San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) recently announced it is conducting an independent audit of all foundations associated with the district after two students published a report questioning the practices at their high school foundation.
Kevin Wang and Litong Tian, both 17, are high school seniors at Canyon Crest Academy. Over the summer, they collaborated on an investigation into the nonprofit Canyon Crest Academy Foundation (CCAF), which fundraises to "enrich the experience of every student, every day.”
Wang, who served as treasurer for the school’s robotics team during his sophomore year, noticed some irregularities in the foundation’s bookkeeping.
"What I saw in those records were pretty disturbing," Wang said. "For some years, they would take excess of $15,000 alone at the end of the year from the robotics team.”
The pair found that the foundation charges student clubs significantly higher fees than similar school foundations. CCAF charges 25%, while other school foundations charge 5 to 10%.
The two also found that more than a third of CCAFs' spending was categorized as "other expenses."
"Which amounted to about $700,000 last year, (it) was their single largest expense," Tian said. "And we just don't know where that money is going. And we believe that's a reason for concern.”
The pair published their findings on RavensforTransparency.org. The report was well-received by the community, but the two said the school’s administration's response was overwhelmingly negative.
“Around two days after we initially released the report, I was pulled out of class in the middle of the day and sent to the principal’s office, where he essentially tried to intimidate me into taking down the report because we slandered the school, supposedly,” Wang said.
At the Sept. 12 SDUHSD board meeting, several parents, including Janice Holowka, spoke in support of the students.
“In light of the documented CCA Foundation shady practices, incompetency and secrecy, I sincerely hope the district will take immediate action to conduct a proper, transparent investigation into these allegations,” she said.
After an emergency board meeting on Sept. 25, the district announced it would conduct an audit to ensure that all the district's foundations practices are legally sound and transparent. The district declined to comment, and the foundation disputed the students’ findings but did not offer any specifics.
The students said the audit announcement was a vindication of their work and hoped that the audit process will be transparent.
