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TEA Closes Charter School For Criminal And Food Safety Issues

San Antonio School for Inquiry and Creativity

The Texas Education Agency announced the closure of San Antonio School for Inquiry and Creativity on Wednesday until further notice.

DeEtta Culbertson is the spokesperson for the TEA.  She would not go into detail, but called the conditions at the school “egregious.”

“After a review of some information we received, we determined that the school remains out of compliance with criminal history requirements,” Culbertson says. “And, also, they continue to have serious and ongoing food safety issue which are threatening the health, safety and welfare of its students.”

The TEA has also suspended Foundation School Program, or “FSP” funding to the school, which is more than $400,000 a month. Culbertson says this makes up most of the school’s budget.

District officials were unavailable for comment Thursday but in a written statement said, "We are confident that SASIC’s buildings, staff, and food are safe. SASIC looks forward to showing the agency its documentation in this regard.” 

There will be a hearing Friday before the TEA commissioner’s designee that will provide the school’s personnel a chance to provide evidence of why the school should be re-opened and funding should not be suspended.

Louisa Jonas is an independent public radio producer, environmental writer, and radio production teacher based in Baltimore. She is thrilled to have been a PRX STEM Story Project recipient for which she produced a piece about periodical cicadas. Her work includes documentaries about spawning horseshoe crabs and migratory shorebirds aired on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. Louisa previously worked as the podcast producer at WYPR 88.1FM in Baltimore. There she created and produced two documentary podcast series: Natural Maryland and Ascending: Baltimore School for the Arts. The Nature Conservancy selected her documentaries for their podcast Nature Stories. She has also produced for the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Distillations Podcast. Louisa is editor of the book Backyard Carolina: Two Decades of Public Radio Commentary. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her training also includes journalism fellowships from the Science Literacy Project and the Knight Digital Media Center, both in Berkeley, CA. Most recently she received a journalism fellowship through Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she traveled to Toolik Field Station in Arctic Alaska to study climate change. In addition to her work as an independent producer, she teaches radio production classes at Howard Community College to a great group of budding journalists. She has worked as an environmental educator and canoe instructor but has yet to convince a great blue heron to squawk for her microphone…she remains undeterred.