Superintendent of Guideline for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, started an audit more than a year ago into the financial issues of the Alternatives for Youth and Opportunities for Learning (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent research study charter schools within the California schools system, which are independently run however funded by the state.

The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually dropped out of the traditional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 storefront places across the state. These California schools students do the majority of their work at home, meeting with teachers twice a week. According to state records, student achievement test and high school exit examination scores are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times short article of August 10th, only 11 percent of OYO students finished throughout the 2003-2004 school year. The rest of trainees that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or moved to other schools.

The California schools' audit was conducted by the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team, who concluded their analysis and presented their findings in a report that was launched in August 2006. The audit points out accounting problems, overpayments by the state, conflicts of interest, nepotism, extreme payment, and mixing personal business issues with public schools.

The OYO was established and still run by John and Joan Hall, former instructors from Hollywood High School. They have actually totally cooperated with the California schools' audit, but conflict many of the findings.

Some examples from the audit report are:

• Accounting Problems and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their instructors as 1.92 full-time positions. Their spokesperson, Stevan Allen, specified that this is a typical practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a legitimate method for compensating school staff for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell thinks teachers must be counted only as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, citing that standard California schools teachers invest much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors thought the 1.92 quantity is inflated. This example, alone, represent more than half of the $57 million overpayment.

In addition, the report noted several doubtful expenses. One example of unrestrained spending, offered by the Times was an $18,000 staff celebration held at Disneyland. Allen safeguarded that event as an effort at relationship building between team member, who are scattered across the state. He kept in mind that the costs was less than $50 per employee.

• Conflicts of Interest and Mixing Private Service with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and run numerous private businesses that sell products and services to schools. The Times kept in mind that the Options in OYO was the not-for-profit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question.

• Extreme Settlement. The audit also questions the combined wages for the Halls, which is $600,000 each year. The report mentions that it may be extreme for the amount of time the couple in fact works.

• Nepotism. The Halls developed a separate charity with $10.8 countless the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their daughter, Jamie Hall. Little money has actually been invested towards education thus far.

The Halls contend that they formerly had asked for assistance on their operation from the California schools lot of times, however never got any response. Thus, they attempted to car donation wizard follow California schools requirements as finest they could with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell yielded that none of the cited practices are illegal.

The audit advises the California schools should attempt to recover the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has sent out the report to the state's attorney general's office for evaluation and any necessary action.