State school funding follows students, no matter where they are enrolled. When entering data into the computer system, the lawsuits allege, Mavericks often says students are enrolled in courses they're not actually taking in order to get more funding. Even more alarming, Shaw and del Cristo allege the school does not offer a "Florida High School Diploma."
Records show Mavericks schools are not accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement. This means graduates can attend community colleges, but they may have trouble getting sports scholarships or federal grants.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Developer Mark Rodberg wanted Dwyane Wade's name on his restaurants and schools. To read more on the topic of Mavericks and South Florida education, click
here.
PR NEWSWIRE/Newscom
Former CEO Mark Thimmig is in a legal battle with Mavericks' other founders.
Related Content
More About
Students would ask Shaw if they could check their records, to see what courses they were enrolled in. But the school principal, Candace Chewning, told her to "calm the wildfires" and deny students and parents access to the records, Shaw alleges.
Chewning also chastised Shaw for warning students they might not be accepted into certain programs with a Mavericks diploma. According to Shaw, her boss told her she was spreading "poison" in the school, and Mavericks might close because so many kids were leaving. Shaw was fired in February 2010.
In April 2010, Del Cristo called the Miami-Dade school district to complain about students grades and attendance records being altered, among other allegations. She was fired the next month.
Dale Morgado, attorney for Shaw and Del Cristo, declined to comment, saying he's in settlement negotiations with Mavericks.
Mavericks officials have filed motions to dismiss both lawsuits. Biden says Mavericks schools issue Florida diplomas, but not every child graduates. When New Times contacted Hollander to ask more detailed questions about the lawsuit and other issues, she never responded.
Mavericks' paper trail is also troubling. Accountability reports, submitted by Mavericks to the state, contain bizarre financial figures. In 2010, the reports show zero dollars in revenue for the school in North Miami Beach, while both Mavericks schools in Miami-Dade claimed to be paying most of their teachers less than $5,000 a year.
Tammy Lara, principal at Mavericks High in Homestead, says those salaries are no longer correct. "Our salaries are very competitive to Miami-Dade County public schools," she says.
But Lara was not head of the school last year when the reports were submitted and didn't know why the listed salaries were so low. Hollander said she was unfamiliar with the state reports and would have to review them before commenting. When emailed the reports, she never responded.
Money has long been a problem for Mavericks. At the Fort Lauderdale Mavericks in June, independent auditors found the school met state criteria for a "financial emergency,"with a net deficit of at least $520,000. At the same time, an audit showed that the North Miami Beach Mavericks was $400,000 in debt and had borrowed from the Mavericks management company to stay afloat. The state department of education also required the Mavericks school in Pinellas to create a financial corrective action plan.
Mavericks officials say Fort Lauderdale's debt was temporary, because the school's original enrollment was low. Hollander wrote a check to cover the budget hole, and the school is "now on its feet and very healthy," Biden says.
By law, school district officials can shutter charter schools with serious academic or financial problems. But Mavericks has managed to avert the worst penalties by submitting plans to correct its finances and by earning "incomplete" instead of "D" or "F" on its state report cards. Plus, Florida law is designed to encourage charters, not shut them down. Even failing schools are given time to improve before they are closed.
John Schuster, spokesman for the Miami-Dade school district, says no action has been taken against Mavericks there. "The district monitors charter schools' academic and financial performance. In general, it takes two years of poor performance data to result in closure."
Both Miami-Dade Mavericks schools have been open since August 2009. The Broward and Palm Beach schools are newer, and thus do not have a two-year track record.
The management fees paid by the individual schools to Mavericks in Education Florida have been a source of controversy. School district officials want to know what the fee will be before they approve a new school, but it's not always clear. Last year, the management fee was $267,000 for the Fort Lauderdale Mavericks school. In 2010, Mavericks in Homestead paid the management company $418,000, or 17 percent of its state funds. In Palm Beach County, Mavericks' fee is not specified in its contract. Hollander says the fee varies based on enrollment, but it's capped at 11 percent of the state funding the school receives.
According to Biden, Mavericks turns a profit because of its savvy real estate choices. "It's all about the buildings we buy," he says."Certainly the operation of the schools isn't profitable."
But most of the time, Mavericks isn't buying buildings. It's striking deals with private landlords, then charging individual schools rent of $350,000 per year for five years, regardless of the price of the building. That's the case in Homestead, North Miami, Kissimmee, and Pinellas. In Homestead, the school building's current market value is $1.2 million, but the school is on the hook for $1.75 million in rent over five years.
That sum, combined with its management fee, means the Homestead school paid 28 percent of its revenue to Mavericks in Education in 2010.
