Whistle-Blower Lodges Accusations of Probable Theft, Fraud and Misconduct by ASTEC Charter Schools
By guest writer Lorraine Grula
Editors note: This woman has been working on exposing this story for about a year now that we are aware of. Back in 2014 we exposed Freda Deskin, Espinoza who was her boyfriend with the checkered past, so readers of this newsletter will not be shocked at the allegations. Deskin has a lot of support among Democrat elites, the same ones that endorsed her 2014 primary run in the State Superintendent of Schools race. The information we used to, in the words of the Democrats, “eviscerate” Deskin was provided by one faction of the Democrats. As it turned out, this faction was backing John Cox who indeed won the primary and lost to the Republican candidate Joy Hoffmeister. Later the scandal erupted over Hoffmeister, Found Holland, Democrat campaign donors like American Fidelity, and two Democrat party officials/union officials. What that proved was that the Republicans colluded with the supporters of John Cox to eliminate Deskin from the primary knowing that Cox would lose to Hoffmeister which itself showed the preference for Hoffmeister over the Democrat candidate by the Democrat grass roots. It was a battle of the Democrat donor class with the Democrat grassroots with the donor class backing Deskin)
As a strong believer in both childhood education and transparency in government, I feel it is incumbent upon me to bring some serious allegations to light against ASTEC Charter School, where I was employed as the Film Studies teacher for nearly two years. My goal is to call for a thorough and complete investigation of ASTEC Charter School, its finances and practices.
Although most of the people who work at ASTEC are well aware of these problems, a culture of intense fear permeates ASTEC and that keeps people from speaking out. Their fear is justified. I spoke with at least fifteen other employees, current and past about their experiences at ASTEC. None were willing to be named publicly so I have used what they told me without naming them. I tried to ignore it all too, but I just can’t. It still haunts me ten months after leaving the school. I have spoken with multiple employees who are still there and they say it has only gotten worse. Employees are routinely ordered to not communicate with one another or with former employees and I am convinced it is because the administration is afraid of being caught for the very things I am about to reveal.
The list of problems at ASTEC is quite long, but here are the five that I found most egregious. They include:
- Probable theft of equipment and supplies by a contract employee with many questionable marks, including having pled guilty to the felony of obtaining property under false pretenses. ASTEC School Superintendent Freda Deskin has a longtime personal relationship with this man, having had him arrested for domestic assault in 1999. Meanwhile, students lack basic equipment and supplies. Equipment is known to frequently disappear.
- The administration has been promising for over a decade that a brand-new, state-of-the-art building is just around the corner. Students were promised repeatedly that it would be finished several years ago. Kids who graduated in 2017 were promised they would graduate from the new school. Despite years of fundraising, the new school building has not yet been started. Where has all the money gone? In spite of the school site being nothing but an empty field, the website for the architecture firm hired by ASTEC claims the school is 100% finished. Who are they trying to fool? I hope you can investigate and find out.
- Upkeep on the old Shepherd Mall building is generally decent, but sometimes is so poor that at least two doors to the exterior were left unlockable for as long as three years. Anyone could have walked into some of the classrooms at any time. The school is located in an area with a fairly high crime rate. There was a nighttime drive-by shooting while I worked there.
- Like many charter schools, way too much money is put into administrator salaries. Teachers are forced to pay for routine maintenance such as painting and carpet cleaning, but a bloated administrator staff makes some of the highest salaries in the state. Sick pay is routinely withheld due to school policy. Staff wonders where all the money from office supply gift cards and activity fees go. Many staffers fear that they are somehow being stolen by the administration. The school has been known to run out of paper, pens and other basics.
- General chaos and poorly run. Staff asked to do miscellaneous things that are illegal such as giving grades when not warranted and labeling students “special needs” or “gifted” when they are not. In fact, there is a term for this at ASTEC. It is “pencil whipping,” which is taken to mean that the paperwork can be forged to make it appear as though the school is in compliance with whatever regulation it is actually breaking.
Now I will provide details.
It does not take long inside ASTEC Charter School to realize that it is short of equipment and supplies. Students at ASTEC simply do not have access to many resources, in spite of all the marketing promises.
The school name, and all its marketing information boasts that ASTEC is STEAM school with enough computers for each and every student. While technically true, most are cheap Chrome books that break and wear out quickly. Often the batteries were so weak that they could not keep a charge, so never made it through the day.
Much more troubling, however, is how equipment often goes missing at ASTEC. It just disappears. There is substantial fear among staff that it is being stolen by Dr. Deskin’s friend, Leo Espinoza. I do not know exactly where all the equipment goes, but I can guarantee it is NOT turned over to the Surplus Division like it is supposed to be.
I called the surplus department and the warehouse manager, Vernon Preston, told me he has not seen a single item come in from ASTEC during the three years he has worked there. He said he’d never even heard of ASTEC.
Of course, as a public school entity, ASTEC is required by law to return unused or unwanted equipment to the state. Nothing is supposed to be thrown away or otherwise discarded. So what is happening to all the equipment?
For example, I turned in four iMac computers for minor repairs before school started in 2017. I never saw them again. The four were one-third of everything my students had for editing video. No one could ever tell me where they went. They simply disappeared. We limped by for the rest of the year with the eight remaining computers, two of which crashed regularly. Another one never had the video editing software installed so was worthless for video editing.
The shortage meant five to seven students had to crowd around each shared computer. This lack of equipment and resources is experienced by every classroom at ASTEC, not just the video class I taught. Although the school sells itself as a science and technology school, there are zero science labs in the school. There are no engineering classes either so the STEAM designation is not even accurate. (The name ASTEC is an acronym for: Advanced Science and Technology Education Center.)
Usually, the equipment at ASTEC disappeared quietly and slowly without fanfare. Occasionally however, staff has observed large piles of usable equipment put out by the back doors. The administration referred to it as “trash,” yet it is not put in the dumpster. Teachers are strictly forbidden to take anything from these piles, but somebody does because they are always gone soon.
Toward the end of the 2017-18 school year, a large donation of computers was received by the school. I, and many others, saw them brought in to the school. There must have been about 50 desktop computers but I did not actually count. NONE OF THESE COMPUTERS EVER MADE IT INTO A CLASSOOM. They just disappeared.
Two employees I know of were accused of theft and fired. The school did not report them to authorities, but fired them based on the accusation of theft. Both employees claimed innocence and said the real thief was Leo Espinoza, friend of ASTEC founder and Superintendent Freda Deskin and a contract employee at ASTEC. Both of these employees not only complained that Leo was the real thief, they also claimed they had to remove pornography put on various devices by Espinoza. Equipment continued to disappear even after these two staffers were gone.
Many on staff expressed deep fear that they too might be ordered to pay for lost equipment or accused of theft in order to cover for Leo. I saw staff members literally in tears over this. ASTEC has a policy that makes teachers pay for lost or broken equipment so the fear is certainly justified.
Several teachers told me they simply do not report computers as broken because they know they will probably just disappear.
According to records obtained on the Oklahoma Court Docket website, Espinoza has 15 judgments against him in three counties. Most indicate financial troubles such as delinquent rent and subsequent evictions. The most serious offense was a 2001 guilty plea to a felony scheme where he scammed merchants by purchasing small appliances, replacing them inside the box with ones he had obtained at garage sales or thrift stores, then returning them for a refund.
Leo is a bit of a shadow employee. He mostly comes out at night. I did not even know he existed until I was about halfway through my two-year time working at ASTEC.
The school claims in an online bio that Leo is retired. He isn’t. His current title is IT/Physical Plant Consultant.
In 2014, when ASTEC founder and Superintendent Freda Deskin ran for Oklahoma State School Superintendent, ASTEC came under intense scrutiny due to his employment. The concerns at the time related mostly to Espinoza’s felony plea and to allegedly putting pornography on school computers. The online bio claiming he is retired dates back to Deskin’s candidacy.
While I was teaching there, Espinoza was allowed to take over a large conference room previously used by students and teachers. He was storing many personal items at the school including several expensive guitars and other musical instruments.
Espinoza installed new deadbolt locks on the door and only he had a key. He posted a note on the door that read: “DO NOT DISTURB. DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR. DO NOT TOUCH THIS SIGN. DO NOT ENTER THIS ROOM. DO NOT KNOCK ON THIS DOOR.
As anyone who has ever worked with kids could easily predict, the first thing students did was knock on the door, giggle, and then run away. The sign was later changed to a more professional-looking one.
My sources still inside the school tells me Espinoza now has overtaken three rooms, not just one. These rooms are no longer functional for the students or staff, they are 100% limited to Espinoza.
Staff has been concerned for about two years now that Espinoza might actually be living inside the school.However, due to the culture of fear and secrecy promoted by Deskin, this issue of whether a homeless felon with a penchant for porn is living inside the school remains a giant, invisible, pink elephant at ASTEC.
Honestly that sounds so impossible I cannot believe I just wrote it.
The administration is so touchy on the subject of Espinoza that discussion is simply not allowed. Espinoza largely kept to himself but when he did speak to staff he was known to frequently brag about his high salary as a consultant.
At the end of the 2017-18 school year, Superintendent Deskin sent out an email to a few select staff members defending Espinoza and claiming the idea of him stealing was nothing but vicious gossip. I was not sent the email, but someone showed it to me. Other than that email, both Espinoza and disappearing equipment were unmentionable topics at ASTEC.
Even essential equipment at ASTEC is often lacking. Teachers were recently told they could no longer expect the school to provide red ink pens in spite of students being required to bring in gift cards from office supply stores. With the majority of the 1000 students bringing in gift cards for $50, the school should have plenty of money for red pens. I had to delay a test once because the school had run out of paper so this sort of thing happens fairly frequently.
What happens to all the supply money and gift cards students bring in? Students are all required to bring in gift cards from office supply stores for 50 dollars each. There is also an activity fee of $35 that each student is required to bring in every year and staff wondered where that went too. Not much seems to go toward activities. Please investigate and find out! (The exact amount of these fees can vary depending on how timely they students bring them in. The school requests some fees in cash. ASTEC also has an enrollment fee.)
A TARDY SCHOOL BUIDLING
The students who graduated in 2017 were promised when they were in middle school that they would be the lucky first to attend a spectacular new 167,000-square-foot, state-of- the- art campus complete with sand volley ball courts and hiking trails. For years, the idea of this new school building was heavily promoted.
Students were promised repeatedly that it was coming soon and would be absolutely fantastic. Fundraising efforts always included plugs for the new building.
Today, nearly a decade after the initial promise, the site remains undeveloped. Middle and high school classes are still held in the former Shepherd Mall Shopping Center. The plan now is to keep them there indefinitely. Significant money was recently invested in converting additional mall space into classrooms.
Figure 1: This is the site of the new school building. Photo taken April 11, 2019
The new school building is still on the drawing board but is now for kids as young as two, preschool to middle school. Then, presumably students would transfer to the old mall for middle school and high school should they decide to remain at ASTEC Charter School.
ASTEC claims construction will begin soon. New, multi-million dollar grants have been awarded for construction. Some trees have been cut down and a bit of dirt moved but that is all the visible work at the site.
A lavish dinner party fundraiser for ASTEC and the new school project is an honored yearly tradition at ASTEC. Attendees read like a who’s who of Oklahoma City elite. The annual gala is exceptionally important to the administration at ASTEC.
What I find noteworthy is the fact that a website owned by the Oklahoma City architecture firm, FSB, claims construction on the new ASTEC school building is completed.
According to this website, the building is finished, quite spectacular and ready to change the lives of students. There is a glowing recommendation on the page from Dr. Deskin thanking FSB for “holding her hand” throughout the project. They claim to have saved substantial money on construction costs.
The marketing copy is quite glowing in its praise, calling the finished school the “newest gem to emerge from the revitalization of Oklahoma City’s industrial inner-city corridor.” The website goes on to say:
“Now completed, the ASTEC Charter Schools serve as a gateway and a destination point – an iconic place to see, experience and discover. For Oklahoma students it’s their launching pad to a broader universe and to discovering their own place within it. We here at FSB are proud to help change the face of education-related architecture in the state, while providing Oklahoma’s students and teachers with a facility that helps them educate the leaders of tomorrow.
Some students told me they are highly disappointed the long-anticipated building will forever remain nothing but a false promise. Others seemed to not care. Apathy is common among the students. Most of them, especially the older ones, long ago stopped believing in ASTEC because of all of the broken promises. More often than not, students told me they hated the school and wanted to leave. Their parents are still convinced it is a great place so make them stay.
They have been raising money for this school for about ten years. Where did it all go? Why does the FSB site claim it is finished?
SECURITY ALERT: DOORS LEFT UNLOCKED
During the two years I worked at this school, I became increasingly disillusioned with its quality on all levels. I had originally believed all the marketing hype, but constant chaos and clear mismanagement changed my mind. For example, the beginning of school my second year was the most chaotic fiasco I had ever witnessed. Class schedules were a jumbled mess with kids being put in the wrong grades and classes. Some classes had 70 students; some had none. Needless to say, learning and instruction were difficult if not impossible. It took about three weeks to get everything sorted out. An IT employee told me it was because administration insisted on sticking with outdated software.
Experience finally made me realize this level of incompetence was to be expected frequently from the administration, but never spoken of, acknowledged or fixed. This sad fact seemed to be fairly well accepted by faculty and students.
What tipped the scales for me and made me decide to not only leave the school but report them to authorities as a whistle blower, was discovering that at least two doors to the exterior, probably more, had been left in an un-lockable state for as long as three years. At least one is still un-lockable as of this writing.
Anyone could walk in to some of those classrooms at any time. The school is located in a moderately high crime area. The school was actually broken into about two years ago through one of these un-lockable doors but still, it remained un=lockable for at least a year beyond the break-in.
I have posted a video showing these two un-lockable doors on YouTube. I took most of the video in November 2017. There is a link at the end of this report.
I simply did not believe it at first. I mean, computers disappearing is one thing, but doors to the exterior left unlocked? No way, I thought. Not in the age of school shootings and lock down drills. By poking around and asking a lot of nosy questions, I verified it was all true. I checked the doors myself and verified with at least four other employees that they, too, had personally seen un-lockable doors over an extended period of time. A maintenance man told me the old shopping mall doors required specialty locks, which were expensive, about $250 and that Deskin did not want to spend the money to fix them.
Multiple people told me that multiple maintenance requests had been filed. Teachers and others I spoke with made it sound as if they had essentially begged to get the doors fixed but the administration refused and somehow justified that everything was secure due to the high metal fence surrounding the playground. These un-lockable doors are all connected to the playground.
The lock to the middle school science classroom door I videotaped simply spun around and around, never engaging. Despite being reported multiple times by multiple people, it was never fixed as long as I worked there. I have verified that it is STILL un-lockable as of today, April 11, 2019.
I am pleased to say the door leading from the parking lot to the playground was finally replaced with a new one that wasn’t bent so it would now be much harder to pry open. Then bent one was easy to pry open and was reportedly opened by a male employee using nothing but his bare hands.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: ADMIN SALARIES AND A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT
According to public records available online from the State Department of Education, ASTEC Superintendent Freda Deskin has a total salary package worth $164,500. The full amount is spread over three job titles. Superintendent/CEO, headmistress/principal of the middle school and headmistress/ principal of the high school. The school also employs an assistant super, a headmistress/principal and several deans. Each makes in the six figure range.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation told me that none of the administrators ever actually see the budget. Deskin keeps all financial matters hidden, even from her top assistants and deans. The storage area where financial records are kept is always locked and no one is allowed in there without Deskin being there too. These are supposed to be public records, so the secrecy is not appropriate under any circumstance.
Deskin’s salary is significantly higher than Oklahoma State Superintendent Joy L. Hoffmeister who makes $124,373 per year according to public records. Several district superintendents have higher salaries than Deskin but most of them also have larger districts. For example, Robert Neu, of Oklahoma County, makes a total of $275,000 but has over 45,500 students. Deskin has one thousand.
For a school with a budget as tight as ASTEC, it is maddening to realize how much money is skimmed off the top and never trickles down to the students. From my research and observation, top-heavy budgets and bloated administration costs are one of the many trends seen in privatized education.
As seems to be the trend with privatized education, ASTEC shortchanges the students because so much money is channeled to feed a bloated, overpaid administration. Although not illegal, the practice certainly is not in the best interest of students.
SCHOOL BOARDS, PUBLIC DEBATE AND TRANSPARENCY IN PUBLIC AND CHARTER SCHOOLS
When I worked for a large public school district in Tennessee, (Williamson County Schools) one of my job duties was to help broadcast their monthly school board meetings live. These broadcasts are archived online. Education was treated as a priority in this wealthy county and the school board meetings were often heavily attended by the public. Public comments were welcomed. The county-wide district includes about 50 schools.
By law, members of the public are allowed to attend ASTEC school board meetings. In practice, no one ever does. ASTEC is a district all by itself, so no other schools are governed by the board. Technically ASTEC is two schools, a middle and a high school. Both schools are housed in the same building and adjoin. Total enrollment is about 1,000.
I attended an ASTEC school board meeting in June of 2018, shortly after leaving the school. I primarily wished to ask about the policy of docking teacher pay for routine maintenance like painting and carpet cleaning. My final paychecks had been docked a total of nearly $400, about half of that was for a new paint job and overall cleaning. The other half was for sick time I felt I had been unfairly denied.
When I unexpectedly arrived, Dr. Deskin immediately requested her assistant fetch a handout stating that if I engaged in “disruptive behavior,” they would have me arrested for a felony.
Among other infractions, I was warned to not shout, fight, be boisterous, smoke, carry a weapon, be drunk or engage in criminal mischief. Shirt and shoes were required and I was not allowed to stand on the tables.
This is supposed to be a public meeting so I was floored when my mere presence was enough to elicit the threat of arrest. Many districts encourage people to attend school board meetings but not ASTEC.
I sat through the meeting without saying a word. Various rule changes were discussed. Deskin explained that homeless folks had to be chased off the site of the new building. She told everyone they had been awarded a new multi-million dollar grant from the Walton Foundation to build the new school.
When the board began to adjourn, I raised my hand. I was told that I was allowed to attend, but I could not speak unless I had called ahead to be placed on the agenda. The meeting had lasted less than one hour. No one seemed the least bit interested in why I had come.
Not wanting to waste a trip completely, I had a brief discussion after the meeting with two of the administrators. Deskin herself would not speak to me.
The conversation did not go particularly well. The concerns I raised were brushed aside. I was ordered to leave.
The difference in how these two school board meetings are conducted sums up exactly why public systems work better than more private ones. In fact, I’d say the entirety of my experiences in these two drastically different school environments reveals the basic universal truths in the ongoing debate of public vs. charter schools. A system run with transparency beats one run on secrecy every time.
The truly sad fact is that I could continue listing serious problems with this school. For example, one of my students was fined $280 for accidentally breaking four light bulbs. The school claimed they were worth nearly eighty dollars each. Suitable replacements could actually have been purchased for six bucks but regardless, the broken bulbs were never replaced. So why did this student have to pay such a heavy fee? Another student I know was fined $60 for having a pack of gum. What happens to all this money when it is not used as the school says it is?
I was once asked to give a student who had not even been in my class a grade for the semester. I kept saying I could not do that since the student had never been enrolled in my class. The dean, on orders from Deskin, kept insisting I give the student a grade IMMEDIATELY. After repeated requests, I questioned the legality of such a move, which finally ended the conversation. I have the printed emails to document this.
In the interests of full disclosure, I wish to say that I debated for months whether to actually go through with blowing the whistle, but in the end decided it was too important to ignore. The system will never improve if people turn a blind eye to problems.
Many employees of ASTEC expressed deep concerns to me in private conversations about the very issues I have discussed. None were willing to be a part of this article due to a justified fear of reprisals. Even ex-employees who had been gone over a year and secured other means of income were too afraid to speak on the record. Several people stopped speaking to me completely, not wanting to be even loosely associated with a person exposing the problems with school. A few others agreed to help but wish to remain nameless. I have done my best to honor all their requests while maintaining the integrity of the story. I assure you it is all true. No doubt I will be vilified as a vindictive ex-employee but that is not true either. I just do not like seeing people swindled and lied to and I have a strong sense of justice. Maybe I should change my name to Don Quixote but I am hoping to right some wrongs here.
Employees and former employees at ASTEC expect an administrative response laced with vengeance and a volatile temper. Employee’s jobs are threatened over the smallest of things. Administration told the young male art teacher to stop wearing red tennis shoes or be fired. He kept wearing the shoes, lasted until the end of the year then left willingly. I was ordered to never speak with the teacher across the hall because they feared us gossiping. That sort of thing is quite common and leads to what can accurately be called a hostile work environment.
The turnover rate is astronomical, which hurts the students. Several of them told me the high teacher turnover rate was one reason why they hated the school.
To illustrate this further, an ASTEC student who concurrently goes to a local community college, chose the ASTEC high teacher turnover rate as his subject for a class project at his c.c.
The project was to write a letter requesting something that you disagreed with be changed. His community college teacher liked it so much, it was suggested the boy go ahead and send it to Dr. Deskin. Once he did so, Deskin sent out several emails to the entire staff ridiculing the boy and demanding to know which ASTEC teacher had told him to say that, assuming the boy had not figured it out for himself. Deskin planned on firing that ASTEC teacher.
Deans and headmasters at ASTEC, positions which pay well but suffer from rapid turnover regardless, tend to shield teachers from upper administration. One of them, who only lasted a few months in her position, came up to me on her last day, burst into tears, apologized profusely and deferred blame for her treatment of me to her boss, whom she called “evil.”
According to the law, employers are not supposed to give out negative information on former employees when a potential new employer asks. However, the entire staff heard Deskin laugh at a meeting once and say that “there were always ways around that.”
The educational profession in Oklahoma City is fairly small and comprised of many lifetime educators, including Dr. Freda Deskin. People are afraid of not being able to get a job if they rock the boat at ASTEC. She is well connected in town with many local wealthy elites supporting her and the school.
Although it is difficult to know for sure, several people suspect they were blackballed by Deskin when they had extreme difficulty getting other jobs. Please check into this practice too.
I hope that I have conveyed enough information here to warrant a serious investigation. ASTEC Charter School should be investigated by impartial, outside observers. Please talk to as many current, and former employees as you can. The audits done on the school to date are highly superficial and probably not worth the paper they are written on.
I also have two videos on YouTube to accompany these allegations. One shows the un-lockable doors and the other shows the FSB website claiming the new school is finished. Find them on YouTube under these titles at these links:
