Parents with children enrolled in the financially imperiled Croft School are scrambling to keep it open, saying the private, for-profit institution offers a unique experience and sense of community that’s worth fighting for.
This comes as the Croft School’s three locations are at risk of imminent closure, according to its board of directors. Its founder and executive director faces accusations of financial misconduct and fraud.
GBH News spoke to three parents who said they were stunned by the news that the Croft School was nearly insolvent. They were part of a virtual meeting Tuesday night with like-minded parents to strategize on how to keep the school open.
One parent, Jasun Mahaffey, has two young children who attend the South End campus. Like the others, he described it in glowing terms, of offering a sense of community and inclusion led by a dedicated team of caring teachers and administrators.
Mahaffey said he’s aware of the allegations but that his whole focus has been on keeping the school open.
“Other things will shake out over time. All of the energy is in trying to save these schools because it’s so worth it,” Mahaffey said. “We can put our kids in other schools, but that’s not what we want and what we feel the community should even desire to have, or needs.”
Mahaffey and his wife, Helen Fassil, live in the South End and got to know the Croft School through their neighborhood. They describe their children as mixed race — African-American and Ethiopian-American — and Fassil said the school was a perfect match for their family.
“We thought it could be a great fit for us. Just being a neighborhood school, proximity alone was very convenient given our work schedule,” Fassil said.
The Croft School has two locations in Boston: the South End, which offers pre-kindergarten through second grade; and Jamaica Plain, which offers pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. The two Boston locations together have an enrollment of about 370 students. A third location in Providence enrolls roughly 220 students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.
The school, Fassil said, has a wide range of socio-economic and racial diversity, and she loved that it was right in the neighborhood.
“It’s just such a special community, it’s such a special school because it really represents the community that it’s in and it engages with a lot of [local] businesses,” Fassil said.
Suzanne Mendes, also a Croft South End parent, said across all three schools, about 48% of the student population identifies as people of color. That’s a big draw for many parents, she said.
“That also translates into having a really diverse community of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds,” Mendes said. “That’s why, I think as parents, this has been so devastating. Because it really is much more than a school. It is a home away from home for our kids. And that’s why we’re fighting so hard to protect it and preserve it.”
Tuition is around $32,000, but many families receive financial aid grants, she said.
“Just under half of our families are in some sort of financial aid. And so I think it’s worth mentioning because that’s why we live in the city, right? We want our children to be exposed to that kind of diversity and to have that richness of experience,” she said.
On March 13, the board of directors disclosed that school founder and executive director, Scott Given, had been suspended over allegations of hiding $13 million in debt and “serious irregularities.” The board also warned that it had only one week’s worth of payroll on hand, leaving the future of the school in question. Subsequent communications have also suggested Given is now facing “federal, state, and local investigations.”
Earlier this week, parent Paul Crockett filed a lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court accusing Given of using so-called “Croft Bonds” — investments promoted to parents as supporting the school — to run a “Ponzi scheme.” Crockett’s lawsuit claims he invested $160,000 in the bonds and never received the promised 12.5% return.
Given has denied any wrongdoing, and his attorney, E. Peter Parker, said outside court Tuesday that his client “has cooperated with the school’s efforts to carry out its mission.”
In Rhode Island, Croft School parents there have asked a judge to place the school in receivership, a state-level version of bankruptcy. The petition was filed by eight parents who have said it’s the only way to stabilize the school and manage its insolvency. Without legal action, parents worry that teachers and staff could be furloughed as early as April 1.
A Boston Croft School parent advisory committee is organizing efforts to keep the schools’ operations going and make sure the educators get paid.
Both Mahaffey and Fassil said that their impression of Given was of a dedicated and compassionate educator, but that most of their interactions were limited to logistical issues like arranging schedules.
Mahaffey acknowledged that he donated money to the school. He declined to say how much but said his primary motive was supporting something he believed in rather than getting an investment return. He said he knew few details about Crockett’s lawsuit and has no plans to join the litigation.
“I think the fact that I see so many parents so quickly rallying across the schools to save their schools, no matter what, reflects how special the school is and we’re going to try to find a way to make this work,” Mahaffey said.
Fassil said she’s been focused on finding solutions instead of trying to place blame.
“I think our focus was just trying to keep our school open past March, April 1st, making sure the teachers had a place to go, making sure our kids weren’t going to be uprooted from the only community in school they knew.”
