Gompers Preparatory Academy, a public charter school in Southeast San Diego, is shown in this photo from 2017. (Brandon Quester/inewsource)
The association tasked with accrediting charter schools confirmed Tuesday it is looking into allegations of grade inflation documented in inewsource’s investigation of San Diego’s Gompers Preparatory Academy.
Fred Van Leuven, president of the Accrediting Commission for Schools, Western Association of Schools and Colleges, stressed that the process had just begun and the agency wasn’t confirming any wrongdoing.
He has taken the first step and reached out to Gompers for comment, Van Leuven said. From there, the commission has a range of options to pursue allegations.
“Lack of integrity has been an issue that has resulted in schools losing their accreditation,” Van Leuven stated.
Read the original inewsource investigation.
Tuesday night’s board meeting at Gompers was well attended by students and administration, as well as a few parents. One spoke during the public comment period, commending the school and recommending the press focus on its positive aspects. Another took issue with the inewsource investigation.
“I think that this school has been targeted because of the minorities that attend here,” said Shamika Shropshire, a parent of two Gompers students.
“I don’t think they like to see us succeed, I don’t think they like to see us prosper in this world. This story may sound like the sweetest cake to some people, but it’s horrible to me. Because I’m on the inside looking out, and I’ve also been on the outside looking in, and I think this school has done a wonderful job in educating my two children.”
Gompers is a charter school that serves sixth through 12th grades in the Chollas View neighborhood in southeastern San Diego. It has been held up as a success story because it changed from a school that once was riddled with gangs and drugs, low attendance and high teacher turnover into an institution that promises every student will be prepared for college.
Fourteen former students and teachers contacted inewsource Tuesday, many reinforcing the story that used data, documents and on-the-record interviews to expose questions about the quality of education at Gompers.
That makes 25 former students and teachers who have alleged serious problems at the school.
Teachers described pressure at Gompers to pass failing students and intimidation if they refused. Several said they were told they were murdering or killing kids by giving them F’s.
All talked about their dedication to students who had heartbreaking personal stories and came from homes where college was not an expectation.
Cecil Steppe, Gompers founder and board chair poses for a portrait outside the school. Photo by Brandon Quester, inewsource.
Julie Golokow Lloyd, who taught at Gompers from 2009 to 2016, defended the school, its vision and the dedication of the teachers and staff.
“I personally was never asked to inflate grades, and have never heard of anyone being asked to do so. If a student was failing, we were offered over-time pay to tutor the student,” she wrote toinewsource. “We were asked to provide many services that the parents were expected to provide when their child was struggling in school, in other neighborhoods and districts. Another way of closing the socio-economic gap between privileged and under-privileged.”
Lloyd concluded, “Just as I played a part in nurturing GPA students, GPA played a part in nurturing me. I am the woman I am today because of the experiences, relationships, work ethic, and REACH Values I learned from being a member of the GPA family. I will forever be grateful for the experiences and the experience that Gompers provided me.”
Former students who were interviewed or posted on social media Tuesday talked about how they struggled in college after graduation from Gompers, unprepared for the academic rigors of a school such as UCSD.
Felipe Morfin Martinez told inewsource, “I’ve been saying the same exact thing to everyone — all of my classmates and my parents.” Martinez graduated from Gompers last year and is now at UCSD.
[box]Are you a current or former teacher or student? Contact the reporter on this story at bradracino@inewsource.org to share your experience at Gompers.[/box]
Some people who identified themselves as parents or former students shared the inewsource story and expressed anger, disbelief and defensiveness on Facebook.
“I still remember arguing with some teachers when I asked for a challenge, and wanting to learn more,” one former student wrote. “Gompers was able to get us into college, but it didn’t help us prepare for it.”
Another student posted on Facebook: “you have a choice either you listen or don’t……either you study or you don’t …and if you decide to dropout that’s not the schools fault that’s you ….College is not easy if college was easy everyone would be graduating…”
The student concluded, “just please stop blaming the school…because Gompers actually cares …..”
“I’ve always supported everything the school does,” one parent wrote on Facebook. “After reading this I have mixed feelings sad, confused, upset.”
Gompers provided some data about its graduates to inewsource for its initial story. It showed that 59.6 percent of the 89 college-bound students from the class of 2014 were still enrolled one year later. Gompers also provided data that said 14 of the 19 students who went to UCSD on a full ride in 2015 are still in school as of April 2017.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse, 72 percent of U.S. students who started college in fall 2014 remained in college the following fall.
inewsource requested data on retention rates from UCSD and should be receiving it soon.
[two_third_last]Data, teachers’ allegations undermine Gompers’ college-ready promise
Data, documents and interviews contradict the Gompers brand of preparing every student for college. Teachers say grades are inflated, and if students still can’t graduate, they are “counseled” to attend school elsewhere. The same teachers who praise the director’s talent blame him, saying he shames educators who assign failing grades by telling them they are “murdering” kids.
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[two_third_last]Standardized test scores: How we crunched the data
The inewsource investigation into Gompers Preparatory Academy, in addition to dozens of interviews with former students, teachers and key stakeholders, relied on the results of this data to compare Gompers to schools across the San Diego Unified School District, San Diego County and total individual schools in California.[/two_third_last]
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[two_third_last]Despite A’s at Gompers, former student talks about feeling unprepared
A Q&A with Felipe Morfin Martinez, who graduated from Gompers in 2016 and was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the University of California San Diego where he is studying communications.
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[two_third_last]Teacher of the Year urges Gompers’ community to be accountable
Maria Miller, a former Teacher of the Year at Gompers Preparatory Academy, described her history with, feelings toward and recommendations concerning the Chollas View charter school at the center of inewsource’s ongoing investigation.
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Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Women
80%
Women
82%
Women
75%
Men
20%
Men
18%
Men
25%
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Straight
87%
Straight
82%
Straight
100%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
Not specified
7%
Not specified
7%
Speak a language beyond English at home
33%
Speak a language beyond English at home
18%
Speak a language beyond English at home
75%
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
White
67%
White
73%
White
50%
Hispanic or Latinx
20%
Two or more races
18%
Hispanic or Latinx
50%
Two or more races
13%
Hispanic or Latinx
9%
Age
Age
Age
20-29
40%
20-29
45%
20-29
25%
30-39
47%
30-39
45%
30-39
50%
60 or older
13%
60 or older
9%
60 or older
25%
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Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
Brad Racino is the assistant editor and a senior reporter at inewsource. He has produced investigations for print, radio and TV on topics including political corruption, transportation, health, maritime, education and nonprofits.
His cross-platform reporting for inewsource has earned more than 50 awards since 2012, including back-to-back national medals from Investigative Reporters and Editors, two national Edward R. Murrow awards, a Meyer “Mike” Berger award from New York City’s Columbia Journalism School, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism, San Diego SPJ’s First Amendment Award, and a national Emmy nomination.
In 2017, Racino was selected by the Institute for Nonprofit News as one of 10 “Emerging Leaders” in U.S. nonprofit journalism.
Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
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Brad Racino is the assistant editor and senior investigative reporter at inewsource. He's a big fan of transparency, whistleblowers and government agencies forgetting to redact key information from FOIA requests.
Brad received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri...
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