Orange County DA Releases Grand Jury Report on Apex, Attendance Scam at Newburgh Schools

Written By: Robert Cox

GOSHEN, NY (April 4, 2019) — Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler has released the Grand Jury Report on the Newburgh Enlarged City School District.

Hoovler said the Grand Jury found systemic failure “at all levels” but that no specific individuals could be proven to be responsible so no criminal charges will be brought.

The Grand Jury was empaneled on June 17, 2017 after repeated failures by the New York State Education Department to act on complaints filed with the NYSED Fraud and Waster hotline and the OCDA Office.

“Where was State Ed?” asked a clearly annoyed Hoovler.

QUICK SUMMARY:

  • No criminal charges
  • Grand Jury only looked at student-athletes for attendance and Apex abuse
  • 15 witnesses, 31 exhibits, tens of thousands of records, 900 pages of transcripts.
  • From 2015 to 2017 hundreds of student-athletes participated in sports while ineligible
  • Massive attendance failures
  • Rampant grade-fixing
  • NYSED was utterly useless

EDITOR’S NOTE: as readers can see there is a lot in this report. Our focus is the Apex section (pp. 59-81) and the difference between the T&M Investigation in New Rochelle and the Grand Jury Investigation in Orange County.

One major difference is that the OC Grand Jury had Witness I, described as a senior level Apex Online Learning employee, who provided a detailed explanation of how Apex works, Best Practices, Training, Support, Default Software Settings, and Red Flag behavior and was available to answer any questions the 23 member Grand Jury might have. In New Rochelle, T&M complained that CSDNR terminated its relationship with Apex on June 30, 2018 just a few weeks after investigative interviews began at which point, T&M noted, cooperation with Apex ended.

Orange County Grand Jury Report on Newburgh School