Superintendent delays vote on controversial $6.4M alternative education contract

After hearing more questions and calls from board members concerned that this decision was being rushed, Muscogee County School District superintendent David Lewis requested during Monday night’s meeting to delay voting on the $6.4 million contract for a private, for-profit company to take over alternative education programs in the system.

The nine-member Muscogee County School Board unanimously approved the request.

Postponing the vote will give the district time to conduct two to-be-announced public forums for residents to hear more about the proposal and ask questions of officials from Camelot Education, based in Austin, Texas, before a called meeting April 10 at 5 p.m., when Lewis is expected to ask the board to approve the contract.

In an email Sunday, Lewis invited board members — especially the members who missed the March 16 work session, when Lewis first presented the plan — to arrive at Monday’s meeting an hour early to further question Camelot officials.

Board members Frank Myers of District 8 and John Thomas of District 2 objected to the Q&A being scheduled for the board’s conference room, where the board conducts its closed sessions. Lewis complied with their insistence to make the Camelot officials available for questioning in the boardroom, where the board conducts its open meetings, so more of the public could attend.

That’s where mostly Myers, as well as Thomas and Mark Cantrell of District 6, questioned Camelot CEO Todd Bock and chief strategy officer Ray Rodriguez for 34 minutes, until Lewis tried to end the session to prepare for the meeting.

Myers balked. “I’ve got more questions, and I’m a board member, sir,” he told the superintendent. “We can start the meeting a few minutes late. … This idea about pulling the plug just doesn’t fly. … I don’t mean to be ugly, but just sit down, and in 10 minutes we can be through.”

Five minutes later, Cathy Williams of District 7 asked Myers to save the rest of his questions for the meeting, “so we can be respectful of everybody,” but Myers noted that Lewis said the Camelot officials wouldn’t be available for questions during the meeting.

“We’re about to farm out our most vulnerable children to save money on lawsuits,” Myers declared, “and I won’t have anything to do with it.”

Lewis emphasized his proposal “in no way is a reflection” of the MCSD staff currently providing alternative education. “But we’re not able to provide the level of support and wraparound services (the students) deserve,” he said. Camelot can provide “more in-depth services at a cost we can afford,” he said.

Ultimately, the superintendent heeded the thinking expressed by Cantrell, who noted that while the school systems has had 18 months to explore this decision, the board members have had only 18 days.

Williams and board chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1 praised Lewis for his decision.

“It’s important to educate all of our students,” Green said.

Residents should take advantage of the time provided by this delay, Williams suggested.

“Please engage your school board members,” she told the audience, “because we are only as good as your voice.”

MCSD’s proposed one-year contract with Camelot Education of Austin, Texas, would be for $6,436,098 and renewable for up to three years.

The plan, designed to improve alternative education in the district, would close the Edgewood Student Services Center and reopen the vacant Marshall Middle School to create the Marshall Learning Center, which would house:

▪ The AIM program (Achievement, Integrity and Maturity) currently at Edgewood, annually serving 400-500 students in grades 3-12 temporarily removed from their assigned school because of severe violations of the district’s behavior code. It would be called the Transitional School at Marshall with a capacity for 250 students in grades K-12 at one time, adding grades K-2 current not served.

▪ The Woodall Program currently housed at Davis Elementary School and Carver High School, serving 44 students with severe emotional and behavioral problems. It would be called the Therapeutic Day School at Marshall with a capacity for 75 K-12 students.

▪ A new program called Excel Academy at Marshall, with a capacity for 125 students, for over-age students in grades 6-12 who have fallen behind their peers.

▪ Catapult Academy, the dropout recovery program with a capacity for 120 students in grades 9-12 currently at Edgewood and 300 on the waiting list, would continue to be run by a separate contractor, not Camelot.

An article posted March 8 on Slate.com mentioned allegations of abuse at Camelot-run schools in: Reading, Pa., Lancaster, Pa.; Philadelphia; New Orleans and Pensacola, Fla.

In its 17-page response to Slate’s questions, Camelot wrote, “With the exception of an isolated incident in Reading, PA in which we immediately investigated and terminated multiple employees, Camelot has had no founded child abuse cases or lawsuits involving our students over the last decade. Your narrative is formulated using fewer than 10 incidents from the almost 5,940,000 daily interactions over a period of 10 years.”

MCSD board members have been mostly mum about the abuse allegations.

Camelot, a private, for-profit company, says it runs 43 alternative schools in six states, and MCSD would be the first district in Georgia to hire the company.

MCSD’s current places for these services have had costly problems this past year:

▪ On March 13, MCSD and seven other defendants were sued for $25 million in a personal injury complaint resulting from an incident in the AIM program at Edgewood. The lawsuit was filed in Muscogee County State Court on behalf of the Lawanda Thomas, the mother of Montravious Thomas, whose right leg was amputated below the knee after a contracted behavioral specialist with Mentoring & Behavioral Services of Columbus body-slammed the 13-year-old boy multiple times Sept. 12.

▪ The Woodall Center is among the nine out of 24 facilities in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support that the state determined last year to be unfit for those programs. The MCSD board unanimously approved in August the superintendent’s recommendation to transfer the Woodall Program to Davis Elementary School, complying with the state’s order to immediately move those students from the Woodall Center because it was declared unsafe and unhealthy.

If the board approves creating the Marshall Learning Center, the administration would try to sell Edgewood, which was appraised at $1.3 million and would more than cover the estimated $780,000 cost of renovating Marshall, the superintendent has said. He added that he has spoken with a potential buyer, whom he declined to name.

The money for the $6.4 million contract with Camelot would come from state and federal funds already allotted to the district, administrators have said.

Lewis has said the administration considered “four or five” other companies to provide this service, “but they didn’t have the face-to-face programming that this provides,” meaning the others rely more on students learning through tutorials on computers. “We’re looking for something with more of a relationship piece.”

Camelot is the only company Lewis said he is aware of that provides “this scope of services.”

The staff who would work at the Marshall Learning Center would be Camelot employees except for the school nutrition workers, Lewis has said. No MCSD employees would lose their job because of this proposal being implemented, administrators said. In fact, Lewis has said, “We can place all of these people and still have vacancies.”

Combined, the AIM and Woodall programs total 53 MCSD employees. They could apply for the Camelot positions or other openings in the district, administrators have said.

This story was originally published March 27, 2017 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Superintendent delays vote on controversial $6.4M alternative education contract."