The Academica charter schools have really great retreats for their principals. If they were not getting public taxpayer money, I would not care about their fancy retreats. But they are getting it, and I do care.
This paragraph alone should make us sit up and pay attention.
Academica’s achievements have been profitable. The South Miami company receives more than $9 million a year in management fees just from its South Florida charter schools — fees that ultimately come from public tax dollars.
Typically Florida's charter schools receive about $6000 in taxpayer money for each student enrolled. That is public money the public schools no longer receive.
Here is more from that Miami Herald article by Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen.
Academica: Florida’s richest charter school management firm
Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica, gets a drink at the bar in Cain at The Cove, Friday, September 16, 2011, an exclusive beach club in the Bahamas' Atlantis resort. It was at The Cove that Academica held a leadership retreat for principals of several charter schools in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. STAFF PHOTO
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas On a sun-drenched weekend in September, a group of South Florida charter school principals jetted off to a leadership retreat at The Cove, an exclusive enclave of the Atlantis resort. A Friday morning meeting gave way to champagne flutes, a dip in the pool and a trip down a waterslide. The evening ended at the casino.
.."Zulueta had reason to cheer. During the past 15 years, Zulueta and his brother, Ignacio, have built Academica into Florida’s largest and richest for-profit charter school management company, and one of the largest in the country. In Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Academica runs more than 60 schools with $158 million in total annual revenue and more than 20,000 students — more pupils than 38 Florida school districts, records show.
Like Imagine Charter schools, the Academica schools are using real estate companies which buy and lease to the schools to enrich their coffers.
But the Zuluetas’ greatest financial success is largely unseen: Through more than two dozen other companies, the Zuluetas control more than $115 million in South Florida real estate — all exempt from property taxes as public schools — and act as landlords for many of Academica’s signature schools, records show.
These companies collected about $19 million in lease payments last year from charter schools — with nine schools paying rents exceeding 20 percent of their revenue, records show.
This company has developed special ties to state legislators in Florida. Here is some info from another reseach article by McGrory and Hiaasen from the Miami Herald.
Academica has powerful friends in Tallahassee, including Rep. Erik Fresen — the brother of the CEO’s wife.
On April 15, the board of Doral Academy selected state Sen. Anitere Flores to run a new college proposed by the charter school network. As the college president, Flores will work side by side with Academica, the influential charter school management company that will also manage the college.
....Academica’s owners, Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta, have steered $150,000 in campaign donations to Tallahassee lawmakers and political committees through real-estate companies they control since 2007, state election records show. The Zulueta family has donated a further $75,000 in the past five years, and Academica executives and school contractors donated a further $54,000, records show.
Academica’s closest ally in the capital is in the family: Rep. Erik Fresen, a Miami Republican, is the brother-in-law of Fernando Zulueta, Academica’s CEO. Zulueta is married to Fresen’s sister, Maggie, who also is an Academica executive.
Also Rep. Ralph Arza of Hialeah was paid 5,000 a month by Academica. The Republican lawmaker was to monitor “quality control” for Academica and help the company identify teachers and staff.
Other charter schools have ties to lawmakers here in the state. Seth McKeel, R FL, is on the board of McKeel Academy of Technology Charter Schools, named after his grandfather.