Whether you are for or against a union here at Agora, WE all have grave concerns regarding the board’s decisions over the past 17 months. We are concerned about the future direction of the school, the risk of our charter not being renewed and the loss of a unique educational institution and community. The resulting structure has led to a lack of checks and balances concerning academic policy, which is proving detrimental for our students, staff and causing concern within our school community.

In lieu of recent events, mostly recent, concerning our student attendance records, we, the staff of Agora Cyber Charter School submit this petition for a vote of no confidence for President Mary Steffey and the entire board of Agora.

Some specific points of concern include but are not limited to:

• ·         At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, Agora ended the fiscal year with a cumulative fund balance of $12 to $14 million dollar surplus. David Zeiler was appointed by the board as the liaison officer to oversee the transition from a school operated by K12 to an independent entity.  David was hired to bring in new curriculum, computers, software/operating systems, etc. and was not questioned about the tools he proposed.  David’s suggestions were approved by the Board with little or no investigation by the Board if these products were appropriate for Agora.  The board made dramatic and high-risk decisions based solely on the vision of one individual who had little experience at Agora or in serving the school’s unique and highly vulnerable at-risk student population. As a result of the board’s decisions the entire surplus has been depleted, and the school is currently operating in a negative financial position.

 

• ·         The Board approved and implemented a new curriculum for the middle school without proper due diligence or necessary time-frame. In the past five months this curriculum has proven to be ineffective and at times incorrect. Teachers have had to take time to rewrite curriculum with no compensation. These decisions were made against the advice of the academic leadership. In addition to the curriculum, a whole new set of information technology systems were purchased, again without proper due diligence.

 

• ·         On Monday 1/11/16 the board approved this same curriculum for the high school for next school year.

 

• ·         There is an atmosphere of intimidation and anxiety for teachers and staff.

 

• ·         Lack of appropriate attendance records keeping for the 2015-2016 school year, to no fault of our current attendance office employees. The reason for this is because of rushed implementation of systems that resulted in teachers having to take manual attendance in light of systems that are not accurate or did not integrate properly. The attendance office workers tried to explain things to David multiple times but he did not listen.

 

• ·         The firing of our Head of School without any real explanation to the staff and then waited five days to tell the staff.

 

• ·         Systems and supplemental programs and assessment tools have been purchased which are not effective resulting in them not being used and costing our school money.  The school has already abandoned its new Student Information Technology System at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This has resulted in our school wasting precious financial resources.

 

• ·         The Board has developed a tendency to unnecessarily rely on external vendors, notably the school’s law and public relations firm that have no connections to the school’s core mission of serving students and families. While we do not know the exact amount the Board has spent on these for-profit vendors, we believe it to be well in excess of a million dollars over the past 17 months.

 

• ·         After the recent departure of two qualified and engaged Board members, the Board consists of a small group who largely lack any relevant instructional, financial, or managerial qualifications, and generally follow the decisions of one member – President Mary Steffey. Board members should be selected by an objective committee to ensure they have the appropriate qualifications and backgrounds to serve on the board.

 We all love Agora and work really hard to make it the best school we can. We need to stand together and send a message to the entire board that we don’t trust their decision making and we want a new President and a new Board.

No One can see your signature! It will only show how many people have signed it so far. 

This petition is needed for a change now in our entire Board and to save our school. We need to stand united for our school, students, parents, community and ourselves.

 Please sign this petition within 24 hours so we can show we are standing together! This is the first step in taking our school back!

 If you add a comment after you sign it, it will add your name. We just want to warn you in case you want to remain anonymous.