How To Start An Extended School Service
If you heed to the state Board of Education's Accountability and Back up meeting from September 2021, you might retrieve information technology was a celebratory meeting.
In video of the meeting posted to YouTube, Nick Spera, the executive director of the Interdistrict School for Arts and Communication, also known as ISAAC, enthusiastically pumps his artillery in the air as a state teaching official announces ...
"As of today, literally moments agone, four of the four cosmetic action plans have been canonical."
CT State Department of Education
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CT State Department of Didactics
The land requires Spera and ISAAC's board chairman, Richard Muckle, to nourish these meetings after the charter school of 270 students in grades 6 through eight was placed on probation last May.
The state Pedagogy Department found that ISAAC overcharged other districts that send special education students to the schoolhouse when they tried to double the hourly rate. The state also said ISAAC improperly disposed of computer equipment and lacked proper governing board oversight of school finances. In 2020, ISAAC received $iii million in federal and land grants.
"Happy to exist hither, Dr. Lopez and the committee," Spera said at the meeting. "We're proud of the work. Obviously, we worked actually hard to go to this point, but it'southward been adept work."
Probation extended
ISAAC's probation was supposed to end this month, but subsequently land officials visited the school in mid-May, the probationary menstruum was extended for at to the lowest degree vii months.
Meanwhile, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, besides known as NEASC, which accredits ISAAC, has launched an investigation into the school'due south climate after receiving complaints from former teachers.
CT Public reached out to Spera and board president Richard Muckle for interviews. Muckle declined the interview requests, saying they could not hash out personnel issues. He also said the lath is "wholly and fully satisfied with Dr. Spera's performance since his arrival in 2020."
One-time teachers and board director allege 'toxic work environment'
Ryan Caron King
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Connecticut Public
But Tunisia Melendez, a old ISAAC parent and board member, has gone public virtually issues at the school. She filed a state human rights complaint confronting Spera and the school alleging racial bigotry and harassment. Melendez says she knows all also well about ISAAC'southward lath governance issues. She says she had issues from the moment she joined the board.
"I was elected as vice chair of the board, I was elected vice chair of governance. Although I was never invited to one meeting," said Melendez.
She says that once she started questioning what was happening and why she wasn't invited to the meetings, her son started having trouble at school.
"My son was deliberately locked out of his large assignments, 200-point assignments. Couldn't never (sic) go resolved to this day," said Melendez.
She eventually pulled her son out of the schoolhouse and resigned as a board member. Melendez says board members were besides discouraged from addressing concerns of faculty and staff.
The Accountability Project spoke with three electric current ISAAC teachers, a onetime ISAAC administrator, a quondam board director and at least 5 former teachers from Spera'due south previous school who all declined to comment, citing fearfulness of retaliation.
Nancy Rodgers, who taught language arts at ISAAC for 7 years, says she knows that fear all too well. She besides claims she was forced to piece of work in what she calls a "toxic piece of work environment." She says that when she returned to work subsequently surgery and an extended medical leave, she wasn't given accommodations and was asked to consider retiring early on.
"It was it felt very much similar, you lot know, you lot don't look like a member of my dream squad here, you and your walker. And you know, perchance it's fourth dimension for you to simply, y'all know, effigy out something else to exercise," said Rodgers.
Ryan Caron King
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Connecticut Public
Spera's past history
This isn't the start time Spera has been accused of fostering a toxic piece of work environment. He faced complaints from staff and students at Marine Science Magnet High School in Groton, Connecticut, where he was principal before being hired to lead ISAAC. Those complaints were even mentioned by country Lath of Education member Malia Sieve during ISAAC'southward charter renewal.
"In that location are serious concerns for the students and staff at ISAAC. Concerns for their mental and emotional health and the climate of the school," said Sieve.
When contacted past The Accountability Project, Sieve said her comments from 2 years ago still stand.
Spera's controversial tenure at Marine Scientific discipline included two reprimands in 2013, co-ordinate to his personnel file. The first from May 2013 admonished Spera for "discriminatory behaviors exhibited at the schoolhouse." That same month, a school climate survey at Marine Science found that faculty experience a civilization and climate characterized equally "emotionally calumniating, manipulative and frightening."
After that twelvemonth, Spera was reprimanded once again afterwards administrators received feedback from parents who said they perceived Marine Science as a identify where special needs children were non welcome.
In 2019, complaints about Spera's leadership surfaced on social media, and as Spera was leaving the school, the district overseeing the school launched an investigation.
For Barbara Zegarzewski, who was a student support coordinator at ISAAC, Spera's past history should have been a red flag, so she wrote the board of directors.
"I was written up for talking to the lath, and I was told that I needed to apologize to Dr. Spera. I practice believe from that point forward, I essentially was a target," said Zegarzewski.
She says she was then reassigned from an authoritative position to a teaching position. Zegarzewski once once again contacted ISAAC's board, leading to a one-twenty-four hours interruption without pay and another write-upwards.
Ryan Caron Male monarch
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Connecticut Public
"Everything that the Marine Science teachers shared was happening at that school happened at ISAAC. In that location is a existent fear of teachers of retaliation," said Zegarzewski, who resigned her position after 21 years at ISAAC.
Emails obtained by CT Public evidence that multiple former ISAAC and Marine Science staff members as well as parents accept emailed state officials complaining well-nigh climate and civilization concerns.
CT Public requested several interviews from state education officials. Those interviews were not granted, simply a spokesman says they have investigated the complaints against Spera despite the local board having straight dominance over him.
The former ISAAC teachers say the retaliation continues. As this story was existence prepared, Rodgers received a letter of the alphabet from an attorney representing ISAAC, threatening a defamation lawsuit.
"I think that he should be removed for [a] design of destructive beliefs for single-handedly destroying the culture and climate of a schoolhouse that's been there for 27 years," said Rodgers.
Spera'south contract extended
Despite ISAAC'due south probationary status, provisional charter renewal and connected complaints, Spera's 2021 evaluation received the highest rating — exemplary. This past February, ISAAC's board extended Spera's contract until June 2026 with an almanac base salary of $180,000. Melendez, the erstwhile board member, says she's not surprised.
"He's very instrumental in every dealing of the board. And that's not how it'south supposed to be," said Melendez.
The state will continue to monitor ISAAC's special education billing rates and revisit catastrophe the school's probation in December 2022 or January 2023. Equally for the investigation past the New England Clan of School and Colleges, we're told that it should conclude in July.
How To Start An Extended School Service,
Source: https://www.ctpublic.org/news/investigative/2022-05-30/isaac-charter-schools-probationary-period-extended-as-investigations-into-school-mount
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