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BESE calls special meeting to restructure Impact Charter board
BATON ROUGE - In a letter sent to parents Thursday morning, Impact Charter said the school was "under attack" by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and that the board was using a "misleading audit" as evidence.
BESE has set a special meeting Friday at 9 a.m. The agenda for that meeting contains only one item: to discuss the reconstitution of the board of Education Explosion, the organization behind Impact Charter.
An audit was released Feb. 10 alleging Impact Charter's leader Chakesha Scott mismanaged funds and used money intended for the betterment of the school for personal use, such as taking trips or buying vehicles. The results were shared with state and federal prosecutors.
Impact released a letter to parents Thursday morning lambasting the auditor's office, BESE and the Louisiana Department of Education.
"Despite being a B-rated, nationally recognized charter school with a proven track record of academic excellence and fiscal responsibility, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) is attempting to forcefully reconstitute our board and strip away local control—not because of poor performance, but because of politics," the letter said.
Impact Charter says that if LDOE is allowed to "strip control" from a high-performing school that it sets a "dangerous precedent" for other charter schools in the state.
BESE officials said the meeting is not aiming to remove the charter but rather to restructure the board. BESE cannot remove Scott as the CEO, however. That action would have to come from the Education Explosion board.
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That audit came after a raid at the school in May 2024 by the Legislative Auditor's office.
When the audit was initially published, attorney Ron Haley took up the case for the charter school, saying the report was full of factual errors and requesting a restraining order on the audit being released to the public. After that was thrown out, Scott threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against the auditor's office.
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