Charter schools warned

Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | 9:44 a.m.

The Clark County School District has red-flagged three more charter schools for failing to report student data or failing to contribute to their employees' retirement funds.

Odyssey Charter School, Clark County Team Academy and Keystone Academy join the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy on the list of district campuses that have received "letters of revocation" because of a lack of compliance with state law.

Craig Kadlub, director of public affairs and the charter school liaison for the district, said he expected all four campuses to be in compliance by the end of the 90-day deadline. If a school does not fix its problems by then the Clark County School Board could move to revoke its charter.

Neither Odyssey nor Keystone has met the state's requirements for reporting student information, while Team failed to make payments to the state's retirement system, Kadlub said.

Agassi College Prep received a letter of revocation last week for failing to maintain the proper employee records and for having two employees without the state license or credentials required for the duties they were performing.

"These are situations that are easily fixed and that's exactly what we're doing," said Agassi Principal Kim Allen. "We will be in full compliance well ahead of the 90 days we've been given."

Craig Butz, executive director of Odyssey, said the charter school fell behind on the student data requirement because of a new state regulations that all reporting be submitted using the same system as the rest of the district.

The school was able to get a state grant to pay for the new system but still had to find someone to enter the data for 1,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, Butz said. A full-time employee was hired last month to manage the system and the data has now been recorded, Butz said.

"(The letter of revocation) had nothing to do with the instruction or education of our students," Butz said. "We were late getting the data system up and running and we take full responsibility for that."

Odyssey and Team use online instruction that allows students to work at their own pace at home.