Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Writing earlier following Strib Charter School coverage - STEP Academy on the ropes, Strib publishes follow-up news.

 The item updates earlier coverage in the charter school coverage series by Jeffrey Meitrodt --

STEP Academy leaders resign as charter school faces financial collapse

If STEP Academy, a charter school with campuses in St. Paul and Burnsville, shuts down, it would be the largest charter school failure in Minnesota history.

The embattled leader of STEP Academy, one of Minnesota’s largest charter schools, agreed to resign, just a few days after he tried shifting the blame for the school’s financial crisis to the nonprofit that oversees the school for the state.

Staff members were told Monday that Mustafa Ibrahim, who has served as the top administrator of STEP since 2012, will resign. Two STEP board members, including chairman Abdulrazzaq Mursal, one of Ibrahim’s strongest supporters, also stepped down. Even though he was on the agenda, Ibrahim didn’t attend a crowded school board meeting Monday night.

[...] Chief operations officer Paul Scanlon said he could not predict whether the school will survive.

[...] The controversy over STEP’s management has led to divisions among parents and staff.

[...] STEP Academy, which serves 783 students at its campuses in St. Paul and Burnsville, has been repeatedly cited for contract violations by Innovative Quality Schools (IQS), the nonprofit that oversees the school as an authorizer for the Minnesota Department of Education.

In an Oct. 4 letter, IQS warned STEP leaders the school’s finances are in “an incredibly fragile state.” [...]

Read the details at Strib. The link is given above. The Meitdrot link is separate, and readers can follow it to reach the series of items he's written on charter school matters. 

The earlier Crabgrass item (link) was uncertain, and speculative, with charter schools being disfavored by Crabgrass over routing all public funding to traditional public schools with elected boards less open to conflicting interests, abuse, etc.

Meitdrot's coverage is objective reporting, hence different from policy thinking. And always, in individual cases the objective facts matter more than guesses and thoughts.