved extra tax funding to pay for the “Career-Technical Education” program. ODE began docking some of that funding in December 2015 when enrollment records didn’t add up. But auditors could find no indication that the school’s board or sponsor, Tri-County Educational Service Center, was made aware.
“As of June 1, 2015, neither the sponsor nor the Board have received direct notification of mention of the CTE funding being problematic from either ODE or the Office of Community Schools,” the audit stated.
State auditors did discover that student records lacked birth certificates or proof of residency — items essential to ensuring students exist and that state funding is being diverted from the right local school district.
Three students were absent for more than 105 consecutive hours, after which state law for charter schools says they should have been removed from the roster. The school kept them on the roster. Two more students were found to be attending another school while the state continued to give their per-pupil funding to Next Frontier Academy. (State law requires school districts to verify residency for students, though auditors and the Beacon Journal could not do that with the scant records available.)
Auditors also noted that the contract between the school board and Blue Lake Management, the operator, sent 95 percent of state funding directly to the private company, which did not detail how it was spent.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com.