This Week's Charter School Crime Roundup

What do you get when you offer free public education dollars with no public oversight to anyone who wants to open a school?

From Massachusetts:

In the charter school incident, the girl wrote a statement for police saying she saw Commeret [the "CEO" of the Marblehead Community Charter Public School] of drinking what she thought might be alcohol in his office and she asked what the drink was. According to her statement, "He grabbed my arms and pushed me up against the back of the door. He held me there for a few moments, and said, 'I'll (expletive) find you.' Then he jerked me back and let go."

From Canada:

The superintendent of a Calgary charter school where a teacher has been charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old female student is defending the school's hiring practices. Foundations for the Future Charter Academy Superintendent Jay Pritchard admits it is shocking to have a teacher face sexual assault allegations.

From Columbus, where profiteer, Alllison Perz, is in charge:

A second teacher at an East Side charter school is being investigated for inappropriate discipline after a sixth-grade teacher was fired for getting physical with a student.

Aleca Bryan, 28, was fired on Monday. Officials wouldn't name the second teacher yesterday, but that educator has been suspended with pay, said Allison Perz, who oversees the Columbus Arts and Technology Academy.

Perz is head of the Ohio Council of Community Schools, which sponsors the charter at 2255 Kimberly Parkway East.

Bryan was fired after a 13-year-old Reynoldsburg boy said she grabbed him and slammed him against the wall in the school's hallway. The boy told police she also dug her nails into his arms and that a witness who intervened had trouble pulling the teacher away.

How about this one on corrupting the youth of Toledo:

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A state audit of a former Toledo charter school concludes that the former executive director and her husband couldn't justify the use of about $119,000 in taxpayer money.

And out west to a bold plan in Boulder:

Ann Leslie Kane, founder of Boulder's Horizons K-8 Charter School, was charged Friday with theft, forgery and attempt to influence a public servant. She is alleged to have misrepresented her salary to the Public Employees Retirement Association in order to increase her retirement benefits.

And more out west to Arizona:

. . . .The charges stemmed from allegations that her son, Bobby Kennedy, a teacher at Morningstar and a youth pastor, had molested teenage girls in his class.

Today, Bobby Kennedy, 29, is on the run from police and listed by Apache Junction police as one of their “Most Wanted.”

And Carolyn Kennedy, 53, who police say attempted to protect her son and conceal the abuse allegations, is still in charge of the Apache Junction charter school.

State law requires school teachers, counselors and administrators to report allegations of sexual abuse.

Yet there is nothing in the law that forces state education officials to remove educators such as Kennedy from their schools. One person who could remove her, charter holder C. Steven Cox, is embroiled in his own personal scandal after being indicted on more than 100 counts of misappropriation of public funds and grand theft. . . .