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This school sucks and is a total fraud I could not get into any of the schools he told me even PBCC would not take me. Now I need to go back to West Boca High for a year and make up the year I wasted at his school :(
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Failed charter goes private; taxpayers help
His charter school in ruins after Palm Beach County shut it down for myriad academic and fiscal violations, Sheldon Klasfeld opted for an educational route with less government oversight — opening a private school in the wake of his failed public venture.
No FCAT, no school district visits, no requirement that special education students get a special education.
The defunct Academic School for the Arts, still owing $126,000 to the school district, reopened in its same suburban Boca Raton strip mall location, but this time as a private school.
And it did so with the help of taxpayer dollars.
At least four of Klasfeld's former charter school students decided to stick with Klasfeld, providing him $22,000 annually in McKay vouchers, which are for disabled students.
Department of Education records show another 10 McKay students attend classes on the main campus of Klasfeld's private school, Academic High School Inc., which is in Boca Raton.
Klasfeld says he converted his former charter school into a western campus of that private school.
Klasfeld's is not the only failed charter school that has reopened as a private school but still supports itself with public money in the form of vouchers.
Statewide, at least three other operators of failed charter schools are running private schools using an estimated $240,000 in McKay vouchers.
The average value of a McKay voucher is $5,840 a year, but can range from $2,205 to as much as $21,326 a year.
'Who is checking?'
Educators are concerned about students — especially those in need of a special education — attending private schools that couldn't meet the accountability standards of a public school district.
"If the school wasn't meeting the demands of the charter, then who is checking to see if they are meeting the academic requirements at the private schools?" said Debbie Tanguay, who is in charge of the McKay voucher program for Palm Beach County schools.
The law does not prohibit operators of failed charter schools from opening private schools, nor does it require private schools — whether they take vouchers or not — to hire certified teachers, use standardized tests, be accredited or teach a specific curriculum.
It also doesn't require schools using McKay vouchers to have special education programs or hire special ed teachers, even though McKay vouchers are specifically for students with disabilities, ranging from speech impairments to severe autism.
While bills being debated this legislative session would require private schools taking vouchers to use standardized tests, there's little to thwart failed charter school operators from reopening as private schools and nothing to increase curriculum or teacher standards for McKay students.
Rep. Don Sullivan, R-St. Petersburg, who is sponsoring the House's voucher accountability bill, said it will at least require private school owners to put up a surety bond for the amount of vouchers received.
Schools are already required to provide a letter from a certified accountant saying they are financially secure.
Sullivan is less concerned about enforcing academic standards.
"You are taking difficult students and putting them in sometimes untested locations," Sullivan said. "But these schools don't need their own certified staff. They can contract out or make arrangements for students to receive specific services elsewhere."
Klasfeld agreed, adding that sometimes one-on-one instruction is better than a special education certification.
"Love and compassion from a teacher makes the difference," he said. And his school motto is "Every student succeeds."
31 charters have shut down
Charter schools are paid for with tax dollars but are free of some state curriculum and hiring requirements.
They are operated by not-for-profit boards and are overseen by school district officials who make periodic site visits to ensure the schools follow rules such as having certified teachers and giving the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
Since 1996, when charter schools were created by state law, about 31 have been shut down for reasons ranging from lack of enrollment and financial difficulties to poor management and low academic standards.
About 220 charter schools exist statewide.
A Palm Beach Post analysis of failed charter schools showed the operators of five charters have since gone on to either open private schools using voucher money or have transferred voucher students from their failed charter schools to private schools they operate.
However, there could be more such schools. The analysis looked only for matching operator names or school addresses.
Besides Klasfeld's Academic School for the Arts, this number includes another school in Boca Raton — the Academy School of Florida, operated by Nina Kaufman.
Academy School of Florida closed last year after the Palm Beach County School District put Kaufman on a 90-day probation for problems including out-of-field and uncertified teachers, a dirty facility and lack of services and lesson plans for special education students, according to school district records.
When the charter school closed, 14 of its special education students transferred to Kaufman's private school —Academy High School of Boca Raton, which is located at another address — with $70,000 in McKay vouchers.
A total of 25 percent of Academy High School's students take McKay vouchers, although state records show the school has no specific special education program.
Kaufman, director of the charter and the private school, could not be reached for comment.
No phone, address
Two other charter schools, which operated in Seminole and Orange counties, were shut by their school districts in 2002 and reopened in the same year as one private school in Sanford called Cyber High, according to state records.
The charter schools, which were also called Cyber High, had been cited for uncertified teachers, unpaid bills and declining test scores as reasons for their closure.
Seminole County school officials filed suit against Cyber High to reclaim $267,367 worth of computers and equipment purchased with taxpayer dollars but have since given up pursuing any of the money.
State records show the new private Cyber High enrolls 31 students — 13 of whom receive some form of state voucher for tuition.
Five of the voucher students are on a McKay voucher, and eight receive corporate tax credit vouchers, which are for poor students.
Although Cyber High says it has no specific programs for special education students, it wrote on its state-required compliance form that it does offer "anger management classes, individual counseling, and teen parent training."
The phone number provided by Cyber High to the Department of Education in October rings to a woman who said she knows nothing about the school, and the only address the state has for the school is a post office box in Sanford.
The state also had no Web site listed for the school.
The fourth case of a failed charter becoming a voucher-taking private school is in Duval County, where Rader charter school was shut down for academic concerns and failure to obtain its not-for-profit status, according to state records.
Principal Sandra Armour then opened the Shekinah Christian Academy at a new address in Jacksonville with 16 students — 15 of whom receive McKay vouchers.
Like Cyber High, her school is not accredited.
Accreditation controversy
Klasfeld, a former substitute teacher who ran unsuccessfully for school board in 2002 and the House of Representatives in 2000, defended the failed charter schools.
He said the state wanted them to be innovative but then piled on so many restrictions that their creativity was hampered.
Klasfeld also criticized the push by some voucher proponents to require private schools to have accreditation.
Accreditation from most major accrediting agencies usually is expensive and requires a school to meet dozens of criteria, including its teachers having college degrees, its curriculum meeting standards and its library being adequately stocked.
Klasfeld's school is accredited by the National Private Schools Accreditation Alliance and the Florida Regional Accreditation Council Corp. in Boca Raton.
Neither of these is among the 12 major accrediting agencies in the state who have formed an umbrella group called Florida Association of Academic Non-Public Schools and who are calling for a law to limit vouchers to schools approved by one of their number.
The National Private Schools Accreditation Alliance touts on its Web site that it "does not impose any specific, pre-determined or rigid, fixed standards to become accredited. Therefore, you are not required to demonstrate a specific student to teacher ratio, length of time in business or in-house library, etc."
It also offers a "fast-track" accreditation for $2,695.
The Florida Regional Accreditation Council Corp. is headed by Marjorie Baker — Klasfeld's former budget chief at his failed charter school.
Baker did not return a phone message, but state records show Klasfeld's school is the only private school in the state accredited by Baker's agency.
"Our society has become accustomed to ask for accreditation but knows nothing about it," Klasfeld said. "I don't have all the answers, but certainly neither do the public schools."
Critics, however, say people who have failed at providing a public education should face some kind of screening before they can open a private school that takes public tax dollars.
"Things don't go well at the charter school, so they become a private entity and the state rewards them by giving them voucher money. Lousy idea," said Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Education Association, a state teachers union. "It is emblematic of the current problems with vouchers."
