Good Schools For All By Voice Of San Diego

The Poway Unified School District is one of the highest regarded school districts in the state. Its schools are good and its students are high-performing. But the district's sterling reputation has a few big dings. Poway Unified's leadership has been under a cloud of suspicion since 2011 when Voice of San Diego broke a story about a strange bond that allowed the district to immediately borrow $150 million, but then required it to pay back $1 billion by 2035. That financial scandal shook the school and resulted in lots of negative attention from the media and the families inside the district. California lawmakers changed laws preventing other districts to do what Poway did, and the San Diego County Grand Jury scrutinized the deal. But former Poway Unified superintendent John Collins downplayed the whole issue and kept his job. But in 2016, he was fired amid another financial scandal. This time, Collins was charged with five felony charges for allegedly misusing public money, vacation, sick and leave time −