North Valley Military Institute, a charter school with about 800 largely low-income middle and high school students in the San Fernando Valley, may be unable to operate this fall after its effort to lease classroom space from the L.A. Community College District stalled amid concerns over alleged financial mismanagement.
NVMI is being audited due to allegations of fraud, misappropriation of funds and other fiscal practices stemming, Los Angeles County Office of Education Public Information Officer Van Nguyen said on Wednesday, July 6.
NVMI Superintendent Dr. Mark Ryan denies the allegations.
While the results of the audit are not yet known, according to Nguyen, the allegations prompted the L.A. Community College District Board of Trustees to question whether they should lease space to the school.
NVMI’s mostly low-income, minority student population is now in a precarious position with the start of the school year just weeks away, and students not knowing whether they will have a place to go.
“We are so late in the summer I don’t even know if any school will accept them, it’s beyond stressful,” said Lisa Salazar, mother of two incoming 12th graders at NVMI. “The schools that are around my neighborhood are really not a place I would desire for them to finish their high school education.”
NVMI families and staff staged a protest at a July 5 meeting of the LACCD Board of Trustees, urging the board to set a date to vote on the lease agreement for NVMI to operate its high school on the LA Mission College campus. There is no date set for the board of trustees to consider the lease agreement, L.A. Community College District Director of Communications Juliet Hidalgo said on July 6.
NVMI ended up in this sticky situation due to a complicated series of events involving the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) and L.A. Community College District (LACCD).
The school is under the jurisdiction of…
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