Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools’ authorizing district is seeking to revoke the school’s charter in the wake of a number of alleged violations of the law and of its charter agreement.

The Twin Rivers Unified School District board is set to send the charter school organization an intent to revoke its charters pending a vote at a public meeting Tuesday evening. District staff say that the charter school has failed to prove that it can sufficiently make up for a number of contractual and legal violations.

A state audit released in June detailed the charter school’s legal violations and found that the school received more than $180 million in inappropriate state funds, which the state is seeking to recoup from the charter. Also in June, overseer Twin Rivers Unified notified both schools that HCCTS operates that they were in violation of their charter agreements and the law.

California officials found that the school employed teachers who lacked appropriate credentials, did not meet the requirements for instructional minutes and that leaders made “several questionable financial transactions, including some that violated legal prohibitions against gifts of public funds and conflicts of interest.”

The audit also highlighted the school district’s role in the fiasco. California State Auditor Grant Parks wrote that “if Twin Rivers had conducted more thorough oversight, it could have identified some of the violations we identified as part of our audit and taken action to address them earlier.”

In the months since the audit and the notice, the school has undergone a number of changes as new leaders seek to save the school which serves a highly vulnerable population of adult learners. New Highlands Executive Director Jonathan Raymond seeks to prove to Twin Rivers Unified that the school is on the right path toward improved operations and accountability.

“What we emphasize to our kids is tell the truth, admit when you make mistakes and learn from them. Sometimes you ground a child for a weekend, but not a lifetime,” Raymond said. “Highlands has learned from a lot of mistakes — I’m the first to say a lot were made. We just need the time to show that serving this community is worth it.”

Highlands leader makes the case for continued operations

Nonprofit HCCTS operates both the Highlands Community Charter School, in which students learn in a traditional classroom setting, and the California Innovative Career Academy, offering independent study under Twin Rivers Unified School District. Each school serves students ages 22 years and older at sites in Sacramento, the Bay Area and Southern California.

Highlands Community Charter School primarily serves immigrant, refugee and returning citizens (people who were previously incarcerated) seeking to complete their high school education and enter the workforce. Afghan immigrants and refugees make up a significant portion of Highlands’ enrollment, the majority of which are women whose rights were rolled back after the Taliban’s takeover of the Afghan government.

Raymond, known locally for his time as superintendent of Sacramento City Unified School District in the early 2010s, was brought on in early July. He brought with him a new executive leadership team and on his first day convinced the majority of the Highlands Board of Trustees to resign, Raymond said.

So far four trustees have resigned, with three remaining so that the school can remain operational. After new board members are appointed later this month, the remaining three plan to resign to make room for an entirely new board.

The school laid off 630 teachers and administrative staff members who did not hold K-12 teaching credentials. As a result, the school’s enrollment plummeted from 12,000 in the 2024-25 school year to 1,440 this fall, with another 4,000 students on the waitlist.

“I’m saying, hold us accountable for the impact that we are starting to make and the new innovations and the programs that are going to enable our students and teachers to be successful,” Raymond said. “Thousands of students have already paid the price for the choices of prior leadership.”

Highlands is paying to help laid off teachers get their K-12 teaching credentials so they can return to work and serve more students from their waitlist.

Another key operational change is the implementation of a newcomer pathway for students who need more foundational skills in English and math before beginning high school-level coursework like biology and algebra.

Highlands is a specialized charter high school that serves Sacramento’s large Afghan refugee population, but faced several challenges when trying to educate a population of older English learners in a model made for teenagers, Raymond said. The new yearlong course will begin in January.

Twin Rivers intent to revoke charter

Despite leaders’ efforts to transform Highlands, Twin Rivers officials took issue with several components of the school’s plan to account for its violations.

In its notice of intent to revoke Highlands’ charters, district officials say that the school’s remedial action plan failed to sufficiently address seven of eight legal and contractual violations.

The district points to a few violations of its charter agreement with Highlands — one sticking point is Highlands’ enrollment of students in grades 9 and 10 despite only being authorized to teach grade 12. The school also established operations at locations not approved by the school district, violating the charter agreement.

District officials wrote that the school has failed to prove that it has meaningfully addressed a number of legal issues, including the misuse of public funds to rent luxury office spaces, the school’s failure to track instructional minutes and the failure to submit an annual independent audit report.

If the board votes to approve the intent to revoke Highlands’ charter, Twin Rivers will then hold a public hearing on the matter in early December, giving leadership a chance to address the Twin Rivers board directly. The Twin Rivers board would then vote on its final determination by the end of the year or January 2026, if mutually agreed upon by both parties.

Raymond said that he expects an outpouring of support at tomorrow’s board meeting and any following hearings and votes.

“I wish I could go back in time to change these decisions, but I can’t. The real standard you should be using on Highlands, as well as your own school, is ‘would your students be better off if this school was closed?’” he said. “The answer is, resoundingly, no.”