Up North Progressive

Recently, there was good news for public education. The Washington State Surpreme Court ruled on September 5, 2015 that for-profit charter schools taking public tax money away from real public schools is unconstitutional. Educators and parents across the country celebrated with Washington State this important victory in fighting back against corporate reformers trying to dismantle the public school system in the United States.

Here in Michigan, unfortunately, it’s business as usual for the for-profit charter school cancer working it’s way through the state. Castlebond Enterprises, a “family owned” business is one such tumor currently working to add to the disease. Of course, Mario and Luigi are convinced they’re doing good things for education.

Our sole purpose is finding success and sustainable results for our Education and School-based clients. Castlebond is involved in the day- to-day development and implementation of educational services from all perspectives, including new school development and school management.

The Castlebond team currently has three charter schools under their management. Let’s take a look at the status of each school receiving “success and sustainable results”.

Great Lakes Anchor Academy

In Macomb County, former Walled Lake elementary teacher Amy Neibert wants to create a special for-profit charter school that focuses on STEM and also provides a disciplined, naval theme to the school. Great Lakes Anchor Academy received their charter from Ferris State University in May of 2015 and plans to open for the 2016-2017 school year. This is the current home for Great Lakes Anchor Academy:

That’s because the permanent home for GLAA is still under construction, sharing a building with this fine establishment.

Already GLAA’s board raised eyebrows in the community when they decided to hold one of their required by law public meetings in a local bar instead of the trailer the school organizational team is currently housed in. There are issues with the board not notifying the public of upcoming meetings, also required by law. According to the GLAA website, meetings for the school are held in the Mount Clemens Public Library. Another problem with the for-profit charter school is their association with the Sea Cadets, something already provided by Mount Clemens schools. The for-profit charter school and board are currently under investigation by the Macomb County Prosecutor.

Hinoki International School

This school in Farmington Hills used to be called the Japanese American School of South East Michigan and originally opened in 2010. In 2015 they chartered with Saginaw Valley State University and changed the name to Hinoki International School. Until recently, the school shared the same building that housed the Montessori School on 12 Mile, but then came bad news:

It is with deep regret that Hinoki International School announces that we will not be opening our doors this fall as planned, due to the sudden closure of Schoolhouse Montessori Preschool and the sale of our facility to Aim High School, a private school for students with special needs.  Hinoki’s charter-authorizer is preserving our charter, and many of our stakeholders are encouraging us to start again in a new location in 2016-17.  Many thanks to our hundreds of supporters and volunteers for your support of our school’s bilingual education mission!

Aim High School it seems doesn’t want to share the building with Hinoki, so until Hinoki can find a new home, they will not be open.

Gateway To Success Academy

This for-profit charter school, like all of the other Castlebond-managed schools, isn’t set to open until 2016 because they still need $1.5 million in start-up costs and their grocery store needs to be refurbished into something that can reflect the egos behind the project. The local oil tycoon teamed up with an alternative ed principal and found they shared a common purpose – to close down an alternative junior-senior high school and instead open a for-profit charter school based on California’s High Tech High. High Tech High uses project-based education where students complete hands-on activities in a very non-traditional school setting. Reviews left on Great Schools are very mixed. Students profess their love of the school with reviews filled with spelling and grammar errors. Frustrated parents complain their children weren’t prepared for college. Also, High Tech High fulfills their claim that 100% of their students go to college by requiring all students to fill out applications to community colleges.

This is the program Gateway To Success Academy wants to emulate. There is nothing wrong with project-based education, but if Ludington Area Schools didn’t want Journey in their district any longer due to low state test scores, what happens when Gateway To Success has the same problem?

Castlebond Enterprises LLC so far is off to a great start as a charter school management company. The image that describes their success can be best depicted with this image recently posted to Gateway To Success’ Facebook page: