{"id":6322,"date":"2026-08-04T15:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6322"},"modified":"2026-08-04T15:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:07:15","slug":"this-california-charter-school-paid-millions-to-firms-linked-to-its-founder-it-was-shut-down-amid-fiscal-integrity-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=6322","title":{"rendered":"This California charter school paid millions to firms linked to its founder. It was shut down amid \u2018fiscal integrity\u2019 concerns."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Deborah Lee had loved teaching at\u00a0her school.<\/p>\n

For three years she taught for the home-schooling program at SCALE Leadership Academy \u2013 East, an independent-study charter school that was based in Riverside County and educated about 1,500 K-12 students across Riverside, Orange and San Diego counties.<\/p>\n

Read more California\u2019s $627,000 equity in mortgaged homes ranks No. 2 in US<\/a><\/p>\n

Her team worked well together. She believed it was a solid school.<\/p>\n

So Lee said she was blindsided when county school officials shut it down in June after revealing several concerns about the school, including business relationships it had with religious programs and corporations managed by the school\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

She had never heard of any of those vendors before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the dark. We had no idea,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

The Riverside County Board of Education voted unanimously on June 24 to deny the renewal of SCALE\u2019s charter, giving students just weeks to find a new school and forcing teachers to search for jobs after most public schools have finished hiring for the new academic year.<\/p>\n

That left Lee suddenly jobless, without health insurance and eight months pregnant with twins.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

In a report dated June 9, the Riverside County Office of Education said SCALE had failed to meet or make sufficient progress toward state academic standards, and that it was illegally operating at sites outside of its authorizing district.<\/p>\n

Staff also had concerns about whether the school\u2019s contracts were made in accordance with state law and in the students\u2019 best interest.<\/p>\n

One contract in question was forged between SCALE and a corporation called SCALE Education and Research Foundation, or SERF \u2014 a nonprofit\u00a0started by the same man who founded SCALE, Lawrence Wynder II.<\/p>\n

A licensing agreement between SCALE and SERF entitled Wynder\u2019s nonprofit to the vast majority of SCALE\u2019s student attendance funding.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

SCALE has paid $14 million to the nonprofit since 2019, Riverside County education officials estimate, for SERF to control much of the school\u2019s operations. How much of that has gone to Wynder is unclear.<\/p>\n

Wynder did not respond to The San Diego Union-Tribune\u2019s requests for comment but said during a June Riverside County Board of Education meeting\u00a0that many of the county office\u2019s allegations were false.<\/p>\n

Wynder and his wife are also officers of other corporations that have gotten business from SCALE.<\/p>\n

SCALE disclosed none of these connections when it applied for its charter renewal, county school officials said.<\/p>\n

In addition to the contract concerns, officials said SCALE\u2019s teacher rosters suggested it has been sharing teachers with\u00a0private religious schools \u2014 leading to questions about whether SCALE public school students may have been receiving religious instruction through them.<\/p>\n

SCALE has also paid at least one church to educate students, county school officials said.<\/p>\n

Alexis Saenz, the president of SCALE\u2019s board, said at\u00a0the June board meeting\u00a0that the school had terminated its contracts with \u201cthose vendors that may have a religious affiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teachers and families described at the meeting how SCALE\u2019s flexible independent-study model had been a lifeline for students whose schooling has been disrupted by bullying, long-term illness, violence and pregnancy.<\/p>\n

But that was not enough to assuage the county school board\u2019s concerns about how adults were running the school \u2014 and that students would be\u00a0paying the price.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so disappointed in the leaders that are failing these kids,\u201d Riverside County school board Trustee Jennifer Mejares Pham said before voting to deny SCALE\u2019s charter. \u201cIt\u2019s all from the back end. These kids did nothing wrong, the staff did nothing wrong, the teachers did nothing wrong. And we\u2019re in a situation that none of us want to be in, but the law is so incredibly clear on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charter schools are privately-run but publicly-funded schools that must follow rules about transparency, annual auditing and other accountability measures, similar to school districts.<\/p>\n

SCALE is the latest example of a California charter school whose business dealings\u00a0with private outside entities affiliated with its founder have raised questions of transparency, ethics and potential conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Lee was embarrassed and angry after learning of Riverside\u2019s findings, she said \u2014 partly because this is the second time a school she\u2019s worked at has been shut down for such problems.<\/p>\n

She used to work for Valiant, the precursor to the A3 charter school network, whose leaders orchestrated one of the state\u2019s largest school fraud schemes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow in the world did I end up at a school where a similar thing was happening?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018A\u00a0transparency concern\u2019<\/h4>\n

The events leading to SCALE\u2019s closure began in March.<\/p>\n

SCALE was due to apply for renewal of its charter from its authorizer, Palo Verde Unified, a district of 2,600 students in the small town of Blythe near the Arizona border.<\/p>\n

The district refused to consider SCALE\u2019s renewal petition because, it said,\u00a0SCALE was operating a site facility in Corona, outside of Palo Verde\u2019s boundaries. SCALE had not obtained permission from the Corona school district to do so, as state law requires.<\/p>\n

SCALE denied it was operating the site and sued Palo Verde for not considering its renewal.<\/p>\n

But in June, a Riverside County Superior Court judge denied SCALE\u2019s request for a preliminary injunction, saying its renewal petition didn\u2019t appear to comply with state law.<\/p>\n

SCALE appealed the charter denial to the Riverside County Board of Education, which could grant its renewal in lieu\u00a0of Palo Verde.<\/p>\n

It was when county education officials researched SCALE\u2019s operations to ponder granting a renewal that they said they discovered concerning issues beyond the allegations of a school operated outside district bounds.<\/p>\n

Wynder founded SCALE in 2010. Two years before that, he had created SERF, whose mission is to \u201cpromote education opportunities with a view of improving the quality of living for students, families, educators and general public,\u201d according to the foundation\u2019s tax filings.<\/p>\n

Wynder was the initial agent of service listed for SERF upon its founding, and he applied for the nonprofit\u2019s tax-exempt status and state charity registration. He has been SERF\u2019s CEO year after year, tax filings show.<\/p>\n

For a time, Wynder was the listed CEO for both SCALE and SERF, according to tax filings.<\/p>\n

He collected six-figure salaries from each job from 2016 through 2018, when tax filings stopped listing him as SCALE\u2019s CEO. In 2018, he was paid $180,708 by SCALE and $147,500 by SERF.<\/p>\n

The following year, SCALE signed a 10-year school with SERF \u2014 with Wynder signing for SERF as its CEO.<\/p>\n

Under that contract, SCALE did not own its own school brand and educational model. Instead, SERF owned them and required SCALE to pay for their use.<\/p>\n

The contract contained a non-compete clause that prohibited SCALE from engaging with any business rival of SERF.<\/p>\n

The contract also required SCALE to pay SERF $52 per student per instructional day, or 85% of the student attendance funding the school received from the state \u2014 whichever is greater.<\/p>\n

Per the contract, SERF handled student enrollment, collected SCALE student attendance paperwork, evaluated the school\u2019s educational program annually and maintained \u201caffiliated learning programs\u201d for SCALE.<\/p>\n

The contract also says that, in the event SCALE shut down, all its leftover assets were to be transferred to SERF.<\/p>\n

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Lawrence Wynder, Charlene Wynder and SCALE officials did not respond to questions about SERF and whether it were assuming SCALE\u2019s leftover assets.<\/p>\n

At the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, SCALE had $3.1 million in net assets, while SERF had $3.9 million in net assets as of 2024, tax filings show.<\/p>\n

Riverside County Office of Education staff concluded that although SERF presents itself as a vendor, in reality it is a de facto charter management organization that controls SCALE\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the agreement is styled as a licensing and services contract, the substance of the relationship between SERF and SCALE is functionally indistinguishable from that of a charter management organization (\u2018CMO\u2019) and the charter school it manages,\u201d county office staff said in .<\/p>\n

But because the arrangement was forged via a licensing agreement rather than a charter management contract, SERF was able to avoid state laws requiring open meetings and that\u00a0records be made public, <\/strong>the report\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

The arrangement is a familiar one for some non-classroom-based California charter schools.<\/p>\n

The entities that have run\u00a0Inspire, Learn4Life and Elite Academic Academy similarly\u00a0declined to identify\u00a0themselves as\u00a0charter management organizations \u2014 and thus avoided disclosing\u00a0details of how they are spending public funding, the Union-Tribune has reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe structuring of this relationship to avoid CMO classification, while retaining all the functional attributes of a CMO arrangement, is itself a transparency concern that bears on whether SCALE\u2019s governance and fiscal operations can be meaningfully overseen by an authorizer,\u201d Riverside County school officials said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Other expenses\u2019<\/h4>\n

SERF publishes limited details in its tax filings of how it spends SCALE\u2019s public school dollars.<\/p>\n

About $3 million of SERF\u2019s $4 million in spending in its latest tax filing available was categorized as \u201cother expenses,\u201d including costs such as \u201cprogram consulting,\u201d \u201cprogram development,\u201d \u201cprogram expenses,\u201d \u201cprogram outreach\u201d and \u201cprogram implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization also reported spending more than $67,000 on meals that year.<\/p>\n

SERF said in the tax filing that\u00a0it employed zero employees, but it also reported spending $846,000 on employee salaries and benefits. Wynder is listed as an officer, but the filing does not disclose his title or pay as it did in prior years.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the nonprofit reported more than $1 million of investments in a for-profit subsidiary it owns called Mission Career College Inc. Wynder\u2019s wife, Charlene Wynder, is named as Mission Career\u2019s secretary in state filings.<\/p>\n

That company is located at the same Riverside address as Santa Fe Depot Office LLC, which county school officials said leases real estate to SCALE. Lawrence Wynder is listed as Santa Fe Depot\u2019s\u00a0manager in state filings.<\/p>\n

SCALE has also steered business to other third-party entities where the Wynders are officers.<\/p>\n

In addition to Mission Career College and Santa Fe Depot Office, those entities also include Almega Education Group, where Lawrence is CEO, and Academy of Sports Science, where a Journey Wynder\u00a0is listed as chief financial officer. Charlene Wynder, a licensed attorney, is the registered agent for all of them, as well as for SERF and SCALE.<\/p>\n

Riverside county school officials estimate SCALE has paid $2.3 million to those entities since 2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was not the CEO\u2019<\/h4>\n

SCALE officials did not answer questions about who made these contracting decisions, whether the contracts were competitively bid or whether or where they were publicly disclosed.<\/p>\n

The SERF contract \u2014 particularly its guaranteed payment of 85% of student attendance funding \u2014 raises questions about the school\u2019s autonomy, said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese facts \u2026 together they describe an organization that had handed away its money, its brand and arguably its independence, in a way that would make the community pause as to whether state funds are being used in the most impactful and optimal way for students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Public school leaders must practice good governance to protect the trust of student families, the state and the public, Hurt said.<\/p>\n

That includes disclosing related-party transactions, recusing oneself from a contracting decisions as an interested party, putting contracts out to competitive bids and having a board \u201cthat can actually say no,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure the money\u2019s going to the most qualified service provider, and that there is not this perception of cronyism or inappropriate contracts,\u201d said Sean McMorris, transparency, ethics and accountability program manager at California Common Cause.<\/p>\n

State law changes made in July \u2014 after the San Diego County fraud prosecution of A3 and after Union-Tribune reporting on charter management organizations \u2014 are meant to boost transparency about charters\u2019 relationships with private third-party entities.<\/p>\n

The new state law says that auditors must find out if a charter school has a management organization or has connections with outside entities and must list the school\u2019s 25 largest payments or transfers to outside entities. Also, any charter school contracts exceeding $100,000 must be approved by the school\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

During the Riverside County school board meeting, Lawrence Wynder said he was not the CEO of the organizations the county mentioned, even though tax filings for SERF and SCALE have listed him as the CEO in various years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose organizations were not related. I was not the CEO of SCALE Education. I\u2019m a consultant for SCALE and those other organizations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Serious concerns\u2019<\/h4>\n

Riverside\u00a0county school officials also raised questions about whether students may have been getting religious instruction through SCALE.<\/p>\n

County officials identified four full-time teachers at the school who are also listed as teachers at CORE, a private school in Anaheim whose website says its guiding principles are \u201cdrawn from the Qu\u2019ran and Sunnah.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those teachers is CORE\u2019s executive director and founder, Shaista Javeed, and the other three are CORE lead teachers, according to CORE\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Javeed told the Union-Tribune in an email that the four teachers were employed and paid by SCALE for tutoring SCALE students \u201cat a location of their parents\u2019 choice.\u201d When the Union-Tribune asked for clarification, Javeed said the four were full-time SCALE teachers.<\/p>\n

SCALE\u2019s tax filings show it has paid CORE at least $1.1 million since 2022.<\/p>\n

County school officials said they found one more SCALE teacher who is listed as a teacher at Orange Crescent School, a private school in Garden Grove whose website says it provides students \u201ca robust Islamic education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those five teachers had scores of SCALE students assigned to them, county school officials said, and they were enrolled at SCALE within different calendar tracks.<\/p>\n

Officials also noted that in 2022, SCALE had published a teacher coordinator job posting that said, \u201cThis site is Muslim based so someone with this background\/experience is preferred but not mandatory.\u201d The site address listed matched that of Orange Crescent School.<\/p>\n

SCALE also contracted with a church to provide educational services, the Riverside county office said.<\/p>\n

The county office said it found a contract in which SCALE pledged to make daily payments of $19.44 per student to Cathedral of Praise International Ministries, a church in the city of San Bernardino, in exchange for educational services.<\/p>\n

SCALE paid $188,517 to Cathedral of Praise in 2021, according to its tax filing.<\/p>\n

These connections with religious programs raised \u201cserious concerns\u201d about whether state law and the state constitution were violated, county office staff said.<\/p>\n

The California constitution prohibits public funds from supporting any private school or religious school, and it prohibits religious instruction from being taught directly or indirectly at public schools, which include charters.<\/p>\n

Officials at Orange Crescent School and Cathedral of Praise did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

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