Children’s Village Academy gets one last chance to wipe away the vestiges of Hurricane Irene.
The State Board of Education chose not to take action regarding revoking the school’s charter, and the state Office of Charter Schools laid out a series of requirements CVA has to meet.
“Our problem was we ran the huge debt at the beginning of the school year, in excess of $179,000,” CVA Chairman Mike Parker said. “A lot of that was because of the hurricane — not all of it, but a lot of it was. We had $300,000 worth of damage from Hurricane Irene in 2011.
“It impacted us for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. We are projected to have that paid off completely by the end of this current fiscal year.”
OCS gave CVA a financial disciplinary warning in 2012, which led to charter revocation proceedings.
“A going concern was due pretty much to the negative fund balance, it was due to the decline in their assets as well as some cash flow problems,” OCS Director Joel Medley said to Public Radio East. “And that going concern is a pretty big red flag that the auditor waves.”
A message for Medley was not returned as of press time.
By June 30, CVA must have eliminated the debt from its funds, at least break even on revenues over expenditures and have some cash on hand. In the coming years, the school must put more than $50,000 in reserve. Parker said he’s confident CVA will meet the requirements.
“All through this year, we have made some really serious cuts,” Parker said. “We froze all spending on anything that’s not absolutely essential. And, then we did some selective personnel cutbacks to save some salary. When you save salary, you save FICA tax, as well.”
There are operational requirements also, such as bringing the middle school into compliance with state law that says at least 50 percent of a charter school’s teachers must be properly licensed. Parker said to that end, the school is waiting on the state to process one teacher’s materials and complete the renewal process for another.
For the elementary school, 82 percent of the current teachers are fully certified.
Additionally, student academic performance must be no worse than the previous academic year.
About 196 students attend CVA currently, and the 2013-2014 budget plans for 220. Parker said the school is actively recruiting to meet its target.
The State Board of Education will take up whether to revoke CVA’s charter again in December.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.