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Olney Charter High School is just one of several schools operated by ASPIRA.

The school district is investigating ASPIRA's finances

The school district is investigating ASPIRA for a $163,365 paint job that may have never happened.

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The Philadelphia School District’s Office of Inspector General is investigating ASPIRA, which operated charter schools around North Philadelphia, including Olney Charter High School, and all because of a very pricey paint job that may have never happened.

A Daily News article from Dec. 5 reported that Olney school employees said that a contracting company, Lyon Contracting Inc., that was paid $163,365 in 2011 to paint the school never showed up to work. Instead, janitors and maintenance workers painted the school.

Olney High School, a majority-Latino school in North Philadelphia, was charter-ized in 2011 by ASPIRA. Shortly after, the school community came together to give the old building’s corridors and classrooms a makeover, cleaning up and coating walls with fresh paint. Maintenance workers from other ASPIRA schools helped with the painting.

ASPIRA officials have maintained that Lyon did the work, but no one from the contracting company commented, in part because its listed number is out of service and its offices don’t actually exist.

It’s not the first time that ASPIRA’s financial books have been audited by the district. In less than two years, the company had 26 financial audits or inquiries. ASPIRA used that as proof in a Facebook post that stated, “no instances of fiscal mismanagement have been found, reported, or disseminated by the various regulatory bodies and audit firms.”

 
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