Why Private Schools Need Accountability More Than Ever

Every School Is Accountable

For too long, Maranatha High School has operated as a private club for the benefit of its own leadership, and the need for accountability is now.

Listen, I am all about the government not getting involved in private religious organizations (Maranatha is organized as a religious non-profit 501c3), but Maranatha High School and all private schools absolutely do need accountability and oversight. After what they did to our boys, they need to lose their public charity status from the IRS and be sanctioned by the state of California, plain and simple. No school should be able to ask for donations from a community while abusing their power and hurting students because their parents spoke up! In terms of long term accountability at Maranatha - a church, an accrediting agency, or an INDEPENDENT board that is not connected to teachers, coaches, and students at the school. Accountability at Maranatha should be made up of those who are invested in the community, have a testimony of faith, are committed Christians, and have NOTHING  to gain from serving on the board. This is the very essence of a conflict of interest policy that is required by all non-profits, yet sadly isn't followed through on.

Furthermore, the majority of the board of Maranatha are parents or grandparents of students, and then they come off the board when their family member graduates. That's a conflict of interest. Yet, as a not-for-profit school, they are accountable to no one other than them themselves! Technically, the IRS checks for a conflict of interest policy on the organization's 990, and the state charity regulator is under the direction of the California State Attorney General's office, but they primarily get involved over the misuse of funds or governance failures.

So this comes down to the board of Maranatha and the church of Pasadena as a whole. A Christian school needs to go the second mile and go above and beyond the law for the sake of the kingdom of God.

We’re calling on Maranatha’s leadership and board to do the right thing and put in place an independent  board of directors that DO NOT HAVE STUDENTS, relatives, staff and submit to real leadership.

We chose Maranatha High School because we wanted a truly Christian education for our children. We believed it would be a safe place of faith. Instead, we found the opposite.