The Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence appeared before the state’s Charter School Accountability Committee Monday as it begins the formal review process.
The school was placed on formal review late last year with the Department of Education voicing enrollment, financial and organizational concerns.
At an initial meeting Monday, the committee gave the school’s board a chance to respond to those concerns, including a projected 81,000 dollars in state resources the school was not set to receive.
The state reduced their funding allotment due to a decrease in enrollment. The school’s 2024 enrollment was 75 students short of its 200-student goal, another concern voiced by DOE.
BASSE head of school Raushann Austin says the budget was submitted in error.
“We realized after reviewing the budget that was submitted to us that those numbers had not been updated to actually reflect changes made in the budget based on the enrollment since September 30th.” she said.
BASSE officials say they have since submitted a corrected budget. They also plan to launch a social media campaign and have board members become more involved in recruiting efforts to reach enrollment goals.
The school’s board and administration ultimately answered 44 total questions regarding how the school plans to remediate issues raised going forward, including questions on school nurse certification, homeless student services, mental health services for students, and unpaid vendor invoices for the better part of 2025’s fourth quarter.
Most of the school's answers indicated that mistakes were, in large part, due to staffing changes and shortages. They said that caused some details to fall through the cracks while many members of administration were wearing "multiple hats."
Austin says most of the shortcomings of the school are part of "growing pains" of a charter schools' early years and say that the school is grateful for the review process.
“I think we believe in our commitment to continuous school improvement, and in order to improve, you have to get feedback. So, we see this as a process of getting feedback to strengthen our process, practice, and the model that we’re delivering to our students and our community." she told DPM.
The committee will now consider BASSE’s responses and hold its first public hearing on January 26th at 6pm at 401 Federal Street in Dover.
