It's hard to hear or read media reports in Pueblo or Colorado Springs without hearing about the latest in the Cesar Chavez School Network (CCSN) saga. It's been a tumultuous week for people associated with any of the five operating CCSN schools.
The week began with a CCSN takeover of GOAL Academy, located at the Pueblo mall. Individuals reported school records being shredded, teachers locked out of the technology needed to work with their online students, and the top two administrators were fired. GOAL Academy, operating under a transition Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Charter School Institute, their authorizer, seated nine charter school board members. Dr. Lawrence Hernandez, CEO of CCSN claimed the GOAL board had no authority and told the 26 GOAL employees they either had to sign a loyalty oath or they wouldn't have a job. About half signed under duress and then all 26 employees wrote a letter to the GOAL board asking for help.
Lawrence Hernandez, and his wife Annette who is the CCSN COO, have come under fire in the past few months due to their extremely high salaries. The Colo. Department of Education is investigating the CSAP scores and the network's financials after allegations brought by the Pueblo 60 school district superintendent. Two of the charter schools in the network are authorized by Pueblo 60: Dolores Huerta Prep HS and Cesar Chavez Academy-Pueblo. CSI authorized GOAL Academy and Cesar Chavez Academy-North Colo. Springs. The fifth school is chartered by Denver Public Schools. CCA-North recently organized a governing board and gained independence through a transition MOU with CSI.
Yesterday, for the second time this week, the CSI board met via the telephone to get an update on the GOAL Academy situation and hear from their legal counsel, Tony Dyl, with the Attorney General's office. Seven CSI board members gave up a portion of their Saturday to hear a synopsis of the Friday afternoon meeting at Dolores Huerta HS with network leaders, the network board and Tony Dyl.
Tony reported the following motions were unanimously adopted by the network board:
1. Terminate the legal services of Dolores Atencio.
2. CCSN will cooperate with CSI on revocation of GOAL Academy.
3. Accept the resignation of Lawrence Hernandez and Annette Hernandez from the CCSN; however, Lawrence will remain as Executive Director of CCA-Pueblo and DHPH and Annette Hernandez will have some administrative position with the schools.
4. Accept the resignation of Jason Guerrero, CFO of CCSN, with an understanding that Jason will continue to assist CDE in the financial audit. Additionally, Jason Guerrero will now report to the board instead of Dr. Hernandez.
5. All salaries will be reviewed.
CSI board members also learned the GOAL Academy student count dropped this week by about 140 students. Next week is the official, annual Oct. 1 count to determine funding. CSI board member Joyce Shuck noted she'd visited CCA-North on Friday and the principal, Mona Contreas, was sending a letter home to parents explaining that CCA-North would probably be changing its name, but that the school would stay essentially the same with different governance.
The CSI board then moved into Executive Session to hear from their legal counsel and discuss contracts. In media reports, CSI board chair Alex Medler stated the CSI board is prepared to revoke the charters granted to CCSN, if necessary, and grant new charters to GOAL Academy's board and CCA-North's board, respectively and independently. Currently, the two CSI charters operated under a contract with the CCSN board.
The situation has been contentious for many months. This week things changed when many of Lawrence's long-time friends and supporters withdrew their support. It can be assumed the change came about from either Lawrence's highly irregular actions such as threatening staff, lacking emotional decorum in public meetings and demonstrating the need to completing control people or else the supporters have learned new evidence that has raised questions in their minds. Either way, there appears to be consensus amongst school and state leaders that Lawrence and Annette Hernandez should not remain a part of school operations.
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