Southside Academy chief: Law is on White Hat’s side

Photo by: Lisa-Ann Ishihara

Special to the Vindicator

Photo

Youngstown's Southside Academy

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

While some of the schools it manages have filed a lawsuit against White Hat Management, citing a lack of transparency in how it spends its money, the president of Southside Academy says that’s the way the Legislature wrote the law.

William Mullane serves as president of the board of the charter school located in the old South High School on Market Street. The school contracts with White Hat, based in Akron, to run the school.

The company doesn’t share information about how it spends money, prompting the lawsuit.

“It’s not difficult or perplexing to me,” he said. “That’s what the Legislature intended when it created” the law allowing charter schools.

White Hat is a private company and considers information about its curriculum, teaching methods and professional development proprietary, Mullane said.

“They don’t want their competitors to have that,” he said.

In public school districts, all of that information is public. Mullane, who has made his career working in public schools, said working on the charter school board has been a learning curve for him.

“I believe in education as a fundamental right and responsibility,” he said. “Anything we do in this profession should be open and shared in open worlds.”

Mullane, who served many years as principal at Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, is now supervisor of school improvement at the Ashtabula County Educational Service Center/Jefferson Area Local Schools.

He said he got involved with Southside Academy less than a year ago out of a desire to learn more about charter schools. He also was drawn to the commitment of other board members of the school.

Southside formed after the former Eagle Heights Academy was closed by the state because of poor academic performance. Both Eagle Heights and Southside were in the same building. White Hat was contracted when the school became Southside.

The management company handles day-to-day operations of the school while the board sets policy, similar to how a public school board hires a superintendent and treasurer to run a school district.

Similar to how the management company reaps the benefit of any profit from the state funding it receives for educating kids, it also eats any losses, Mullane said.

Besides Southside Academy, White Hat also manages LifeSkills Centers of Youngstown and LifeSkills Center of Trumbull County in Warren.

Public school district officials for years have decried how charter schools are taking money away from public schools. It may get worse.

In his proposed biennial budget, Gov. John Kasich has announced plans to remove the cap on the number of charter and community schools in the state.

A Columbus Dispatch article in December pointed out that David and Ann Brennan are one of the biggest contributors to Ohio political campaigns in the last 10 years. David Brennan operates White Hat.