By Taylor Johnson | OBSERVER Staff Writer
When Shayla Williams-Barnes dropped her 6-year-old son off at Alan Rowe College Prep after making the switch from a traditional public school to a charter, she was impressed. Staff members were outside ready to greet parents and students who opened car doors.
She noticed one male teacher smile at her son as he left the car to enter the school. The teacher leaned down and said “good morning genius” as her son grinned and left to start his day at school.
She felt emotional and deeply moved at the gesture because it aligned with how they’ve always spoken positive affirmations to her son. Williams-Barnes and her husband both felt good as they drove off, knowing he was going to have a good year with the change of the school.
“For one of the first times when we dropped him off, I was almost in tears, because we are all on the same wavelength. He really felt a part of this village…”
Williams is one of many Black families who are shifting their sights to charter schools.
According to a January survey of over 500 Black parents of school-aged children in the United States conducted by the National School Choice Awareness Foundation, around 68% of Black parents said they thought about, considered, searched for, or chose new schools for their children in the past year.
Among Black parents who enrolled their children in new schools last year, they overwhelmingly selected public-sector options, with 36% enrolling their children in local public schools, 20% picking public charter schools and 18% selecting public magnet schools.
Williams decided to switch to a charter school from a public kindergarten program in her neighborhood because she felt public schools can’t provide personalized attention due to high student-teacher ratios.
She also wanted her son to have a strong sense of belonging and positive reinforcement and wanted a school environment that genuinely understands and supports her child’s cultural background.
“He is the kind of kid that thrives off of positive reinforcement and encouragement through challenging times and typically in a public school with high ratios and teachers have instilled demand they can’t offer that,” she said. “He’s just a different kind of kid.”
Local parent Tye DuBose also wanted smaller class sizes, a strong support system and rigorous college-preparatory focus for her daughters.
Her oldest daughter, Nailah, attended traditional public school from kindergarten through second grade—before Fortune Schools was established—and again during her seventh-grade year. Her youngest daughter, Aniyah, attended public school for all of fourth grade and part of fifth grade.
“Although public school gave them a foundation, it simply did not provide the depth of support, challenge, or vision we wanted for their future,” DuBose said. “Choosing the Fortune School of Education network changed everything. “…It was more than just schooling—it was an environment that believed in their potential, prepared them for higher education, and opened doors to opportunities that public school could not.”
She and her husband wanted their daughters to attend schools within the Fortune School of Education network because it allowed them to earn their high school diploma while simultaneously completing an associate’s degree. The school also had a potential of earning them a full-ride scholarship to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which has created a pipeline for Fortune School students.
Both daughters graduated from Rex & Margaret Fortune Early College High School. They both also earned two Associate of Arts degrees from Cosumnes River College while still in high school.
Nailah graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in June 2025 with a bachelor’s in psychology, along with minors in communication studies and exercise & sports studies. She is continuing her education this fall in Cal Poly SLO’s Master of Psychology program.
Aniyah is also currently in her second year of undergraduate studies at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
DuBose said she can’t speak for all charter schools in the area but knows many Black families are choosing schools within the Fortune School of Education system. During the 2024-2025 school year, Fortune had around 62% of Black students.
“ That’s because Fortune has shown a true commitment to both the academic and personal success of students, especially those from historically underserved communities,” she said. “Families recognize that Fortune is more than a school system—it provides a clear pathway to higher education, greater opportunities, and long-term success.”
Margaret Fortune, CEO of Fortune Schools, said Black families are looking for great schools for their children and the public school system in California allows them to have choices – they are doing their research and choosing the school that’s best for their child.
Fortune said the Sacramento County Board of Education made a finding of fact that there was a severe and persistent African American achievement gap in all 13 of the county’s school districts. She said essentially there was no place that a Black family could go and not confront this achievement gap.
“A regional problem merited a regional solution, and that’s why the Sacramento County Board of Education approved fortune school over a decade ago,” she said.
Fortune added charter schools are a permanent part of the education landscape and have been around for a really long time.
“In California, we have the most charter school students in the country,” she said. “So it’s you have now generations of children who are adults rather, who have themselves been charter school kids. It’s a mature sector of public education, and still a space for innovation.”
In Sacramento, charter school enrollment has increased year by year according to Ed Data. During the 2020-2021 school year, charter school enrollment in the city was around 38,000 while in the 2024-2025 school year, it rose to about 49,000—an 11,000 increase within five years.
Although charter schools are gaining more popularity, some opponents argue some charter school districts are increasing segregation in their schools and others say diminishing attendance is causing less funding overall to traditional public schools.
“We’ve got magnet schools, charter schools, traditional public schools, community schools, home schools, virtual schools,” Fortune said. “It’s a diverse landscape, and that diversity speaks to the diverse needs of children. Parents have an opportunity to choose which is best for their child, and I think that that’s good.”
THE PUSH FOR CHARTER SCHOOL REFORM
The state legislature is working to push for charter school reform through Assembly Bill 84 and Senate Bill 414 to provide more oversight after an audit of Highlands Charter School found around $180 million in misuse of funds.
Authored by Senator Angelique Ashby, SB 414 passed on the last day of the legislature on September 12. The newly passed bill will reform oversight, accountability, auditing, funding, and governance of charter schools when signed by Gov. Newsom and enacted by law.
SB414 will allow for stronger audits, expand financial transparency. It will also create the Office of the Inspector General to investigate fraud and fiscal allegations of abuse for all public schools.
The bill will also assist with more technical assistance for districts that authorize charter schools both for oversight and training.
Similarly, AB 84—authored by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi—looked to also add more oversight for charter schools.
The bill is still in works of discussion, but if passed it would also strengthen audit and compliance requirements, expand what audits must cover, add more restrictions around use of “non-classroom-based” charter schools and stronger controls on who can provide instruction or services under vendor contracts.
Originally, the audit of Highlands Charter was requested by Assemblymember Muratsuchi, Senator Newman, Assemblymember Addis, and Assemblymember Alvares in a letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee on April 25, 2024.
The authors’ concerns were outlined in the audit request, focusing on findings from a 2018 report by the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team. The letter also noted recent news reports resulting from an 2024 ABC 10 investigation.
Scott Roark, a public information officer for the California’s Department of Education said it is imperative state education dollars are used in good fath to support student achievement and will continue to engage in appropriate processes to ensure there is accountability for appropriate use of education funds..
“The goal of the California Department of Education has and always will be to ensure every student receives high quality educational opportunities that lead to positive student outcomes,” he said. “The CDE continues to be concerned about the lack of measurable student outcomes at Highlands and has been taking actions to ensure compliance from Highlands and its chartering authority Twin Rivers Unified.”
Roark said Highlands could seek to reduce the amount through an appeal and/or could enter a repayment plan to off-set the debt from future apportionment payments.
He added if repayment is infeasible and leads to a school closure, the CDE would bill the charter school for any funds owed to the State and pursue its rights as a creditor through any dissolution or bankruptcy proceeding that may be filed by Highlands.
Jonathan Raymond, the new executive director of Highlands Charter and Technical Schools. He said they have taken recommendations from the audit seriously but disagree about the amount of money that is owed.
Raymond took the position in July after Murdock “Doc” Smith stepped down. In addition, everyone previously on the board also stepped down. In August, they were trying to find community leaders to fill the position.
“We’re not trying to hide from the past mistakes. In fact, we’re running toward them to fix them, because this school staying open serves thousands of folks in our community who wouldn’t be served if Highlands didn’t exist.”
He said a $180 million finding would force the school to close, and this would have ramifications on Twin Rivers Unified and the county.
“We’re going through the administrative appeal process…,” he said. “ We’ve provided them with hundreds of pages of documentation showing what the state auditors missed. They didn’t look at all of our attendance records.”
Zenobia Gerald, a public information officer for Twin River said before the audit request was submitted to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, the district initiated their own independent audit when complaints were brought forward.
Gerald said while that audit was commencing, the district also submitted a letter of support for the JLAC audit and throughout the process their team worked in good faith with the state auditor.
“Despite disagreeing with some of the assertions made in the audit, TRUSD maintains that it met existing law and remains committed to continuous improvement. TRUSD has and will continue to strengthen oversight procedures, has retained outside experts, and taken proactive steps to ensure even greater transparency and accountability of charter schools moving forward.”
If passed, these bills will impact how charter schools are run, including at Fortune Schools, where many Black families are hosted.
Fortune believes oversight and transparency is good, but isn’t just an issue for charter schools, but is needed for all.
She said across the board, community members should be looking for public schools of all types to be accountable, well managed and good stewards of our public resources.
“The current authorizers of charter schools have a responsibility to provide rigorous oversight, and there are instances when they excel at that and instances where they have challenges that’s not unique to oversight of charter schools, which is why the fiscal crisis management assistance team has existed for all of these decades because of oversight challenges with traditional public schools.”
Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.