A public school district is alleging a controversial charter school network is bilking it out of more than a million dollars for potentially enrolling dozens of non-residents and charging the district for them, putting local taxpayers on the hook for kids from other towns, court documents obtained by NJ Advance Media show.
In the filings, the Asbury Park Board of Education claims College Achieve Asbury Park has refused to provide documentation to verify that nearly 300 kids in their charter school actually live in Asbury Park, possibly costing the low-income district more than $1.4 million in misappropriated public funding.
The complaint also goes as far as to allege state Department of Education officials pressured the Asbury Park school board into releasing funds to College Achieve in board officials believed to be a good-faith exchange, only to have College Achieve take the funding and ignore subsequent pleas to verify the student residences.
In the complaint, the district also cites census data in asserting there is no mathematical possibility that all of the students who College Achieve says live in Asbury Park actually live there.
The claims are laid out in court papers filed in April with the state Department of Education’s Office of Controversies and Disputes and the state Office of Administrative Law.
College Achieve has disputed the allegations in a motion for emergent relief filed with the state Department of Education, calling Asbury Park’s conduct “patently unlawful” and describing the district’s claims as “unproven allegations of non-residency.”
The complaints are the latest in a string of allegations of financial and ethical impropriety against the College Achieve network, and amid calls from three state senators for a formal investigation into the growing charter school empire. All told, the seven highest paid officials in the College Achieve Public Schools network made nearly $2.4 million in combined total compensation, or about 19% of the network’s $12.4 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending in June 2022, according to tax documents.
“It’s decimating our public school system and enriching them,” Asbury Park board finance chair Wendi Glassman said in an interview with NJ Advance Media. “Our taxpayers are furious at the tax burden that they’re bearing each year. This is a theft of their funds.”
Out of 338 kids enrolled in College Achieve and claiming to reside in Asbury Park for the 2023-24 school year, only 53 have had their residences confirmed by the school district, according to the documents. Five were rejected as not being Asbury Park residents.
Charter schools receive funding directly from the school districts that send children to the charter school. That means students from Asbury Park who attend a charter school bring thousands of dollars in taxpayer funding with them from the district to the charter school.
If the kids don’t actually live in Asbury Park, taxpayers are footing the bill to educate kids who don’t reside in their community.
The Asbury Park school district has about 1,500 students, but enrollment has been dropping for several years, due in part to students leaving for charter schools. About 39% of the district’s students are considered economically disadvantaged, according to the state’s latest statistics.
“At budget time, these estimates have forced the District to cut staff and programs and find alternative means of funding to satisfy these ‘unverified’ enrollment counts,” according to the documents.
Two other nearby charter schools — Hope Academy and Academy Charter — have complied with requests for documentation from the Asbury Park board, the filing shows. Academy Charter has verified 116 of 128 students, and Hope Academy has verified 198 of 229 students.
Only College Achieve has failed to verify such a large amount of students, according to the documents.
In response, College Achieve filed for emergent relief, saying that “every one of the students had already been registered as domiciled in the Asbury Park District, after submission of residency proofs.”
College Achieve “is quickly running out of state and local funds to operate,” the filing states.
Harry Lee, president and CEO of the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association, the state’s leading charter school advocacy group, said districts who implement residency verification protocol are required to do so for all students, not just those in charter schools. He also said residency disputes must be resolved in a hearing, and that funding cannot be withheld during that process.
Lee also cited state Department of Education rules requiring any residency verification process to be “applied equally to all students who live in the district.”
Among the most explosive charges made in Asbury Park’s filing is an assertion that it’s impossible that College Achieve can be enrolling as many Asbury Park students as it claims. The filing cites census data, contending that when adding up the number of Asbury Park students combined in College Achieve, Hope Academy and Academy Charter, it amounts to more school-aged students than depicted in the most recent census numbers.
“The comparatively low estimated enrollment based on census data suggests that many or all of the College Achieve students claiming to reside within Asbury Park whose residence has not been verified do not, in fact, reside within Asbury Park,” according to the filing.
These claims were not addressed by College Achieve in its emergent relief filing.
Jacob Waters, an account director from Larson Communications, a public relations firm representing College Achieve, said “this is an ongoing legal matter, so we have no comment beyond our filings.”
The latest development comes as the College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS) network is faced with criticism follwing recent NJ Advance Media investigations into their executive salaries, operations and even its varsity boys basketball team.
State Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, who serves as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has called for a formal investigation into CAPS in a letter sent to acting state Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer. State Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, and State Sen. Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, also have called for a state inquiry.
The current conflict between the Asbury Park school board and College Achieve dates to spring 2023, whenAsbury Park implemented new procedures for all new students to follow, requiring them to produce specific documentation to prove residency in Asbury Park, according to the filing.
Many other school districts across New Jersey, including Newark Public Schools, Teaneck Public Schools and Paterson Public Schools, require proof of residency to enroll in charter schools.
In spring of 2023, the Asbury Park school board “noted that proper and current residency verification had not been formally and accurately implemented throughout the district for several years,” according to the documents. “In response, the administration put in place new procedures for all new students to follow and to produce specific documentation to prove residency in Asbury Park.”
Letters were emailed to each charter school, including College Achieve, on Aug. 15, 2023, directing them to have students’ parents/guardians visit the Parent Center, a building in Asbury Park, to verify their residency. Verification was asked to be completed by Sept. 29, 2023.
On Sept. 22, 2023, Asbury Park received a letter from Johnston Law Firm, representing College Achieve, noting their intention not to comply with the request, documents show.
About a month later, instead of directing parents/guardians to the Parent Center, College Achieve sent multiple envelopes of documents with student records to the Asbury Park board of education offices, according to the filing.
“Of the 340 student residency records sent, 35 student documents were deemed to be residents of the Asbury Park School District for the 2023-2024 school year,” the filing said.
In the brief filed for emergent relief, College Achieve claims the Parent Center is not regularly open, and that “Asbury Park District officials attempt to counsel the parents against enrolling at the charter school, which is coercive.”
The following month, Asbury Park board members met with Monmouth County interim superintendent Lester Richens, former state Department of Education senior advisor Julie Bunt and several other officials to discuss the situation, according to the filing. During the meeting, the Asbury Park board was advised to “quiet the noise” and release the payments due to College Achieve, the filing said.
“Bunt characterized Asbury Park as not cooperative, ‘unreachable,’ and ‘out of line’ for requiring College Achieve to adhere to the residency verification process,” according to the filing.
Richens did not immediately respond to questions sent through the state Department of Education. Bunt, who no longer works for the state Department of Education, was unable to be reached for comment.
Over the next month, College Achieve and Asbury Park remained at an impasse. On Jan. 26, another meeting was called between Asbury Park officials, Richens and Bunt, according to the filing. At that meeting, Asbury Park board members were told to cooperate with College Achieve and to release the December 2023 and January 2024 payments to the charter school.
Afterward, Asbury Park released the funds to College Achieve and emailed the school to make plans for parents there to verify addresses for their children.
College Achieve did not respond to the email, and did not communicate again with the Asbury Park board, according to the documents.
“To our knowledge, the NJDOE officials with whom we met have done nothing further to require College Achieve to abide by its commitment made at the meeting of January 26,” the documents say.
The issue, meanwhile, has crippled Asbury Park’s school district, which recently voted to cut 27 teachers and other jobs. It’s also facing a 20% cut in state aid under Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposed budget — one of the biggest cuts in the state.
For the Asbury Park board members, they’re frustrated by what they described as a lack of cooperation from College Achieve. Other area charter schools have been responsive in resolving issues, they said.
“We look at this as you’re using public funds,” Glassman said. “This is a breach of public trust.”
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Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
