A California state audit report in June found Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools (HCCTS) in the Twin Rivers Unified School District received more than $180 million in public education funds it was not eligible for.

The audit, requested in May 2024 by four state legislators, confirmed Twin Rivers United Educators (TRUE) members’ repeated alerts to the school board about fraud and waste at HCCTS. TRUE actions led to a 10-part ABC10 investigation, “The Wild West of Education,” that uncovered excessive spending, nepotism, a toxic work environment, and poor student outcomes. (The investigation won a 2024 CTA John Swett Award for Media Excellence.)

According to officials, student outcomes at HCCTS were so low that they dragged down California’s statewide graduation rate for the 2023–24 school year.

Following release of the audit, Brittoni Ward, incoming TRUE president, spoke to the Twin Rivers school board, saying, “Our community deserves better. We deserve a superintendent who is trustworthy and leads by example in transparency. We deserve administrative staff who listen to educators when concerns are raised about bad practices. We deserve school board members who listen to the community and hold district admin accountable for their actions.”

Ward and TRUE called on the superintendent to “do the right thing for the students of Highlands.”

“Our educators demand accountability. Our students demand integrity. And our community demands transparency.”

In the wake of the ABC10 report last year, TRUE members mobilized to unseat a corrupt, longtime school board trustee. Linda Fowler, a Twin Rivers trustee who also served on the charter’s board and had been instrumental in its founding in 2014, was being paid a hefty consulting fee by the charter — a direct conflict of interest. Even after departing the board, she continued as a school employee in work the state Fair Political Practices Commission called questionable. TRUE’s endorsed candidate ousted Fowler in March 2024 with 55% of the vote.

The state audit found that in addition to receiving millions in inappropriate state funds after lax oversight by state and local educational agencies, some expenses by the schools violated state law and posed conflicts of interest. HCCTS also had major problems with teacher credentialing and attendance-keeping.

The audit report states, “We determined that Highlands received more than $180 million in K–12 funds for which it was not eligible, it engaged in wasteful spending, and it assigned teachers to classes for which they did not hold appropriate credentials. Additionally, we found that Twin Rivers and other oversight agencies did not provide
adequate oversight of Highlands.”

HCCTS is a nonprofit that operates the Highlands Community Charter School, where students learn in traditional classrooms, and the California Innovative Career Academy, which offers independent study under the Twin Rivers school district. In Fall 2024 HCCTS was serving 13,700 students age 22 and older and 700 staff at more than 50 locations across the state.

Top photo caption: From the ABC10 investigative report “The Wild West of Education.”