IDEA Public Schools CEO JoAnn Gama and Chief Operating Officer Irma Munoz have been fired after a forensic review found “substantial evidence” that top leaders misused money and staff at the state’s largest charter school network for personal gain, the organization’s board president announced Tuesday.
In a letter to IDEA staff, Board President Al Lopez did not disclose details about the questionable spending and use of staff. Lopez did allege that staff members’ actions “appeared to be done in a manner to avoid detection by the standard external audit and internal control processes that the Board had in place at the time.”
Lopez said the findings will be reported to the appropriate authorities, and the organization has invited the Texas Education Agency to appoint a conservator or monitor to the district.
“We will not be able to provide additional information regarding the review at this time due to the confidentiality of personnel matters and the involvement of the authorities,” Lopez wrote to staff.
The firings followed an anonymous tip received after the departures last year of two other high-ranking IDEA leaders, former CEO Tom Torkelson and former CFO Wyatt Truscheit. Lopez’s letter says the allegations of misconduct involve “a small number of IDEA senior leaders,” though it does not name any individuals alleged to have engaged in improper spending or use of staff.
IDEA’s finances came under fire in late 2019 following the board’s quickly-reversed decision to lease a private jet and the disclosure that the charter network spent money on luxury suites at San Antonio’s AT&T Center, among other decisions. Torkelson resigned in April 2020, agreeing to a $900,000 settlement payout with the charter’s board.
IDEA board members chose Gama, who co-founded IDEA in the late 1990s with Torkelson, as the organization’s next CEO.
Around the same time, IDEA’s board members promised to make several financial and governance reforms, such as banning private air travel, curbing executive benefits, and ending business deals with leaders and their family members.
For several years, Munoz’s husband co-owned a company that served as IDEA’s recommended uniform vendor in the Rio Grande Valley, home to 52 of the charter network’s campuses. Munoz said her husband sold his 50 percent stake in the company at the end of 2019.
None of IDEA’s financial arrangements detailed to date appear to have violated Texas law, though they have come under withering criticism.
Texas Education Agency officials, who have been supportive of IDEA’s rapid expansion over the past decade, decided in September 2020 to approve 12 out of the network’s 27 requests to add campuses in the upcoming school year. The decision came after TEA leaders raised questions about IDEA’s administrative, governance and financial record.
Lopez said he will serve as acting CEO and the board’s vice chair, Collin Sewell, will serve as acting COO for the time being.
Gama and Torkelson started IDEA more than two decades ago in the Rio Grande Valley, where both worked in traditional public schools. The network enrolls about 62,000 students throughout the state, including about 900 in Greater Houston.
IDEA boasts higher standardized test scores, graduation rates and college enrollment rates than neighboring traditional public schools. The charter’s leaders attribute the success to a rigorous, regimented approach to education that emphasizes advanced courses and reaching college.
IDEA’s critics argue the network attracts higher-performing students and artificially filters out higher-needs children through its college-focused approach.
jacob.carpenter@chron.com
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