Coming Together to Tackle Fraud: Lessons and Solutions for Everyone
Financial scandals don't just hurt the schools where they happen and the kids they serve: they seriously harm charter schools as a sector and confidence in our public school system. The $400 million A3 schools fraud case revealed across-the-board vulnerabilities among charter leaders, charter boards, authorizers, and state systems. In response, a volunteer anti-fraud task force brought together a group of authorizers, charter advocates, lawyers, auditors, fraud investigators, prosecutors, back office providers, and others to identify these vulnerabilities and develop recommendations to address them comprehensively.
Most of the recommendations are self-help prudent practices for schools and authorizers, and in some cases all LEAs. Others address systems problems beyond their control or give them the supports they need to protect themselves—especially small schools and small authorizers. This is a job for everyone, not just financial experts.
Participants in this session will develop their own checklist to take home and learn about ongoing collaborative efforts to develop models, resources, and supports for schools and authorizers, especially small ones. Find out how these recommendations overlap with and complement recommendations on nonclassroom-based funding by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance (FCMAT), as well as recommendations on school audits by a task force created by the court in the A3 case and led by the State Controller’s Office.
Join us: ask questions, make suggestions.
Presented by
David Patterson
President, Board of Directors
CCAP (California Charter Authorizing Professionals
Dr. Patterson has more than three decades of helping develop high-performing schools. He is a founding member and President of California Charter Authorizing Professionals (CCAP), a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening charter school authorizing in California. Dr. Patterson is also the founder of the Rocklin Academy Family of Schools and is Executive Director Emeritus. Rocklin Academy schools include three high performing Core Knowledge elementary charter schools and a college preparatory middle-high school. David is serving his third term on the Placer County Board of Education and has previously served as a board member on the Rocklin Unified and Del Paso Heights School EDS. Dr. Patterson was the Executive Director and Director of Governmental Relations for the California Network of Educational Charters. Dr. Patterson served for ten years at the California Department of Education where he served as the Department’s point person for charter schools.
Debi Deal
School Finance Specialist
California Charter Authorizing Professionals (CCAP)
Tom Hutton
Executive Director
California Charter Authorizing Professionals (CCAP)
Tom Hutton, Executive Director of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, has worked on behalf of school districts, authorizers, and charter schools. He is a former attorney who served in-house with the National School Boards Association and later in private practice in Seattle. As a law student, he was a co-founder and governing board member of a law-themed high school in the District of Columbia. More recently, Tom served as executive director of the Hawaii State Public Charter School Commission, an independent consultant to charter authorizers nationally, and executive director of the Education Law Association.