SACRAMENTO, Calif. — St. HOPE Public Schools is responding to concerns from the Sacramento City Unified School District about teacher credentials, conflicts of interest and financial mismanagement.
As ABC10 reported earlier this month, Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) – which is the authorizing district for St. HOPE’s two charter schools: Sacramento Charter High School and St. HOPE Public School 7 – requested a third-party audit of St. HOPE Public Schools earlier this year.
In a notice of concern dated July 26, the district laid out its concerns, based on the issues and questions raised in the audit.
ABC10 spoke with St. HOPE leaders earlier this month, who said the audit contained some outdated information and mischaracterized some of the issues, but they acknowledged areas of opportunity.
This all comes as St. HOPE is asking SCUSD to renew its charter for another five-year period, starting July 2025.
St. HOPE’s response to SCUSD’s letter was due – and submitted – Aug. 26.
"Sacramento City Unified School District received St. HOPE Public Schools’ (SHPS) response to the notice of correction sent on July 26. District staff are reviewing both this response and the charter renewal petitions submitted by SHPS,” district spokesperson Al Goldberg told ABC10 in a statement. “The determination hearings, at which the Board will vote on the renewal for both Sacramento Charter High School and Public School 7, are scheduled to take place at the SCUSD School Board Meeting on September 19."
St. HOPE’s 1,071-page response details action plans for those three areas of concerns raised in the audit and SCUSD notice: teacher credentialing, conflicts of interest and “concerns related to St. HOPE Academy (“SHA”) as a back-office service provider to SHPS.”
St. HOPE Academy is a nonprofit providing services to St. HOPE Public Schools through contracts. Cassandra Jennings serves both as SHA’s CEO and chair of SHPS’ board, which auditors and the district worry presents a conflict of interest.
“Before I even decided to take the role of the chair of the board or to be on the board, we had an attorney opinion. And we scrutinized it, pretty much, because we don't want to do anything that's illegal,” Jennings told ABC10 earlier this month.
Jennings and SHPS Superintendent Lisa Ruda said they stand by the opinion of St. HOPE’s attorney that the overlapping roles are OK as long as proper procedures are followed. Jennings said she follows those, including recusing herself from board decisions related to St. HOPE Academy.
Still, in a move to promote transparency, SHPS says Jennings will resign her position as board chair effective Sept. 30 “and after SCUSD approves SHPS’ requested charter renewals, notwithstanding that Government Code Section 1091 authorizes her continued service,” according to the response filed Aug. 26. “The next regular SHPS Board of Directors meeting is September 12, 2024 at which time, the Board can appoint a new Chairperson and plan appropriately for the transition.”
SHPS plans on amending its bylaws to “preclude any officer, director, or employee of a vendor or intended vendor from serving on SHPS’ Board.”
As far as teacher credentialing, SHPS says it will continue to “verify teacher credentials as part of the hiring process…make efforts to minimize the use of emergency credentials…implement and monitor credential agreements to ensure staff are working towards appropriate credentials…[and] work with its teachers and SCTA to identify ways to further support teachers who need to secure their preliminary or clear credentials.”
Additionally, “SHPS offers to meet quarterly with SCUSD to review credentialing status for SHPS teachers to ensure SCUSD has current and accurate data that may not be available to SCUSD,” as well as “issue public RFP [requests for proposals] for back-office services and impose contractual terms that ensure increased vendor accountability.”
In terms of questions of possible financial mismanagement related to St. HOPE Academy providing services to SHPS, “SHPS will require SHA to submit detailed monthly invoices which reflect the hours worked by SHA staff to SHPS for back-office services in 2024-2025,” adding the SHPS “offers to convene quarterly meetings with SCUSD to review progress with respect to this corrective action plan.”
Other parts of the plan related to financial mismanagement concerns include shoring up SHA staffing to ensure financial reporting accounting is GAAP-compliant [generally accepted accounting principles] and is aligned with industry norms and SHA staff receive sufficient training. SHA will also retain a third-party school finance expert to support its back-office services team.”
SHPS Superintendent Ruda said the response also details the schools’ strengths.
“When 100% of your students are graduating A-G college-eligible and 95% are getting into four-year colleges, you're doing something right, and that's our position,” Ruda said. “We come to the table with a history of 20 years of success and serving the Oak Park community. While at the same time, like I said, we can always reflect on ourselves to see where there are opportunities to do even better. And that is what we did through this process.”
The SCUSD Board will vote whether to renew SHPS’ charter at its Sept. 19 meeting.
WATCH MORE ON ABC10: Sacramento City USD audit of St. HOPE charter schools raises concerns
