John Marzulli of the New York Daily News reports that the ex-project manager of the South Bronx Classical Charter School is suing the school for $1 million for firing her for reporting financial and academic wrong-doing.

She allegedly told supervisors that the school was billing the city for special education students who were not enrolled and that some exams were plagiarized.

She also complained that children were punished by withholding food from them.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters reports that the school was awarded an A by the city on its latest report card:

She writes:

South Bronx Classical Charter allegedly defrauded public funds by charging DOE for special ed kids no longer attending, cheated on the state tests and withheld food from kids as punishment; yet got an A on NYC progress reports.

The school claims to develop “citizens of impeccable character.”

Lester Long, the ED and principal, who was allegedly informed of the fraud and shrugged his shoulders, is a former investment banker according to Wikipedia.

The charter school was allowed to expand into the middle grades and to replicate and open a second school, S. Bronx Classical Charter II by SED and the Regents, despite the fact that it was reported in 2012 that between 20 and 40 percent of students originally enrolled in the school left before they were tested, and no new students replaced them.

Moreover, in its site visit dated June 2012, the DOE charter office noted that the “school should continue its efforts to reach compliance with the amended 2010 NYS charter law requirements related to the enrollment and retention of at -risk student populations… …its enrollment of students with IEPs is below CSD 12 averages with a special education population of 5.4 % compared to CSD 12’s average of 18.3 %, as is the school’s population of ELLs (7.7% compared to 19% in the district.)”

The visitors also mentioned the high level of turnover of teachers and excessive reliance on inexperienced TFAers.

In another case reported in the DN in 2012, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights was investigating the suspension of Christian Charriez, 6, a special-needs student, who was suspended four times – the last time his parents told that he had to receive a psychiatric diagnosis.

“Principal Lester Long said the school invited Christian back to school and contacted his mother multiple times, but a letter from the family’s lawyer shows the school was contacted multiple times without response.”