Arts and Minds School being monitored aggressively

The following comes from Daniel A. Ricker's "Watchdog Report." I have Daniel's permission to reprint it word-for-word here:

The Arts and Minds Academy Charter School was in the school board’s audit committee spotlight this week and the founder and owner of the building housing the school was called out Tuesday at the meeting. Four restaurant/bars surround the school located on Commodore Plaza in Coconut Grove and when school ends in the afternoon. The kid’s mill around the streets running through passing traffic, yet there are no signs indicating it is a school zone. The school, created a few years ago has been expanding, adding students, but that rate of student growth has dropped to 351 students and the institution is trending toward having another deficit, like the previous year. Manny Alonso-Poch, the owner of the building housing the academy founded the school and runs a restaurant at night at the location as well.

Alonso-Poch was grilled by audit committee members about whether the school will close the year with a deficit and he said it would not. He told them he would cover any shortfalls when the budget year concludes June 30 and it would be a “gift.” However, since the school is a not-for-profit that could be a tax deduction for Alonso-Poch and since he is getting over $69,000 in rent a month covering the potential estimated $150,000 shortfall would be no problem. The public school district funds the school based on student count and the audit committee voted to increase the scrutiny on the school including district auditors “monitoring in a more aggressive capacity.”

Betty Amos, the chair of the audit committee asked Alonso-Poch if he would reduce the high rent he charges for the school but the owner disagreed saying he “did not agree the rent was too high.” Audit committee member Frederick “Buck” Thornburg, Esq., said after the school’s discussion there “is a lot of fairy dust running around here” in the room he thought and scrutiny of the school’s finances are now front and center of the nation’s fourth largest public schools district’s auditors. Readers should stay tuned to see how this all pans out in the future.

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