The head of the agency that ran Gilroy’s only charter school will leave her post at the end of the month, according to a letter she wrote to
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friends and supporters.
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The head of the agency that ran Gilroy’s only charter school will leave her post at the end of the month, according to a letter she wrote to “friends and supporters.”
After 25 years of service with the Mexican American Community Services Agency, Chief Executive Officer Olivia Soza-Mendiola will step down.
“You can imagine how difficult it is for me to say goodbye,” she wrote in a letter dated June 12. She did not immediately return a phone call or e-mail seeking comment and MACSA’s board president, Louis Rocha, said he would not comment and referred inquiries to Phil Sims, a San Jose attorney, who did not return a phone call.
MACSA and the charter school it ran in Gilroy, El Portal Leadership Academy, recently came under fire by the Gilroy Unified School District for not delivering on academic and financial promises. Trustees voted 6-1 in May to revoke the school’s charter and MACSA’s board recently passed a resolution to voluntarily relinquish the charter “due to financial and academic constraints.”
A district audit conducted earlier this year revealed chronically poor academic performance and concluded that the agency misappropriated about $140,000 of its Gilroy teachers’ retirement accounts. The agency planned to repay its debt to El Portal employees by the end of the month. MACSA also owed teachers at its San Jose charter school, Academia Calmecac, about $250,000 earlier this year but district administrators did not return phone messages regarding whether the debt had been repaid.
The Santa Clara County Office of Education brought in the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team to conduct an investigation of MACSA’s two charter schools. Representatives from the team and the education office met with both schools and expect to have a draft as soon as next month, said Larry Slonaker, spokesman for the County Office of Education. The District Attorney is waiting for the Office of Education’s report before making a decision about prosecution.
In her letter, Soza-Mendiola detailed the accomplishments of the agency over the past 25 years and thanked its partners for their collaboration and support of the agency’s mission. Because of these partnerships, Silicon Valley “enjoys advances in senior and early childhood care, health, education, employment, after-school services and political empowerment,” she wrote. However, “many new difficulties persist and new ones have emerged,” she continued. “I feel strongly that a new generation of leaders will continue to serve MACSA and the greater community … Although these past few (years have) been difficult and financially challenging, it is my belief that as our State and Nation grow, so, too, will MACSA.”
Soza-Mendiola wrote that she looked forward to her next venture, although she did not specify what that might be.
Gilroy Unified School District trustee Francisco Dominguez, who worked with Soza-Mendiola when he was a project coordinator for a youth services project at MACSA in 1985, applauded Soza-Mendiola for her leadership but said he did not know her motives or plans for the future.
“It’s sad to see that she’s leaving,” he said. “It was probably a very difficult decision.”
