Question 1 - The lease was cancelled in L.A. because the AFHA church wanted to sell the property. Nevertheless, with the help of Ms. Johnson’s brother (Atty. Daniel Johnson), the buyers of the church property gave CHCS $150K for moving expenses & AFHA church gave CHCS $100k for moving expenses.
Question 2 - There were several properties presented for possible use in Los Angeles:
· The Carl Bean building 2 blocks east of Adams & Arlington
· The Wave Newspaper building on 54th & 4th Ave. (now renovated & being used by another charter school. Gichohi & Trujillo refused to visit this location.)
· Gage Brown’s mother referred a Jewish School Building less than ½ mile from Hamilton H/S that was ready for occupation and had certificate of occupation for school use. However, because we were told that the building in Sherman Oaks was ready for occupation & lease was signed, I did not present this option.
· The company that bought our building found us a building near 37th and Western—ready to move in. But, Ms. Trujillo didn’t like the location.
· The securing of “suitable, safe location, was unsuccessful” therefore, Trujillo found a building in Sherman Oaks that she & Gichohi said met this requirement- Umoja went to this site and told Trujillo that the site had crack vials, drug paraphernalia, and no power or water. How safe and secure was this?
Question 3 - The suitable site found by Gichohi & Trujillo did not have power or water, and when Trujillo was called from the site and asked about this, she told me (Kweli Umoja) “we’re working on it.” The broker, who rented the facility to Gichohi & Trujillo, entered the building immediately after I hung up the phone with Trujillo and I asked him about the power and water situation. The Broker said “didn’t your ‘partners’ (Gichohi & Trujillo) tell you that I told them before they signed the lease that all the wiring and plumbing had been removed from the building?” How safe and suitable is that?
· The school opened three weeks late because of all of the renovations that were incomplete from the summer.
· Students were forced to use port a potties for 30 days or more (which they shared with the construction workers).
· Students drank bottled water and sat under a canopy in the 100+ heat for 30+ days.
· Some classes could not use their classrooms so they met outside.
· Some students with respiratory problems and other students were fainting due to the heat.
Question 4 – The reason that CHCS did not move back to L.A. after the first year is a mystery that has nothing to do with “the global economic crisis…within the agreed upon time period”. This is another complete fabrication.
· Umoja called Trujillo in April 2009, told her he had found a newly constructed building by Marie Fegan with 26 classrooms, and she said “it’s too late” to request a new site with LAUSD for the 2009-10 school year. It would have saved the approximately $300k spent on busing.
· In May 2010, another site was found on 49th & Main with an NBA size gymnasium, boys and girls locker rooms, an amphitheatre, sound proof practice rooms for music, science labs with necessary safe storage rooms for chemicals, and kitchen & cafeteria space. Renting this space would have saved the school busing costs ($300k), even with paying the lease in Sherman Oaks, the school would save $50k (the owner of Sherman Oaks site would have gladly let CHCS out of the lease since Gichohi & Trujillo were so generous in paying for renovations and any other repairs to the building—broken main water & waste lines, hazardous material removal, and roof repairs, etc.). The Board of Directors and Gichohi & Trujillo refused to meet with Umoja, Johnson, parents, students, and the Community in May and June 2010.
Question 5 – As usual this Administration would rather cast aspersions against the original Co-founders of CHCS, and now even casting aspersions against Alumni of CHCS rather than have a public meeting to discuss the so-called misleading information. Why are they (CHCS Board and current Administrators- neither of whom have teaching credentials nor public school credential teacher experience) afraid to have a public meeting as evidenced by refusing to meet publicly with me? Who are the “previous CHCS employees, their relatives and their close friends”? Community Harvest Charter School was family. It is very disappointing to see the current administrators seek to divide CHCS into opposing camps. Whether they are friends, relatives, alumni, parents, students, or community of CHCS, they have a right to express their concerns that:
· CHCS, since moving to Sherman Oaks, has become a Program Improvement school for three years in a row thus compromising the possibility of CHCS’s Charter being renewed. (What happens with the remaining lease debt if this occurs?)
· Approximately $600k spent to renovate a privately owned building in Sherman Oaks
· Spending approximately $900k on busing over the past three years (2008 – 2011)
· Umoja terminated by the BOD without notifying him of the BOD meeting and not having his requested public hearing
· Seasoned teachers terminated without proper cause
· Twice as many substitute teachers are working at CHCS than there are regular teachers
The CHCS Board of Directors and Gichohi & Trujillo would rather attempt to misdirect parents and students than to own up to their own mismanagement of funds, academic programs of students, and their deliberate acts of excluding parents in the decision making process. This is extremely contradictory to the main provisions of Charter School law and intent as it relates to Federal guidelines to involve parents and community in the decision making process.
“Who are the individuals that are presently sending out misleading information about the school?” If the information is misleading then why not have a public Board of Directors meeting with parents, students, and the school community to discuss these concerns. “It pains us to see C-HARV deteriorating. What’s worse is that for 3 of us, Mrs. Gichohi and Ms. Trujillo were our teachers in 6, 7, & 8th grade (at a private school) and administrators at Community Harvest.” Who are we? We are alumni of Community Harvest Charter School:
Diana Garcia (‘07) graduate of UCLA (2011) Latin American Studies/ Labor & Workplace Studies
Trayvone Johnson (‘06) Professional baseball with the Minnesota Twins, enrolled to become a Paramedic Firefighter
David Ritcherson (‘06) graduate of U.C. San Diego (2011) Ethnic Studies/ Economics
Rukiya Umoja (‘06) graduate of Tougaloo College (2010) Chemistry
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