Parents Demand S.C. Charter Board Revoke School Operator’s Contract

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by DYLAN NOLAN

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Parents and students upset with staff shortages, mid-year firings of beloved personnel and opaque financial dealings staged a walkout on Tuesday morning (October 14, 2025) at Ascent Classical Academy, a charter school in Rock Hill, South Carolina

As FITSNews recently reported, charter management organization Ascent Classical Academies (ACA) – under the direction of its leader, Derec Shuler – has plans to operate four charter schools in South Carolina after it received unanimous approval to do so from the governing board of the Charter Institute at Erskine in April 2023.

But given the controversy in Rock Hill, those plans are now encountering serious headwinds.

Ascent’s first Palmetto State school opened its doors to kindergarten through ninth grade students in Rock Hill last August. The school has used a temporary facility while it searches for a property to house its permanent location in nearby Fort Mill.

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RELATED | WALKOUT PLANNED AT S.C. CHARTER SCHOOL

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Renee Trubiano, whose child attends the school, told FITSNews she was initially excited to learn Ascent Classical Academies intended to open schools in South Carolina. The Trubianos were founding members of Ascent’s Denver, Colorado school prior to relocating to the Palmetto State. They hoped their children would enjoy the teachers and curriculum as much as they enjoyed their classical education in Denver.

Trubiano advocated on behalf of the school as it worked to put down South Carolina roots, and got involved with school athletics and substitute teaching as soon as the school opened its doors. What she experienced changed her opinion of the school’s management organization.

“We were told that we could start a volleyball team,” Trubiano said. “They had posted a Facebook picture of the volleyball uniform back in May, and said, ‘more information to come.'”

Trubiano was “a full time substitute” at the school at the time, and “also helped volunteer at the school for events and for fundraising.”

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Months into the school year, though, she began to wonder exactly how those funds were being spent when the school failed to purchase either a volleyball net or the uniforms pictured on facebook.

She took her questions straight to the top, asking Shuler why the school wasn’t purchasing the athletic supplies. According to Trubiano, Shuler reportedly told her the school’s former headmaster – Ryan Mullins – offered volleyball as an option without first seeking approval from management.

“I was like, well, that’s really weird, because you posted it on Facebook and it’s also on your website, so there’s a disconnect there,” Trubiano remembered thinking.

The disconnect between Shuler and Mullins became increasingly apparent to Trubiano as the headmaster struggled to fill numerous teacher (and teacher’s aide) vacancies in the hopes of remedying the school’s perpetual understaffing.

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When she raised the issue with Mullins, she was told he’d “had several interviews with teachers’ aides” and “wanted to hire several of them,” but was told by management such hires were not “in the school’s budget.”

“We can’t even buy science lab equipment,” Turbiano recalled school dean Christina Holzer telling her.

Trubiano was far from the only parent upset with the school’s understaffing and reported budgetary shortfalls, something that became apparent when multiple parents spoke up after the school fired Mullins and tapped Jennifer Mognett for the role of interim headmaster.

Mognett is featured heavily in a federal lawsuit (.pdf) concerning her leadership of the North Carolina-based Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy (BCLA), which at the time was being operated by the Arizona-based “Charter One” CMO.

While Mognett is not a defendant in the suit, she is named dozens of times throughout the complaint due to her former role as director of the school.

The suit alleged Mognett failed to disclose to parents that she was also an employee of the Charter One, and that the CMO was concerned primarily with the profitability of it’s schools not the educational achievement of its students.

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“Despite being a Charter One employee, Director Mognett’s business email signature only held her out as the director of BCLA,” the lawsuit alleged. “Charter One essentially ran BCLA like a for-profit corporation with little more than a rubber stamp from BCLA’s board of directors.”

In conversations with FITSNews about the lawsuit, multiple Ascent parents indicated their foremost concern is over allegations Mognett failed to report the alleged sexual and physical assaults of students.

“Around January 2024, (a parent) learned that a minor student at BCLA had been sexually abused in her home,” the lawsuit claimed.

On a separate occasion, the pleading claimed this parent “noticed a minor student with bruises and other signs of physical injury.”

According to the filing, “on both occasions, (the parent) properly informed Director Mognett, (the school’s dean), and the school nurse that the incidents needed to be reported to the state’s Department of Social Services (“DSS”) in compliance with state law.”

“On both occasions, Director Mognett appeared annoyed and stated that the reports did not need to be made,” the suit alleged.

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Turbiano recalled parents being shocked by the school’s decision to elevate Mognett given the severity of the allegations awaiting adjudication.

“We were like, ‘this is crazy,’ so we started researching Ascent Classical Academy and we found out Shuler lost control of all his Denver, Colorado schools,” Turbiano said. “The board voted them off for a lot the some of the same reasons: high turnover, and kind of shady dealings.”

Ascent’s chief marketing officer, Amy Willis, confirmed to FITSNews that “ACA is the plaintiff in ongoing litigation surrounding the breach of contract and trademark issues resulting from that separation.”

Turbiano, who repeatedly expressed her support of the school’s curriculum and teachers, said by this point she had lost faith in CMO Ascent Classical Academies, and decided to band together with other parents to protest what she viewed as ACA’s mismanagement of the school.

“I am going to fight because they purchased a location in Columbia, and I do not want them to be around any children,” she said. “No children.”

Ascent parent Elizabeth Knight expressed discontent with the school’s staffing when asked yesterday whether her family intended to participate in the walk out.

“In the charter application for the school, it states clearly that they are going to use teachers and teacher aides so that they have a ratio of one to sixteen at most,” Knight said. “Instead, we have one teacher aide at the school that’s shared across kindergarten and first grade, so that ratio has not been maintained.”

“These teachers are doing the best they can with way too many students in the classroom,” Knight added. “Still, (the staff shortage) affects the education.”

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On Tuesday morning, numerous families participated in the walkout – demanding the school’s board follow the example set in Colorado and strip ACA of it’s authority to operate the school.

“I think today was successful,” mother Alisha Sewell told FITSNews. “We had a pretty good turnout. I asked all my children, I have three children there in different grades, and based on the information I got back, there seems to be maybe two thirds that did not come to school.”

When asked what she and other parents wanted to communicate by protesting, her message was clear – parents want the school’s board to intervene.

“I’d love this school to survive, and I would love this school to be able to not be connected to Derec,” Sewell said. “Our board of directors can terminate the contract with the CMO, and then we would have an open charter which we could then fill with another charter organization.”

Unfortunately, some parents are unconvinced the school’s board operates independently – believing Shuler has seeded the board with individuals who may be loyal to him and the firm he leads.

Multiple families have reportedly attempted to apply to fill a vacant seat on the school’s board with a parent of an enrollee, and have indicated they received no response to their inquiries from the school or the board.

“It’s very difficult, I think, to make change at the board level when the board has been handpicked by the executive director of the CMO,” Sewell said.

“They sent out an email for board elections, but we were they only provided names,” according to Sewell.

Parents didn’t “know who the people are, and most of them were already on the board,” she added.

The hypothesis that the board is under Shuler’s control was bolstered by the fact that – until recently – it was chaired by Mark Shuler, father of Derec Shuler. Although the elder Shuler is no longer is seated on the board, Ascent’s website still listed him as its chairman at the time of this publication.

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According to the Charter Institute at Erskine, a group responsible for approving charter school applications and overseeing their operations, it is the duty of the school’s board to step in when concerns about the operation of the school arise.

Ascent Classical Academies is “under a contractual agreement with the board of directors for that school, so that contract does not come through us,” Erskine Superintendent of schools Mike Sinclair told FITSNews.

When asked whether Erskine was aware of ACA losing their Colorado contracts at the time they approved their charter in South Carolina, Sinclair said he couldn’t definitively answer, but that he believed the information was not public at that time.

“I was in Colorado visiting with their authorizer,” Sinclair said. “Derec was still working with their schools, so none of that had happened at that point.”

While Sinclair noted he was not overseeing authorizations at that time – and thus couldn’t speak with absolute certainty – he was fairly sure Ascent’s troubles in Colorado were not yet known to Erskine personnel vetting the CMO.

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“I did not hear any conversations within our team about that,” he said.

Erskine said it was committed to working with the school’s board to resolve the issues raised by parents.

“We have been trying to work as hard as we can with that board, and the parents that we talked to in general have been very supportive of the strategy,” Sinclair said.

Should that fail, Sinclair said Erskine’s board has previously revoked a school’s charter. He emphasized this could only be done for reasons outlined in the state law governing charter schools.

“We have done that for very significant reasons that were not corrected at the school level,” Sinclair made it clear that Erskine wants “to work with the schools to correct any of those severe issues,” but that if material issues are “identified and corrective actions are not taken, we do have that authority at our board level.”

In the wake of the publication of this news outlet’s initial article previewing today’s protest we received multiple messages from parents of children attending Ascent Classical Academy. Surprisingly, we also received messages concerning the business practices of other Charter Management Organizations operating in South Carolina.

We encourage anyone with relevant information to share to email Dylan@Fitsnews.com.

This is an ongoing story, stay tuned for future charter school coverage.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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