Charter school owner has $95,000 in unpaid water bills, over 5 million in IRS tax liens.
I find myself wondering how things can get that far out of hand in a school which is getting taxpayer money. As of this story the students can finish the year, but Sojourner Douglas will close after that.
Where did the money go?
From the Baltimore Brew.
Charter school operator had $95,000 in unpaid water bills
Inner Harbor East Academy for Young Scholars, a charter school in East Baltimore, had to relocate over this frigid February weekend because its longtime operator, Sojourner Douglass College, couldn’t pay the utilities.
City records show over $95,000 in overdue water bills for the college’s 200 North Central Avenue address alone.
Public Works says their policy is not to off water in the winter. But the school is in danger of losing its heat.
By the time City Schools reviewed Inner Harbor East Academy for renewal in 2014, its feelings about the college’s ability to run a charter school had begun to shift.
In January of 2014, the IRS filed almost $5 million in tax liens against Sojourner Douglass. Last fall, another $750,000 in liens followed. The most recent judgement entered on November 26, 2014, was in the amount of $390,802.
None has yet been satisfied, according to online records.
And an article from today:
Sojourner-Douglass College Will Lose Its Accreditation
Sojourner-Douglass College will lose its accreditation because of its shaky finances, The Baltimore Sun reports. The Baltimore institution’s appeal was rejected last week by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
State officials told the Sun they would help students at the college transfer to other institutions. The loss of accreditation is effective June 30.
The accreditor first expressed concern about the college’s finances in 2011. It ordered the college in March of last year to demonstrate why its accreditation should be reaffirmed.
The school is called a college but has students of all ages.
Charter school to move because of unpaid bills
Baltimore schools CEO Gregory Thornton said in a letter to parents this week that officials learned of financial troubles at the charter school in January but were "hopeful that the financial challenges would be resolved."
Conditions have not improved, however, and the heat will soon be turned off at the school's building on Central Avenue in East Baltimore, Thornton wrote.
The school has 326 students in prekindergarten through the eighth grade, according to December enrollment figures.
....Parents at Inner Harbor East said they were notified of the change only this week, and as of Wednesday were unsure how they would get their children to the new building or how the move would affect student performance and preparation for standardized testing in March.
At a meeting at the school Wednesday morning, school officials told parents that they can't transfer children to another school to finish the year.
The first link mentions that the school's operators had an "ambitious plan to build with partners a $22 million hotel in Oldtown, about a mile from its Central Avenue headquarters. The hotel would be run as a for-profit business as part of the college’s future hotel management school, local media reported."
Build a multi-million dollar hotel with all those unpaid bills and tax liens? Good thing the district finally noticed.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Most definitely. There are lots more we don't hear about.
Another tactic in the Dumbing down of America. Keep em stupid, the easier they are to control. 
and their funding my eye's rolled so far up in my head I could see out my feet. Gotta call it what it is. 
to hear people praise them instead of skewer them here on DU.
I was presented with an analogy where all of us should be pulling on the rope attached to a wagon supporting the third way and it's policies that carry us all up, but I'm thinking they found the rope a dope and have been tugging it for quite some time.
That's a great campaign theme for some up and coming maverick FDR Democrat.
Now, if we can just find one who will run. 
