Sacramento school board demands St. Hope accountability following Bee investigation
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St. Hope Public Schools’ charter renewal terms will undergo additional negotiation after the Sacramento City Unified School District board voted to table the approval of the charter school’s memorandum of understanding at a meeting Thursday night.
In their decision to add new conditions to the charter school’s agreement, multiple board members cited concerns about an investigation into staff allegations that a Sacramento Charter High coach partied with students, as originally reported by the Sacramento Bee.
The board also voted to shorten its facilities use agreement with Sacramento Charter High School, which is operated by St. Hope, from a standard five-year agreement to three, citing concerns about enrollment and its location in a “rapidly gentrifying area.” The property in North Oak Park is owned and maintained by the district.
The board voted in September 2024 to renew St. Hope’s charter with conditions to be outlined in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) completed by June 2025. The 6-0 vote followed St. Hope’s submission of a corrective plan in response to troubling revelations about the schools governance, finance and operations revealed in a third-party audit.
What was meant to be the final draft of the MOU had already been approved by the St. Hope board and signed by Interim Superintendent Elisha Parsons before being placed on the meeting’s consent agenda, which usually includes a number of non-controversial agenda items that don’t require discussion.
The agreement included accountability measures surrounding the school’s fiscal decisions, its lack of appropriately credentialed teaching staff, personnel changes and amendments to the schools bylaws. Many of the standards had already been agreed to by St. Hope in a corrective action plan they submitted in August.
Three board members requested that the item be pulled and expressed frustration that it was placed on the consent agenda instead of being slated for board discussion.
“We need to really be intentional about how we oversee, and given the current publicity and in recent years around St. Hope, I think it’s important for us to not move these things through consent agendas,” board member April Ybarra said.
Ybarra went on to call for additional oversight, saying that the “mama bear” in her couldn’t sit with the allegations of misconduct by the coach without taking action, especially given the vulnerability of the students at Sac High.
“I feel like if this was not a school in Oak Park and it wasn’t a school that’s catering primarily to Black and brown kids, there would have been more noise around this, or more media or more awareness around this,” she said.
Board member Michael Benjamin agreed that the item should not have been placed on the consent agenda, saying that the board always needs to have the ability to discuss decisions related to St. Hope.
Board member Jose Navarro expressed concern about the lack of control afforded to the district in the current draft of the MOU to address concerns about the school that they are not yet aware of, noting that they only recently learned of the investigation into the allegations against football coach Kimbbie Drayton.
“We already heard about the Sac Bee headlines, right? I’m just not 100% sure that I can look people in the eye and say the investigations that were done during that time were impartial,” Navarro said.
He also asked for language that would allow the district to review St. Hope’s completed investigation and to allow for district intervention in the future.
The district took a closer look at the investigation in response to teacher and parent complaints last year that an adequate investigation into allegations against the football coach was not performed, The district asked for materials related to the investigation during a summer 2024 audit to determine whether St. Hope had a set process for an investigation and whether it followed that process.
A Bee investigation found that St. Hope only returned two of six reports of alleged misconduct to the school district. In written responses to the district regarding the investigation, St. Hope administrators referred only to a single teacher reporting the conversations about drinking among students, one who would later be terminated in part for “not making the allegations in good faith.”
Future oversight of St. Hope charter schools
Charter oversight administrator Amanda Goldman responded to board members’ concerns saying that she has already drafted language to ensure that the school follows adequate process, but that there are “lines to walk,” because the district does not have the power to investigate charter staff or students.
The board will direct Superintendent Lisa Allen on what specific terms they would like to see in a new MOU. Goldman is tasked with drafting a new version of the agreement to be completed two days in advance of the next board meeting on June 26. A representative from St. Hope will have until the end of the month to sign it.
St. Hope administrators did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
Several of the board members stressed the importance of improved oversight of district charter schools, particularly St. Hope. This isn’t new: during fall 2024 St. Hope charter renewal discussions following troubling audit findings, the board lamented the “fraught” charter oversight process.
Teachers union First Vice President David Fisher commented on the decision to place the item on the consent agenda was “unfortunately consistent with what we believe to be a major shortcoming of district so-called ‘oversight’ of its independent charter schools.”
“From our perspective, the district staff seem to see the role as an advocate for the schools, rather than provide administrative oversight and to hold them accountable,” Fisher said.
Goldman said that it’s not true that the district is failing to provide adequate charter oversight.
“I think we’ve gotten much better and we can only continue to get better,” she said. “There is a misunderstanding around what is in our purview and what is not. I don’t have the authority to investigate their staff — I’m not their employer. We only have the authority to determine that they have an adequate process and policy and that they followed their process and policy.”
With regard to the investigation into St. Hope staff partying with students, Goldman said that the documentation they were provided at the time suggested an investigation consistent with the school’s published policies and with the law. She said she could not speak to what happens when a charter school does not provide all the relevant materials to an investigation in order to make that determination.
This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 11:43 PM.
