Springfield school formerly known as Sabis International Charter claims it no longer has access to student records

SPRINGFIELD — The school formerly known as Sabis International Charter School has lost access to student records, emails and other software, trustees president Atu White said Thursday.

The lockout is apparently a result of trustees’ decision the night before to effectively end their relationship with Springfield Education Management LLC, the local representative of the international Sabis education network.

White said the school’s administrators and teachers do not have access to student records, which include everything from grades and class schedules to emergency contact information.

“As of 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, even before the meeting had adjourned, we did not have access to our student records. I left the school around 3:30 p.m. today and there was still no access,” White said.

Summer school is in session and those records are necessary, White said.

“If a parent calls and asks about how a child tested on something the teacher cannot go back into the system and access that as of now,” White said. “I think it’s tragic that if there is an emergency at the school we don’t have access to emergency contacts.”

The management company also disabled the school’s Facebook page and website.

“We sent them an email this morning asking what would be the cost to have access to their system for 90 days so that we could properly get the information off of their system, and have not received a response,” he said.

Sabis attorney Raipher Pellegrino denied being contacted about the issues and said administrators have not been denied access.

“I have received communications from counsel for the board and nobody has mentioned that as of the close of business today. It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but I will look into it,” he said. “They have access to everything, how and what they are doing I have no clue.”

Amy Wesley, executive director of operations for Sabis Educational Systems, issued a statement Thursday severing the company’s ties with the charter school after more than 25 years of partnership.

“We declined the board’s offer of more than $2 million per year to continue to license our system and manage the school because the board required that we have no control over the director, yet still be solely, contractually accountable for student outcomes,” she said.

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