A trip to Guatemala. A $322 \u201cadult bean bag chair.\u201d A $345 robot vacuum. A $538 Zen art decoration. Mouthwash from a hotel gift shop.<\/p>\n
These are some of the hundreds of credit card purchases made over eight years by school leaders at the Albert Einstein Academies charter school in South Park.<\/p>\n
Most were made by the school\u2019s embattled former superintendent, David Sciarretta, who resigned in June amid concerns about his leadership \u2014 including allegations of mismanaging the school\u2019s dual-language program and of improper spending of school funds.<\/p>\n
School credit card statements and receipts obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune through a public record request showed dozens of credit card purchases made without a reason that is documented or tied to the school. Some were missing receipts or had scans of receipts that cannot be read.<\/p>\n
School policy<\/a> requires all superintendent credit card purchases to be approved by the school board president or board treasurer, via their signature on the credit card statement or email approval.<\/p>\n None of the records produced by the school show any such approval for purchases made from 2017, when Sciarretta became superintendent, to 2025.<\/p>\n Albert Einstein Board President Maria Ortega and Treasurer Christopher Beesley did not respond to questions from the Union-Tribune.<\/p>\n \u2018Every penny counts\u2019<\/p>\n The charter school\u2019s credit card spending is currently under investigation by San Diego Unified School District, Albert Einstein\u2019s charter school authorizer.<\/p>\n In response to questions from the Union-Tribune, Deidre Walsh, director of the district\u2019s charter schools office, wrote that the investigation is ongoing with no projected completion date.<\/p>\n The investigation follows complaints from parents who said some of Sciarretta\u2019s credit card purchases did not appear to be directly related to serving students. Those include at least $1,300 he spent on a China news subscription, $680 on a ChatGPT subscription and $549 on a meditation app subscription.<\/p>\n Parents also questioned thousands of school dollars Sciarretta has spent on his podcast, \u201cThe Hangout.\u201d<\/p>\n Sciarretta interviewed some Albert Einstein teachers and trustees for the podcast in past years, but since 2024 has primarily interviewed people who do not attend or work for the school.<\/p>\n He has purchased at least five microphones and spent at least $4,100 on three different podcast production subscriptions, school records show.<\/p>\n Sciarretta was paid a $338,000 salary, plus another $98,000 in retirement compensation for the 2025 fiscal year, according to Albert Einstein\u2019s tax filings. Albert Einstein serves about 1,400 students.<\/p>\n When it comes to public school employees\u2019 spending, state education law names few explicit prohibitions, said Michael Fine, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team, the state\u2019s school auditing agency, when asked to comment generally on how schools spend public money.<\/p>\n Chief among those prohibitions is the state constitution\u2019s prohibition against gifts of public funds \u2014 funds must be spent for the sake of the public, not an individual, Fine said.<\/p>\n FCMAT has not initiated any review of Albert Einstein Academies\u2019 finances or issued any guidance to the school in recent years.<\/p>\n While state education code says little on the matter, public schools\u2019 own fiscal policies typically have more detailed rules dictating a school\u2019s allowable expenditures, spending limits and more, Fine told the Union-Tribune.<\/p>\n Community members may find some schools\u2019 expenditures questionable or excessive, and that doesn\u2019t necessarily make them illegal. But the mission of serving kids must be the \u201cguiding light\u201d for all public school spending, Fine said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t fund public schools to cover all costs, so every penny counts,\u201d Fine said, cautioning against spending that serves \u201can adult purpose, not a kid purpose.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes perception is worse than the actual doing something wrong. That goes to credibility and trustworthiness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cruises, flowers, \u2018male booster\u2019 pills<\/p>\n Sciarretta did not respond to inquiries from the Union-Tribune about the purpose for his school spending on travels and purchases and how it was related to student learning.<\/p>\n In May 2025, Sciarretta used the school credit card to spend $2,200 on two hotel rooms, for three nights, at the Des Moines Marriott in Iowa, during his daughter\u2019s college commencement there. The hotel expenses were circled and marked as \u201cpersonal charge.\u201d Records provided by the school do not indicate whether Sciarretta reimbursed them to the school.<\/p>\n Some school credit card purchases missing receipts include a $471 Domino\u2019s pizza purchase, $288 spent at Flagship Cruises Coronado and $1,383 spent at a kayak, paddleboard and bike rental company in Coronado.<\/p>\n A Roborock robotic vacuum cleaner was purchased last October by the school\u2019s HR director, using Sciarretta\u2019s credit card, who said in an email that it\u2019s \u201cfor the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Sciarretta also used the school\u2019s credit card to pay for travel, hotels and meals for out-of-town meetings he attended as a commissioner for Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), a school accrediting organization. Those included trips to Honolulu, the Bay Area and Palmdale.<\/p>\n WASC policies state that it reimburses commissioners for expenses incurred doing business for the commission. Albert Einstein records provided to the Union-Tribune do not indicate that the school sought WASC reimbursement for most of the expenses Sciarretta submitted that appear\u00a0 WASC-related. School officials did not respond to questions about why the school paid them.<\/p>\n Sciarretta\u2019s card was also used to pay for local San Diego County hotels, including stays at a San Diego airport hotel and a resort in Imperial Beach \u2014 both less than 15 miles from the school.<\/p>\n The school\u2019s policy allows for employees to be reimbursed for stays at hotels when they are over 50 miles from the employee\u2019s residence or school site.<\/p>\n Records show Sciarretta also bought $170 screenwriting software, a $249 picture of baseball player Roberto Clemente and a $148 Apple pencil.<\/p>\n The school credit card was used to pay more than $4,000 for flower arrangements for the school.<\/p>\n Another $80 was spent on a sympathy bouquet for a school staff member, a type of expenditure that Fine told the Union-Tribune could be illegal because it constitutes a gift of public funds.<\/p>\n Sciarretta also bought protein powder and \u201cmale booster\u201d supplement pills from Amazon, but spending records show those items were later returned and refunded.<\/p>\n \u2018Fiscal malfeasance\u2019 allegations<\/p>\n Albert Einstein Academies has been going through contentious times.<\/p>\n The charter was conceived as a dual-language immersion German-English school<\/a>, the only school in the area to offer both German immersion and International Baccalaureate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe school was founded by a group of forward-thinking native German-speaking parents who spent hundreds of hours over a four-year period researching and evaluating educational models that would embrace their dream of a school for second language learning with an international focus,\u201d its charter read.<\/p>\n But late last year, the school went before the San Diego Unified school board to ask to remove the dual immersion part of the school from its charter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 50\/50 immersion program described in the charter is not, and has not been, consistently aligned in grades K-5, and the transition to a German language instructional model will meet the needs of students by focusing on listening, speaking, reading, and writing,\u201d district staff wrote in materials summarizing the school\u2019s request.<\/p>\n Parents voiced concerns about removing the immersion program \u2014 as well as about the management of the school more generally. They took issue in particular with the recent firing of the elementary school\u2019s principal, Greta Bouterse.<\/p>\n The board, on a recommendation from the district staff, granted the school\u2019s request and amended its charter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Had it not done so, the school may have needed to close. It would have had 60 or 90 days to get back into compliance with its charter by restoring dual-language immersion, which it said it had already tried and failed to do.<\/p>\n But trustees also indicated that they were open to learning more about what was happening at the school, given the concerns raised by parents.<\/p>\n \u201cPer some of the allegations around fiscal malfeasance, or all these other issues \u2014 what we\u2019re voting on today doesn\u2019t preclude us from doing that, correct?\u201d trustee Shana Hazan asked at the public meeting.<\/p>\n