Why was a Manatee charter school taken over? School Board leader questions evidence

Unhappy with a traditional education, teachers and families voted to convert Lincoln Middle School to a charter in 2017. They envisioned a community-run school that offered life skills, sports, career preparation and the arts.

The campus in Palmetto — now known as Lincoln Memorial Academy — reopened as a charter school in August 2018. It lasted one tumultuous year before the Manatee County School Board shut it down.

Charlie Kennedy, the board chair and a longtime supporter of the charter school, has now revived a debate on whether the takeover was legal, and whether fellow board members relied on fraudulent evidence last year.

In an affidavit signed Dec. 18, the board chair argued in favor of the school’s former leaders, who are now suing the school district in federal court. His statement brought new life to a controversy that began on July 23, 2019.

The School Board voted 4-1, with Kennedy dissenting, to terminate Lincoln Memorial’s charter and reclaim the property. The legal basis for the takeover was an “immediate and serious danger to the health, safety and/or welfare” of students.

Robert Cohen, then the chief judge for the Division of Administrative Hearings, upheld the School Board’s decision in September 2019. While he cited a host of concerns in his order, he underscored the impending water shut-off at Lincoln Memorial Academy.

The tardy water bill, he said, was a prime example of the financial crisis and leadership failures at Lincoln Memorial.

“Perhaps the most inexplicable failure to pay issue in this case involved LMA’s water utility bill,” the judge wrote, citing a water shut-off notice sent to school and district officials last year.

“It is undisputed that a school cannot operate without running water,” his order continued. “It is also undisputed that LMA’s failure to have running water would pose a serious and immediate danger to the students’ health, safety, and welfare.”

Pointing to sabotage and racism, supporters of the charter school and its former leadership were outraged. They believe the document was fabricated and used to take control from a Black principal and students who were largely Black and Hispanic.

New security measures followed a series of chaotic School Board meetings and arguments between guests and board members. In August 2019, more than 40 students walked out of the school — now under district control — to demand the return of their former principal and charter CEO, Eddie Hundley.

But local officials, including attorneys for the school district and the city of Palmetto, have continued to defend the water shut-off notice and the school takeover. The school had a late water bill and the service was nearly disconnected based on a city ordinance, they said.

And the judge’s final order was about far more than a water bill. Judge Cohen cited Lincoln Memorial Academy’s debt to the IRS and the Florida Retirement System.

He cited the continued presence of Hundley, who was barred from jobs requiring “direct contact” with students after losing his educator certificate in May 2019, just before the school takeover.

The judge also pointed to weak background checks for employees and a failure to screen students’ food for allergens. Many of the concerns went undisputed after Hundley and other school leaders invoked their Fifth Amendment right “hundreds of times,” the judge wrote.

When faced with a question about their operations, including the overdue water bill, school leaders blamed the district and took “no responsibility whatsoever,” the judge continued.

Despite the hard stance taken by Cohen, School Board members, district leaders and city officials, the recent affidavit brought new attention to a case that remains ongoing in state and federal courts.

Along with the challenge in a state appeal’s court, Lincoln Memorial Academy is using a civil rights lawsuit to confront the School District of Manatee County, the city of Palmetto and the Florida Department of Education.

According to the School Board’s chair, they have a case.

“It is my belief that the termination of LMA was not based on an immediate threat to the health, safety and welfare of children,” Kennedy said in his affidavit.

THE GREAT DEBATE

Lincoln Memorial owed the city of Palmetto $3,216 for a water bill due on July 5, 2019. A city employee sent school and district leaders a “shut-off notification” less than three weeks later, claiming the charter school was “now 45 days past due.”

“This appears to be false as the bill was only 17 days past due,” Kennedy said in his recent affidavit. “Further, this ‘shut off’ document is not in the normal format of over one hundred shut-off notices issued by the City of Palmetto the same month.”

The Bradenton Herald questioned Palmetto officials about the apparent discrepancy last year. Jim Freeman, the city clerk, acknowledged that Lincoln Memorial was not 45 days past due and that notices included “a typo” on that day.

But he went on to defend the shut-off notice, citing an ordinance that allows for utility shut-offs when a customer is 45 days past the billing date. Lincoln Memorial was 17 days past the due date, but it was 39 days past the billing date of June 13, 2019.

The school was in danger of having its water shut off by July 30, 2019, about one week after it received the shut-off notice. Mark Barnebey, the city attorney, reaffirmed that argument in an October 2019 letter to the school district’s attorney, Mitchell Teitelbaum.

Barnebey said there was a “typographical error” in the notice, but the need to warn Lincoln Memorial of its impending water shut-off was still legitimate and necessary, Barnebey argued, citing the city ordinance.

In his recent affidavit, Kennedy raised a new counter-argument and questioned the School Board’s legal standing in the charter termination.

“The ordinance on which this analysis is based was approved on August 28, 2019, a month after the LMA termination by the School Board of Manatee County,” his affidavit states.

Barnebey and Charles Johnson, attorneys at Blalock Walters, disputed that statement in response to questions from the Bradenton Herald. In an email sent on Monday afternoon, Johnson said the ordinance “was modified in 2019,” but not the section relevant to Lincoln Memorial Academy.

Barnebey sent a follow-up email on Tuesday afternoon. Palmetto has used the same practice for late payments and utility shut-offs since October 2013, he wrote.

“It is generally the policy of the city not to comment on pending litigation,” his email states. “However, there is a significant amount of incorrect information being alleged by some people related to the city utility ordinances.”

RENEWED QUESTIONS

The shut-off notice was sent on July 22, 2019, just one day before the School Board voted to terminate Lincoln Memorial’s charter. The federal lawsuit claims that, under pressure from state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, local officials conspired to bring the charter school down.

The complaint states that Palmetto’s mayor, Shirley Groover Bryant, forced the creation of a water shut-off notice and had it sent to Superintendent Cynthia Saunders, bolstering the termination case.

The suit points to an email sent from a city employee to the superintendent one day before the school’s takeover.

“Hi Ms. Saunders,” a customer service supervisor wrote. “Per the City of Palmetto’s Mayor request, attached please find a copy of the shut-off notice dated 07.22.19 for Lincoln Memorial Academy.”

Citing the email, the lawsuit alleges that Saunders “asked, suggested, conspired with, or requested the City of Palmetto to create the said shut-off notice.”

According to Teitelbaum, the school district’s attorney, Saunders had a standing request for such documents. The superintendent wanted notice of issues affecting staff and students, the attorney said in an interview last year.

Unconvinced, two people have called for a criminal investigation into the alleged conspiracy. Hundley, the school’s former principal, and Rodney Jones, the ousted leader of the Manatee NAACP, have both filed complaints with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Hundley filed a report in October 2019, followed by a more recent complaint from Jones, an FDLE report states.

Jones included the report in his email to community members on Tuesday afternoon. FDLE found no criminal wrongdoing and declined to investigate further, the report states.

In his email, Jones decried the findings and accused the investigators of “targeted racism.”

Special Agent “Sarney explained to Jones, in detail, that there was no evidence of criminality in the documents that Jones had provided, and that in fact it appeared as though the City of Palmetto went out of their way to try to help LMA,” the report states. “SA Sarney stated that there was no indication of racism, anger, or vitriol in any of the provided materials.”

The agency closed its review and the federal lawsuit trudged forward. The process was quietly moving in the background until Kennedy filed his affidavit this month, giving newfound life to allegations of fraud and conspiracy between the school district and the city of Palmetto.

At least three people addressed city commissioners and called for the resignation of Palmetto’s mayor during a meeting on Monday evening.

“Based on what has come to light, I would ask also that the mayor of Palmetto be held accountable for these actions. ... We would ask the same for [Superintendent] Cynthia Saunders,” said Bridget Mendel, a regular at School Board meetings.

In his recent affidavit, Kennedy said he found no legal basis for the shut-off notice after reviewing utility bills, bank statements from the school and emails between Palmetto’s mayor and the superintendent.

However, he stopped short of naming a perpetrator behind the document or the alleged scheme to take over Lincoln Memorial Academy.

And while some see the superintendent as a culprit, the board chair voted in favor of Saunders’ contract extension on Dec. 17. Kennedy cited the ongoing controversy and his belief that Saunders could help to reach a solution.

Said Kennedy at the recent meeting: “We all want Lincoln Memorial back on its feet and we want a community-based charter there.”

This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 8:49 AM.