Russell Wilson-backed charter school faces state corrective action

After a challenging start to the school year, Why Not You Academy charter school is facing corrective action from the state because of its financial status. 

The school, which began the academic year with 220 students, lost a third of staff and students at the beginning of the year as a chorus of complaints emerged about its leadership, safety procedures and special education services, a February Seattle Times investigation detailed. More students left, according to school, because of unrelated issues. Data from March show 141 students enrolled at the Des Moines school. 

Charter schools receive the majority of their funds from the state, which allocates money on a per-student basis. The school is also backed by a $1.65 million donation from ex-Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson through his Why Not You Foundation.

The Washington State Charter School Commission, a state agency that oversees charters, first notified the school of its financial concerns in November. While the school will be able to make it to summer with its current head count, it projects needing around 200 students to be enrolled for the next school year in order to remain financially viable. In its responses to the state, the school said it was going to expand its recruitment strategies, like going door-to-door, and ramp up outreach and engagement with its current families. 

In response to questions about the corrective action plan, Chief Executive Officer Abigail O’Neal wrote via email: “WNYA families and staff are fully committed to meeting enrollment and fundraising goals by December 2024 … We are already seeing great interest. We are also hearing from many families that plan to re-enroll for the fall.”

The state’s action comes after increased oversight at the school, which started last September as the commission began receiving complaints from former staff and students. The commission determined all those issues — except for falling enrollment — had been resolved. But in recent weeks, the commission has launched two new investigations based on additional complaints related to special education and public records. 

Under a corrective action plan, the school will need to commit to specific recruitment and retention strategies to prove it will have enough funds to operate in the future.

Cedar Law PLLC, the firm representing the school, is “working closely with WNYA leadership, and I can assure they are taking these concerns seriously and are working in good faith to serve all students and comply with the law,” said Lara Hruska, an attorney and founding partner at Cedar.

More details of the corrective action haven’t been released yet, including how long the school will need to follow that plan. The commission and the school are still finalizing the details. Violations could result in the commission placing the school in a probationary status or voting to close the school. 

The commission is at the beginning phase of two additional investigations. The first revolves around a complaint from a former staffer, who says the school violated the public records law because of its response to a request to view security footage, including tape from a fight on campus. Because of what it said was a download error, the school provided only still images in response to the request. In a subsequent message, the school then told the former staff member that the video footage couldn’t be retrieved after all because the system deletes footage older than 90 days. 

The requester argued the school’s retention policy on the video is a violation of the Public Records Act. 

“It’s typical for schools to only maintain security video for a term and then the system records over,” said Hruska. “The … footage no longer existed to download properly by the time WNYA realized it had been improperly downloaded.” 

Second, officials are also taking another look at special education compliance based on new information from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the state’s main education agency. 

Special education at the school was among the original list of issues that concerned several former staff members who spoke to The Times. Because of short staffing at the beginning of the year, the school asked special education teachers to cover other classes. That left at least 10 students without services, OSPI originally estimated. The school is providing compensatory services for those students. 

But OSPI has since provided new information about that lapse in services, said Jessica DeBarros, who leads the Commission’s staff. 

“Part of our information gathering is not only about what happened earlier during the school year, but how it’s staffed, and how services are provided,” said DeBarros. 

The school says it is fully staffed with special education instructors, including two new certified special education teachers and one special education administrator. 

“Students with special needs are receiving all the appropriate services and the team is working to bring all records into compliance. For students who require it, compensatory education packages are also being provided,” said O’Neal. 

The commission is a 11-member board made up of members appointed by the governor and other high-ranking education officials. The members approve and revoke charter school contracts, and issue penalties. A staff of employees, who don’t vote, makes recommendations to the commission and conducts investigations.

Sixteen of the state’s 18 charter schools are overseen by the commission. A little over 4,800 students attend the schools, a fraction of the state’s one million kids enrolled in traditional public schools.

For the first time in its history, the commission voted on March 15 to begin the process of revoking one of the state’s charter schools, Pullman Community Montessori, over concerns about the safety and welfare of students, DeBarros said. While it doesn’t mean certain closure for the school, DeBarros said, it does mark the final stage of the commission’s efforts to work with a noncompliant school. The school is expected to respond later this month.

Earlier in March, Why Not You Academy’s former interim chief academic officer, Marcus Harden, joined the commission staff as its deputy director. 

DeBarros said Harden has no role in overseeing the school “at all.” He also reached out to the state’s Executive Ethics Board to make sure there were no conflicts of interest, and the commission put in place protocols to prevent him sharing information about the school to the commission, she said.