NEWS

Charter school won't open after lies discovered

Justin Murphy
@citizenmurphy

Greater Works Charter School will no longer open in Rochester in 2015, part of the continuing fallout over lies in the resume of its 22-year-old founder.

Ted Morris Jr. represented himself to the New York State Education Department as a precocious businessman and educational advisor with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees earned mostly online. In fact, he has no college degrees and scant professional experience.

He resigned Nov. 25, the day most of the misrepresentations came to light and just a week after the school gained approval from the state Board of Regents. At that point, both Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Peter Kozik, who took over as the school's trustee chairman in Morris' wake, said the school would open as planned without him.

But a NYSED spokesman said Monday that the department had asked the board of trustees to rescind its application, and the trustees complied in a letter dated Nov. 29. They are also asking the Board of Regents to take back its approval.

"Essentially we're aware as a board ... of our professional status," Kozik said Monday.

In response to questions about how the charter was approved in the first place, given the holes in Morris' resume, NYSED spokesman Dennis Tompkins said: "We don't grant charters to individuals. We grant charters to boards based on the application."

NYSED would not make Bill Clarke, its charter school office director, available for an on-the-record interview, and did not respond to specific questions about Greater Works, but spokesman Tom Dunn said the department is reviewing its charter school application process.

Tisch, whose board has final say over whether charters are granted, said last week the Regents acted on the recommendation of NYSED staff.

Kozik said he didn't think to question Morris' claims more closely until it was too late.

"I'm not a skeptic when it comes to people by and large, for better or worse," he said. "I try to be a fair-minded person and be open and accept people as they come. ... I've been soul-searching since Tuesday afternoon, when all of this finally came into my head."

In the trustees' letter to the state, they said they hope to submit a "revised application" for another charter school "in the near future."

"We're not going to come back with this school," Kozik said. "Greater Works is done. But the board reserved the opportunity to continue to work and look at the possibility to gain a charter in the state of New York at some point."

JMURPHY7@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/CitizenMurphy