NC board recommends closing Raleigh charter school. Here’s why they want it shut.
UPDATE: State Board of Education voted Thursday to revoke Torchlight Academy’s charter.
A state advisory board wants to close a longtime Raleigh charter school accused of conflict of interest violations that potentially violated federal rules.
The N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board unanimously voted Monday to recommend revoking the charter of Torchlight Academy, a K-8 charter school in Raleigh serving 600 mostly Black and Hispanic students. Advisory board members said concerns about Torchlight’s spending of taxpayer dollars puts the entire state at risk of losing federal funding.
“At no point in the last two months, three months that we’ve been talking about this has anybody suggested that Torchlight academically was not a good school,” said Cheryl Turner, chairwoman of the advisory board, before the vote. “Nobody at all.
“However, the fiscal management and operations just were not. ... They’ve got issues. They’ve got serious issues.”
The recommendation now goes to the State Board of Education, which will vote on Torchlight’s fate on Thursday. The state board has already sanctioned Torchlight over special-education compliance issues and asked the advisory board in January to recommend whether to revoke the charter.
The recommendation to close Torchlight came despite a plea from the school for more time to correct the problems. School leaders repeatedly pointed to how they serve a predominantly minority and low-income population that they say needs Torchlight to remain open.
“Torchlight Academy is not a place of brick and mortar,” Stephon Bowens, the attorney for Torchlight’s board of directors, told the board. “It is a beacon of hope in the community it serves.”
Conflict of interest concerns raised
Many of the conflict of interest concerns revolved around the connection between the McQueen family and Torchlight.
Don McQueen is the executive director of both the school and of Torchlight Academy Schools, the company that manages the charter. He’s also executive director of Global Education Resources, which manages Three Rivers Academy in Bertie County, which the state board voted to close in January.
His wife, Cynthia McQueen, is principal at the Raleigh charter school. Torchlight opened in 1999 and is one of North Carolina’s oldest charter schools.
Their daughter, Shawntrice Andrews, has worked at Torchlight since 2002 and was the director of the school’s exceptional children program. She’s been accused of altering records of some special-education students, but the school has said it was due to “user error” and not malicious.
The state Board of Education has asked the advisory board to look into questions such as possible misuse or misappropriation for personal use of federal and state funds and potential conflicts of interest.
Role of school leaders questioned
Shirley McFadden, section chief of monitoring and compliance for the state Department of Public Instruction’s division of school business, said Don McQueen’s dual role violates conflict of interest guidelines for contracts supported by federal awards. She said McQueen is handling the day-to-day financial operations of the school as well as running the management company.
“The financial benefits for that management company are directly impacted by his decisions every day over the expenditures of Torchlight Academy Charter,” McFadden told the advisory board.
LaTricia Townsend, director of DPI’s federal program monitoring and support division, said Don McQueen attempted to use federal funds to hire his son-in-law’s sanitation services company. Townsend said Don McQueen also tried to use federal funds to lease space at Torchlight, whose building he owns, to use as a community learning center.
Cynthia McQueen told the advisory board that it’s not abnormal for charter school leaders to have relatives working in the building. She said nobody works harder than relatives.
But Cynthia McQueen said she would never do anything unethical that would hurt the school. She said the negative publicity has led to her being under a doctor’s care to prevent a nervous breakdown.
“We have been permanently damaged, and we believe all that needed to be done was mediation, which we had requested,” she said.
Torchlight had asked for independent mediation of the dispute between them and the state board.
School promises to make changes
Pamela Banks Lee, the chairwoman of Torchlight’s board of directors, told the advisory board that they recognize it could be a conflict of interest so they’ll ask Don McQueen to step down as the school’s executive director. She said they were negligent in not knowing what an education management organization does in running a charter school.
Banks Lee also said they’ve discussed whether to hire a new principal and whether to hire a new management organization.
“We just want the school to survive, and we will do whatever it takes,” Banks Lee told the advisory board.
But the school’s efforts weren’t persuasive enough.
In their motion to revoke the charter, the advisory board cited:
▪ Violation of special-education laws and federal conflict of interest regulations.
▪ Violation of the charter school agreement, including failure to produce requested documents and failure to provide adequate oversight and management of the school.
▪ Failure to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management.
▪ Allowing self-dealing and conflict of interest by the education management organization.
“Charter schools are also small businesses,” said Turner, the advisory board chairs. “We have to be able to run our schools operationally and fiscally because the money we use is not ours.”
Parents fight for school
Amid the debate, some parents and teachers rallied Monday morning outside the advisory board meeting.
“I trust my children with Torchlight, at Torchlight,” said Landy Swain, the mother of a Torchlight student. She added that it’s difficult for parents of color to say that about other schools.
Parents and school leaders also pointed to how, pre-pandemic, Torchlight was outperforming the Wake County school system when it came to minority and low-income students.
“How can you take children out of a school they’ve been in since they were 5 years old?” said Ednitta Wright, a parent. “They love Torchlight Academy. They love the staff.”
Wright said it’s too late now for families to enroll in other charter schools for next school year.
“At the end of the day, how will our children be helped if Torchlight Academy is shut down?” Don McQueen told the advisory board. “But how will it be helped if we are corrected and we find common ground to accomplish the mission of working to establish high quality charter schools?”
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 5:44 PM.
