A day after serving Impact Charter School in Baker with an eviction notice for failing to pay $260,000 in back rent, the landlords for the property say they won’t kick everyone out and will let the school's 400-plus students finish out the school year.
“Nobody intended to put these kids out of school,†said Eugene Collins, who identifies himself as president of the board for the nonprofit that owns the property, Friends of Impact Charter School.
The eviction drama is the latest in a bitter educational saga sparked by a damning investigative audit of Impact Charter School that led state officials to replace its management.
Impact’s new management is disputing what it considers “predatory†rent payments on the 4815 Lavey Lane campus where Impact operates.
Friends of Impact Charter School is a private foundation created to support the 11-year-old school. State auditors says it is run by the school’s founder, Chakesha Scott, who was recently fired. Scott disputes the auditor's finding, saying she is just the registered or “authorized†agent of the Friends group.
The Friends group called off the eviction in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
In the statement, Scott blames members of the school’s leadership, saying they “deliberately provoked the situation†by failing to pay rent and consequently “jeopardized the mortgage loan on the school.†Nevertheless, she said after polling the organization's board she has decided that now is the wrong time to force the issue.
“I have always put the students first and the disruption of an eviction at this time is not in keeping with my vision of a first class education of the students,†Scott said.
The eviction notice, posted Wednesday morning on the school's front window, is blunt and offers no hint of relief. It says if the Friends group does not receive rent for March and April within five days — Tuesday — it “will proceed with immediate eviction and legal action to recover possession and damages in accordance with the lease and applicable Louisiana law.â€
Collins spent several years as president of Baton Rouge's chapter of the NAACP and briefly served on the Impact Charter board before the entire board was ousted. Collins downplayed the stark language on the eviction notice, saying it was an attempt to spur action by the school’s new leadership, not cause a panic.
“That was never the intention,†he said. “If a tenant does not pay rent, you have to do something.â€
Collins said a deal had been worked out and the new Impact management cut a check to pay rent, but on April 2 it stopped payment on that check. Collins said the new leaders wanted to lower the rent payments to match how much the Friends group is paying on its mortgage, but Collins said they have incorrect information about the cost of the mortgage on the property.
In response to the eviction notice, the City of Baker School Board agreed unanimously Thursday night to let Board President Monique Butler sign a $20,000-a-month lease with Impact through June 30. Impact would take over the vacant former home of Baker Heights Elementary, located at 3750 Harding Blvd.
Impact won't be able to move in, though, until it obtains a material amendment to its charter from the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE. That board is expected to call a special meeting soon to consider such an amendment.
Michelle Clayton, interim superintendent at Impact, told the Baker school board that the $130,000-a-month lease it has now is onerous, accounting for about 36% of the school's operating budget.
"It has brought into a very sharp focus the fact that the school is very financially unstable with the lease agreement as it exists now," Clayton said.
Ken Campbell, a vice president with 4th Sector Solutions, which handles some back-office functions for Impact, told Baker board members it is hard to trust the announcement that the eviction notice has been rescinded.
"We think being at the mercy of someone who might change their mind tomorrow is not the place where I think we want to be," Campbell said.
In the audit that sparked the current drama, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office accused Chakesha Scott of using the school to personally enrich herself and her family.
about the Friends group and the terms of the 50-year lease it struck in fall 2022 with the school, which calls for payments of $130,000 a month. The auditor say that during the first 16 months of that lease, the school paid the Friends group more than $2 million in lease payments, but the mortgage cost the Friends group only $1.2 million. That resulted in about $846,000 in “excessive loan payments,†according to the auditors.
In a lawsuit, Impact’s new management says it has been unable to access "substantial" funds it knows are in accounts managed by the Friends group as well as a separate organization, Charter Schools Athletic Association Inc., for which Scott is the sole officer. Both organizations are defendants, along with Scott and her husband, Eric.
