![]() The gravity of the moment was not lost on Cynthia McQueen, Torchlight’s principal and Don McQueen’s wife and business partner.Ĭynthia McQueen said the family has been permanently damaged by the media attention surrounding the school. Fiscal management and operations of the school are major concerns that have “escalated to the place that they became a threat to the entire state of North Carolina in terms of funding from the federal government,” Turner said. “At no point in the last two, three months that we’ve been talking about this has anybody ever suggested that Torchlight, academically is not a good school, nobody at all,” Turner said. “Based on that fact alone, we should have common ground to find a way to rectify whatever is wrong,” McQueen said.ĬSAB Chairwoman Cheryl Turner said Monday’s hearing was not about academics. I don’t see how anybody can stay in compliance with DPI unless you’re working on it every day.”įiercely proud of Torchlight’s academic success the past four years when students made or exceeded expected academic growth, McQueen told the charter board that the school’s record of success warranted a second chance. “They make the assumption that we are or working toward that on an ongoing basis. “When our parents hear about Torchlight Academy, they really don’t say, ‘Are ya’ll in compliance?’ ” McQueen told the Charter Board. Don McQueen told the charter board that the school’s record of success warranted a second chance. So, there stood McQueen on Monday fighting to keep Torchlight Academy open after state officials with the Exceptional Children, Federal Programs and Financial Business Services divisions made a compelling case against McQueen, pointing out numerous missteps in his handling of the school’s finances and operation. Academic, fiscal and operational deficiencies doomed the school. The K-8 school McQueen currently manages has fewer than 100 students. Essie Mae leaders accused McQueen of poor fiscal and operational management, the same deficiencies that have led the charter board to recommend that Torchlight Academy be closed.Įarlier this year, the State Board ordered Three Rivers to close. ![]() It ordered the school to close after it failed to produce financial audits required by state law. The State Board of Education allowed Essie Mae Foxx’s board of directors to part ways with McQueen after only one year. He’d just completed a messy assumption of Three Rivers Academy in Bertie County and was facing criticism for his management of Essie Mae Foxx Charter School in Rowan County. None of the schools were approved by the state Charter Board, which thought McQueen was attempting to grow too fast, too soon. The school had seemingly found the secret to educating Black and Latinx students from low-income communities. Clients were eager to replicate Torchlight’s academic success. Not long ago, his organization was listed on as many as five charter school applications as the potential management firm. ![]() ![]() McQueen had big dreams of operating a chain of charter schools through Torchlight Academy Schools LLC, an educational management organization he started in 2014. The agenda has the discussion scheduled for after 4 p.m. The State Board of Education is scheduled to discuss the charter board’s recommendation to close Torchlight later this afternoon. The state Charter School Advisory Board’s recommendation to close Torchlight Academy in Raleigh on Monday represented a dramatic fall from grace for Don McQueen, the owner of the firm managing the 23-year-old school. ![]() State Board of Education is scheduled to consider recommendation today to close Raleigh’s Torchlight Academy Don McQueen’s Torchlight Academy School faces closure ![]()
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