Urban Prep high schools in Chicago at risk of losing their charters as CPS threatens takeover

The Chicago Board of Education will vote Wednesday on whether to revoke the charters for two campuses of Urban Prep Academy — an institution lauded for getting all of its seniors into college but beset in recent years by claims of management and oversight problems.

Urban Prep’s Englewood and Bronzeville campuses wouldn’t close, and their students would not be reassigned, but their operations would come under Chicago Public Schools’ control — a prospect Urban Prep officials see as a threat to the schools’ future.

Urban Prep is known for serving young Black men as well as for its high graduation rates and academic achievement. But the recommendation from CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to revoke two of Urban Prep’s charter asserts that the schools violated the terms of the terms of those charters, violated the law and “failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management.”

However, at the Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men in Englewood on Tuesday, a different story emerged — one accusing CPS of aggressive oversight and demands, effective “attacks” against Urban Prep’s independence amid an anti-charter school political climate, administrators said. Dressed in uniforms, students gathered in the school auditorium as administrators hosted a news conference responding to CPS’ claims and calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to intervene.

Urban Prep Chief Academic Officer Dennis Lacewell called Wednesday’s planned vote an attempt by CPS to end Urban Prep for good, leaving Chicago youths without an opportunity to learn in an environment that specifically advocates for the success of Black teens.

Troy Boyd Jr., chief operating officer for Urban Prep, said CPS “is trying to take over Urban Prep. It is an attempt to substitute our success governing and operating the district’s only charter schools founded and led by Black men that are focused on the educational outcomes of Black males to accomplish their own, non-student-focused goals.”

The agenda for Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting includes an 11-page explanation of CPS’ recommendation for the charters’ nonrenewal outlining years of mismanaged finances, failure to employ licensed teachers and details of alleged sexual misconduct by former CEO Tim King. King has gone to court seeking to reverse disciplinary measures taken by CPS against him, which he said in legal documents were the result of a “fundamentally flawed investigation” that led to his forced resignation.

Boyd contends that CPS’ claims of mismanagement at Urban Prep are past issues that have been addressed and called them the latest of many “attacks” from CPS, which in the past included blocking Urban Prep’s effort to expand to middle school education and deleting applications to its downtown campus school after CPS revoked that charter in 2018.

Since then Boyd said Urban Prep has gone through applications for renewal almost annually in recent years, a process Boyd said is time-consuming and exhausting.

The current charter for Urban Prep Academy’s Bronzeville campus, which was renewed in 2020, expires on June 30, 2023. The Englewood site’s charter was set to be renewed for another year on July 1, provided it met certain conditions for financial management and governance structure, which the board set in February. Its third high school downtown is under a charter from the state.

Boyd said Urban Prep agreed to those conditions in a contract signed on Aug. 31, past the deadline CPS had set for the end of June.

CPS, however, contends that Urban Prep “has refused to submit proof of its compliance with the Board’s conditions, which it orally claims to have met.”

On Sept. 26, CPS set additional conditions, “intended to cure past breaches and ensure future compliance with its charter, adherence to accepted standards of fiscal management, and compliance with the law,” according to the district document.

Lacewell said these conditions included demanding Urban Prep fire specific executives, pay for a monitor to oversee its finances, publicly ban King and prevent him from using the Urban Prep name, or require Urban Prep to change its name.

These additional conditions were set a few weeks after King took legal action against CPS to reverse the disciplinary actions against him, which he said were based on false claims.

Lacewell said Tuesday that Urban Prep officials “came to the conclusion that these onerous, oppressive, overseer conditions that they wanted us to sign off on were based on retaliation against our founder.”

CPS said King currently holds a position on its Legacy Board and runs the Urban Prep Foundation.

On Oct. 12, a representative of CPS attended one of Urban Prep’s monthly school meetings and told parents that CPS intended not to renew the charter if the school didn’t meet the new conditions. Lacewell said Urban Prep officials had not communicated details of the ongoing renewal process to the school community yet, and he did not know CPS would make that announcement. Parents left the meeting after the announcement, Lacewell said.

One of those parents was Robert Johnson, whose son is a senior at Urban Prep in Bronzeville. After CPS made that announcement to the community, Lacewell said the school hosted information sessions, answering any questions members of the school community have had. The response has been overwhelming support, he said.

Johnson said he chose to send his son to Urban Prep with the goal of sending him to college. Now his son has been accepted to five four-year-colleges with scholarship money.

“It’s not a hope, it’s not a dream, it’s a reality,” Johnson said.

“The fact that CPS thinks they can do a better job is laughable, it’s inexcusable,” he added.

One of CPS’ allegations against the charter schools is fiscal management. According to the document, Urban Prep started asking for cash advance payments of its local, state and federal funding from the Board of Education in 2017. In 2019, it also started selling future board funding for immediate cash to companies that charged fees worth more than 40% of the future revenue. The financial missteps continued, CPS alleges, culminating in defaults on debts, staff salaries, lease payments and more.

Investigation into why Urban Prep struggled to pay these bills, despite regular funding from the Board of Education, is ongoing, according to the document.

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Urban Prep also got loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, which the CPS inspector general found was received based on false payroll information submitted in its application. At the same time, the program continued to get funding from the board. According to the document, Urban Prep attributed the error to its payroll company.

Boyd said Urban Prep’s financial struggles began in the 2015-16 fiscal year after CPS suffered budget cuts. Instead of reducing staffing, Urban Prep sought other ways to raise funds to continue operations. Now, Boyd insists Urban Prep is in strong financial standing.

“I would be very interested in knowing why they decided to renew us during those years when we were faced with the challenges, as opposed to why they’re trying to do it right now,” Boyd said.

Tyrone Muhammad, founder of the violence prevention organization Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, attended Tuesday’s news conference.

“What does the city want out of our children?” Muhammad asked. “Do you want them educated? Do you want them to be productive young men?

“Do you want them educated by a group of strong Black men standing up here?” he added. “Or do you want them in the prisons or the graveyards?”

mellis@chicagotribune.com