Overview:
The middle school of 286 students on Marina Way South in Richmond was founded in 1994. Its leaders say its average test scores are higher than WCCUSD averages, but district officials say it doesn't have a viable plan to resolve its fiscal problems.
The WCCUSD school board voted Wednesday to deny Richmond Charter Academy permission to operate, citing the middle school’s financial and leadership problems and lack of diversity.
Charter schools in California must regularly renew their permission to operate, or charter, from either the school board in their local jurisdiction, the county school board, or the state school board. Although the WCCUSD board unanimously denied RCA’s charter, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the school of about 286 students will have to close. It can appeal to the Contra Costa County Office of Education board, which has the option of voting to grant a charter and allowing the school to stay open.
Adrienne Barnes, CEO of Amethod Public Schools, the nonprofit that runs RCA, told Richmondside Thursday that the school plans to file an appeal.
WCCUSD’s charter oversight staff had recommended the board deny the charter. Although staff acknowledged that RCA has had an “effective education program,” it found there were “fiscal concerns that could not be remedied,” which would cause the school to be unlikely to continue implementing its academic program.
Amethod operates six charter schools in the Bay Area, including Benito Juarez Elementary and John Henry High School in Richmond. RCA is not the only Amethod school that recently had its charter denied over financial concerns. Last year Oakland charter school oversight officials said that the nonprofit created an environment that is “ripe for fraudulent activities” in its operation of Oakland Charter High School. Oakland’s school board denied that school’s renewal petition in January. The school appealed to the Alameda County board of education, which also denied its charter in April.
In September, WCCUSD staff found that RCA had about an $880,000 deficit and informed Amethod of its findings. Amethod’s leadership stated then that the deficit was “primarily due to an adjustment to the depreciation for building improvements.” The district found this depreciation accounted for about $607,000 of the deficit.
Amethod’s leadership has met and corresponded with WCCUSD district staff several times over the last eight months and presented a plan to be fiscally solvent by the end of the 2025-2026 school year. But district staff indicated they weren’t satisfied with that. In a report, staff wrote that RCA has “failed to cure and correct this substantial fiscal issue,” and that even if its plan to correct the issue is implemented, it is not a “viable” remedy.
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“I know Amethod has made mistakes but my team and I are absolutely correcting those.”
— Adrienne Barnes, Amethod interim CEO
The report further stated that Amethod has been submitting “untimely fiscal reports and incomplete supporting information, raising concerns regarding RCA’s financial state.”
During its Wednesday board meeting presentation, Barnes, along with RCA’s site director Jasmine Landers, shared data that showed its students scored on average slightly higher on math and significantly higher on English language arts tests than WCCUSD students. Barnes also stated that Amethod has hired and is continuing to hire “a robust and experienced finance team” that is “working diligently to clean and rebuild processes, systems, and policies…to ensure accurate and timely reporting and accounting.”
“I know Amethod has made mistakes but my team and I are absolutely correcting those,” Barnes said. “So please, take both our response to the staff report and this data into consideration as you make your decision, and keep RCA open.”
Charter students and parents plea for RCA to stay open
Ten school supporters, including students and parents, praised RCA and its staff for creating a school they said fosters learning and safety and encouraged the district to work with the school to keep it open.
An eighth-grader named Jose said that he used to feel “angry and unmotivated” but staff at RCA reached out to meet with him and his family and made a plan for him to take classes he was interested in. He said he began excelling, especially at math, where he said he’s performing at a 10th grade level, and he said he found new friends.
“RCA helped me grow in many ways,” Jose said. “Please keep RCA open.”
Joel Champaign, the father of two RCA students, said that the school has helped his kids be “excellent students” and asked that the district work with the school on any financial problems.
“I sincerely hope that any decision being made isn’t a case of being penny wise and pound foolish,” Champaign said. “I encourage everyone to support RCA and address any concerns through constructive means.”
Ultimately though, every board member, with the exception of Cinthia Hernandez, who recused herself from the decision due to a conflict of interest, voted to deny renewing RCA’s charter.
“The district has not been able to get what they need to ensure that there is enough money to keep the organization going,” board President Leslie Reckler said.
Reckler pointed out several financial concerns that were outlined in the staff report to justify her decision, including that Amethod appears to be shifting some of RCA’s expenses to Benito Juarez school and the nonprofit’s home office. She also mentioned that the staff report outlined how RCA was relying on a future settlement of $292,000 for its financial projections without proving that it will receive it.
“We need 100% transparency,” Reckler said, “and we need it all on the table. Staff is telling us that we didn’t get that.”
Reckler, whose second consecutive four-year term ends in 2026, said she’d never voted against renewing a charter but felt she had to because she had “deep concerns” that RCA wasn’t sustainable and therefore would likely not be around “in a year, or even less than that.”
Board member Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy also said he had never denied a charter, and he felt the pain of having to deny it, but said the school had too many issues. While the district’s report largely focused on financial matters, he was also concerned about shortfalls with diversity, as the school under-enrolls Black students and students with disabilities when compared to other WCCUSD schools.
Gonzalez-Hoy also had issues with Amethod’s governance, referring to what happened in Oakland due to a lack of financial oversight and to findings in Oakland that former and current Amethod leaders likely violated conflict of interest laws.
Gonzalez-Hoy praised current efforts to fix RCA’s problems but is worried about leadership instability at Amethod, where there have been five CEOS in the last four years.
“There might be good academic outcomes, maybe for your child,” Gonzalez-Hoy said. “But as an organization it is not being handled correctly. As the people in charge of renewing, I simply cannot do that.”
Board member Jamela Smith-Folds focused largely on the lack of diversity at the school. She asked Landers, RCA’s site director, about the Black student enrollment. Landers confirmed that of the school’s 286 students, 12 are Black.
Smith-Folds objected to this and also pointed to the school’s low enrollment of students with disabilities. While about 14% of WCCUSD’s students have disabilities, about 8% of RCA’s students as of last year were disabled. Landers said at Wednesday’s meeting that this number increased to 12% this year.
“I think that having literally one handful of African American students at a school is unacceptable,” Smith-Folds said. “I think that having a very low percentage of students with disabilities at a school is unacceptable.”
Last month, the board granted to approve Richmond Leadership Public School’s charter application, despite having some concerns about the school’s diversity. Of the 10 charter schools based in Richmond and San Pablo, four will be up for renewal over the next two school years: Voices College-Bound Language Academy and Invictus Academy of Richmond, in 2026; and Richmond Charter Elementary-Benito Juarez and Summit Tamalpais Public School, in 2027.
The problem is WCCSD is failing our students. Kids are getting lost in the system they are behind compared to other districts. Parents need alternatives, this was one of them. They pulled their kids out of public school because they felt they would get a better education here. Students do better here because they are nor regulated as they are in public schools. I am happy to see these schools shut down. BUT I think that something needs to be done to better our schools. Over crowded over noisy classrooms , teachers absent or about to go on strike. It is a big mess and doing this putting all these kids back in public schools, means more over crowded schools and classrooms. I don’t think it will help if the state takes over either.