UPDATED: Former McAuliffe Charter School Business Director Stole $54,124; No Criminal Charges Filed

Report posted at 3:45 p.m. The report was updated at 5:31 p.m.

***

[broadstreet zone=”53230″]

FRAMINGHAM – In March of 2022, the Christa McAuliffe Charter School called Framingham Police to report a larceny of almost $55,000.

The money was stolen in November 2021, and has since been paid back to the school, according to a Framingham Police report that is in the City’s FOIA portal.

On March 18, 2022, former Christa McAuliffe Executive Director Frank Tipton reported a larceny to police.

“Tipton stated that he was the Executive Director of the school. Tipton stated that an ex-employee of theirs, Dayshel Reid stole money from the school,” according to the Framingham Police report.

[broadstreet zone=”54526″]

Reid was the Director of Business and Operations from August of 2018 until February of 2022.

“Tipton stated that they found that Ms. Reid stole $54,124.72 from the schools Business money fund. He stated that she directly wired the money to two companies. She send $24,700.36 to Lending Club and $29,424.36 to Freedom Financial. Mr. Tipton stated that he believes she was paying off debt. Both of those transactions took place on November 24, 2021,” according to the police report.

Tipton told Framingham Police “Reid was placed on administrative leave on February 18 and then she
resigned” in February.

Tipton told Police “Reid has repaid all of the money that she stole. Mr. Tipton stated that they did not want to file criminal charges because she repaid the school. They strictly wanted it to be on the record that she stole the money,” noted the police report.

[broadstreet zone=”58893″]

[broadstreet zone=”58892″]

In January of 2022, Tipton announced he was leaving the public charter middle school in June 2022.

Tipton was hired in April of 2020.

Tipton requested the police report in the City’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) portal on June 24. The police report was made public in July.

The grade 6-7-8 public charter school announced in mid-June an interim director for the 2022-23 school year.

The Chair of the Board for the Christa McAuliffe Charter School is Bob Berman of Framingham.

SOURCE emailed the chair of the Trustees for a statement.

“I was notified by our Accountant on February 16th that our controls had found irregularities with one of our bank accounts,” said Berman. “I met with the Executive Director that afternoon and informed him of the irregularities. We met with the Director of Business and Operations the following morning, at which time we notified her that she was being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. The Director of Business and Operations tendered her resignation to Frank the following day. The Executive Director ensured that all monies were returned to the school within a timely manner.  I personally reached out to each board member individually by telephone to update them on the situation that same week.”

 “The school has taken this incident seriously from the start and fortunately had strong controls in place to identify the issue quickly and recover all of the money that had been taken,” said Berman. “As required by law, the school reported the incident to the Framingham Police and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). DESE is investigating the incident with the full cooperation of the school.”

[broadstreet zone=”53820″]

The Board of Trustees according to the 2020-21 annual report for the school were Chair Berman, Vice-Chair Cameron Burke, Treasurer John Buckley, Jeff Gonneville, Clarissa Kwan, Amy Ludlam, Chris Petrini, and Tarek Tabbara.

SOURCE requested an updated list of Board members from Berman.

The current list of Trustees are: Chair Berman, Vice Chair Chris Petrini, Treasurer John Buckley, and Trustees Amy Ludlam, Tarek Tabbara, Jeff Gonneville, Rick Felty, Kim Comatas, and Danielle Barney

Petrini owns a law firm in the City of Framingham and recently stepped down as City Solicitor for the City of Framingham.

There are no minutes posted for any Board of Trustee meetings since February 2022. The Christa McAuliffe Charter School as a public charter school must adhere to the Commonwealth’s Open Meeting Law.

The last set of minutes on the school’s website is for July of 2021. SOURCE requested copies of all the 2022 meeting minutes.

“I will check on this and get you a copy of all approved minutes early next week when I have time. We do have a few months of meetings to approve at our next meeting at the end of July, I can forward those to you once approved,” said Berman tonight, July 15.

[broadstreet zone=”61074″]

[broadstreet zone=”59982″]

Editor’s Note: In full transparency, the Christa McAuliffe Charter School is an advertiser with SOURCE. The school has been advertising with SOURCE since 2016.