The Contra Costa County Board of Education on Wednesday voted to keep Richmond Charter Academy (RCA) open, although board members did acknowledge the school’s financial and leadership problems and said they plan to impose certain terms for it to continue operating.
The school, which serves about 300 students in grades six through eight, was in jeopardy after the WCCUSD school board unanimously voted in April against granting it permission to operate. WCCUSD’s board denied RCA’s renewal after its charter oversight staff wrote in a board presentation that while it had an “effective educational program” there were “fiscal concerns that could not be remedied.”
California charter schools must regularly renew their operating permissions, or charter, with their local, county, or state board of education. If a local board denies a school’s charter renewal application, charter schools can appeal the decision. By voting to grant the school’s appeal, the county board cleared the way for Richmond Charter to remain open for the next five years.
Daniel Nathan-Heiss, the county board trustee for Area 1, which represents Richmond, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, San Pablo, Pinole, and parts of Kensington, said that he was concerned about the impact that closing could have on students and their families and that he thought it deserved a second chance.
“I can say as a resident of Richmond,” Nathan-Heiss said. “This is a city of second chances.”
The board ultimately voted 4-to-1 in favor of a renewal, with Sarah Butler, the board’s vice president, casting the lone “no” vote. She said that another charter school, Contra Costa School of the Performing Arts in Walnut Creek, is closing this month due to financial problems, and she is worried that similar problems could cause RCA to be unsustainable.
“I don’t want to see this happen again,” Butler said. “I’m very concerned with the fiscal and governance issues.”
Some of the board members who voted “yes” (Nathan-Heiss, board President Annette Lewis, and Area 4 Trustee Mike Maxwell) asked about instituting a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, as a renewal condition. Neil McChesney, the county’s coordinator of charter school oversight, said that staff could write up an MOU that would require RCA to reach certain financial thresholds to remain chartered and that the board could consider it at its next board meeting, which is in August.
Maxwell said he was only voting “yes” with the understanding that a “significant or sturdy MOU would be applied.” Agreeing with Maxwell, Lewis said she was voting in favor of the renewal with “some reservation.”
The county’s Department of Charter School Oversight had recommended the board approve RCA’s appeal. A report the oversight committee released in May said that the school “ultimately meets all applicable legal requirements” to be granted a charter renewal.
The report outlined the school’s strengths, including English/language arts test scores from the 2023-24 school year that slightly outperformed state averages, and English language learner progress indicator scores that were dramatically higher than state averages, as about 46% English learners statewide were progressing toward proficiency, while about 74% of RCA’s students were progressing.
RCA’s math scores from last year, which appear on the state performance dashboard, show that students performed below the state average but slightly higher than WCCUSD schools, on average. Data RCA presented Wednesday showed that the school’s English/language arts and math scores had improved from the 2021-22 to 2023-24 school years but slightly declined this year, which the school attributed to “a predominately novice instruction team in the early stages of development.”
The county’s charter school oversight report also outlined some of the school’s weaknesses, stating that the county had “severe and pervasive fiscal and governance concerns.” The report states that the leadership of Amethod Public Schools, the nonprofit that runs RCA and five other charter schools in the Bay Area, had created “a pattern of questionable, if not negligent oversight, operations, and accounting.” The report outlined how Amethod had turned in RCA’s last three required financial audits three to seven months late. It also said that the school’s financial problems have been “compounded by frequent executive turnover.” RCA has had five CEOs in the last four years.
RCA’s parent nonprofit has history of being criticized for leadership issues
The county education office is not the first to voice concerns about Amethod. In a report last November, officials with Oakland Unified’s Office of Charter Schools wrote that they believed former and current officials in leadership positions with Amethod “likely violated…conflict of interest statutes.” According to their report, they came to this conclusion after Amethod’s CEO at the time, Jaime Mata, presented them with evidence that Amethod’s board “contracted with a number of vendors in which there were clear conflicts of interest and that these vendors routinely billed for services without any evidence the services were being provided.”
Both Oakland’s school board and the county of Alameda’s school board denied the charter renewal for the Amethod-run Oakland Charter High School this year. WCCUSD’s charter school oversight staff found that RCA had a deficit of about $880,000 and had been turning financial reports in late, one of the reasons why the WCCUSD school board denied its charter renewal.
Unlike other Bay Area school officials, however, Contra Costa County’s charter oversight staff said Amethod is likely to improve. In its report, staff wrote that it “has offered ample evidence to demonstrate significant and sustainable progress on organizational improvement.” The report noted that “current Amethod leadership has openly acknowledged their challenging history” and have been “engaged in a turnaround effort for at least the last year.” Staff noted the experience of this new leadership and initiation of “corrective action” including “systems and supports designed to bolster internal controls.”
In a presentation to the board on Wednesday, Adrienne Barnes, who has been Amethod’s interim CEO for about a year, touted her experience working in charter school finance for more than a dozen years. She presented information showing that current Amethod board members have extensive experience in education and charter school finance, and said that Amethod is working with Joyce Montgomery, who has worked for 30 years in education finance.
“We’ve been fixing the systems from the moment I arrived,” Barnes said. “We appreciate the county’s recognition of our hard work and countless hours to remedy and rebuild our financial management systems. We’re continuing this work and we will not settle or stop our process improvement as we continue to strive for excellence.”
During the public comments portion of Wednesday’s meeting, 15 people spoke in favor of renewing RCA’s charter. They included students, parents, former and current staff, and Amethod board members. Comments largely praised RCA’s academic programs, the site’s safety, and staffs’ openness to communicating with students and families.
“RCA has had its ups and downs, but it’s truly an amazing school,” Amir Butler, a current student, said. “It helps me grow as a person and has shown me to never give up on myself. That’s the reason I’m as smart as I am today. The lesson plans are very hard and challenge me to do more. Before I came to RCA I wasn’t excited to do lessons, but the teachers have made it fun to learn.”
Two speakers spoke out against renewing RCA’s charter. Douglas Pelton, a charter oversight consultant with WCCUSD, said they worked with Amethod for six months to make a plan to improve the school’s financial and leadership problems, but that the nonprofit presented plans that included “incomplete and unclear financial information” and was not forthcoming to district inquiries.
Sky Nelson-Isaacs, a WCCUSD high school teacher, raised concerns over RCA’s enrollment of Black students and students with disabilities in comparison to other district schools and asked the board to keep that in mind as they made a decision.
According to state data for the 2024-2025 school year, about 4% of RCA’s students are Black, while about 11% of WCCUSD public school students are Black. While about 10% of RCA’s students are identified as disabled, about 15% of WCCUSD students are classified as disabled.
The county’s charter oversight staff addressed this issue briefly in its report, stating that it “has no record of verified complaints from the RCA community with regard to discriminatory or exclusionary admissions or enrollment practices and therefore there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that the charter is not serving all pupils who wish to attend.”
Area 3 trustee says she wouldn’t send her children to a school near Richmond Charter Academy
Area 3 Trustee Yazmin Llamas, whose district includes parts of El Sobrante, showed the most enthusiasm for voting to approve RCA’s charter renewal and didn’t ask questions during Wednesday’s meeting. Llamas’s campaign received $70,000 from the Charter Public Schools PAC last year, while Nathan-Heiss received $13,500 from the group. In making her decision she said that she “placed herself as a parent” and asked herself “what would I do if I were a parent of an RCA student and the vote got denied?”
“I would probably log onto the computer to see what neighboring middle schools to RCA (are) like,” Llamas said. “What I found was concerning. I would not want to enroll my children in the traditional public schools that are neighboring to RCA.”
The closest public middle schools to RCA are DeJean Middle School and Fred T. Korematsu Middle. According to the latest state data available, DeJean has lower English/language arts, math and English learner progress scores than RCA. Fred T. Korematsu’s scores show it’s performing about as well as RCA in English/language arts and better than RCA in math. Although RCA’s English learner progress test scores outperform Fred T. Korematsu, both schools are outperforming state averages.
Llamas said she admired Amethod’s willingness to face its problems and improve. And she said public schools tend not to do that.
“When you have issues and ignore them, there are no solutions,” Llamas said. “Here we have RCA, which has admitted their issues (and) are implementing steps to correct them. I appreciated that, because having children in traditional public schools, oftentimes the issues just get ignored.”
There is often a very relevant demographic ignored in statistics about pupil achievement: parents. If a parent sends their children to ANY school and knows that they are pulling chairs out from under other students, humping others in the hallway, throwing dangerous items in class, disrespecting computers, breaking bookcases, and screaming during class, they are as responsible as their children. If they don’t know, then I believe it is willful ignorance. Why not have parent training about how to encourage academics at home? It can be fun and fulfilling to get families involved.