An executive at a Forest Lake charter school was fired last month for allegedly falsifying documents.
North Lakes Academy Executive Director Cecelia Dodge was fired following a closed session of the school board, allegedly “due to the falsifications of applications for federal funds due to forging signatures of employees and insufficient enrollment,” school board officials said at the November meeting.
The charter school received a complaint about Dodge on Oct. 30, conducted an investigation of the allegations and, on Nov. 17, “the board voted unanimously to terminate her employment,” said Board Chair Morgan Borck in an email.
No details were given regarding which documents were allegedly falsified. Dodge stepped into the executive director role in October 2023.
Founded in 1999, North Lakes Academy is a K-12 charter school with two Forest Lake campuses. In partnership with its authorizer, Osprey Wilds, the academy emphasizes environmental learning, according to its website.
Financial challenges
Dodge’s dismissal comes as the public school is facing financial challenges.
“I have become increasingly concerned with the long-term viability of North Lakes Academy,” wrote Andrew Clark, managing director and research analyst for Nuveen Asset Management, which owns a majority of the charter’s outstanding bonds.
“The current budgeted loss of over $600,000 for FY26 (fiscal year 2026) is particularly concerning considering that level of deficit spending could leave the school insolvent by the end of the year,” Clark said in the October letter addressed to Dodge and Borck.
“Re-growing enrollment is imperative to the school’s long-term success,” Clark wrote.
The charter school, which opened its K-6 campus in 2019, tallied its highest enrollment of 607 students in the 2022-23 school year “and it’s been dropping each year since,” the school board said in its response to Clark.
As of last month, North Lakes Academy had just over 400 students enrolled. The charter expects its enrollment to grow to 430 students by fiscal year 2027, according to school board documents.
Merging of schools
In addition to enrollment efforts, the charter is considering merging its two campuses.
The potential merging of the two schools, a proposal called “Huskies United Under One Roof,” suggests vacating the charter’s 7-12 campus at 308 15th St. SW. before the 2026-27 school year.
Should the two campuses merge into the current K-6 building at 4576 232nd St. N., elementary-aged students would remain on the main floor with the secondary students on the second floor.
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With 12 classrooms and about 300 students on the main floor, class sizes would average about 25 pupils. On the second floor, there are 16 classrooms for roughly 500 students, which would mean average class sizes of 32 students, according to school board documents.
“A bold move like this gives us our best chance, and a very good chance to regroup from our financial challenges to become solvent and viable,” the school said in its proposal.
If the charter were to merge its upper and lower schools, it could save roughly $350,000 across staff, administration and operational costs, not including the lease price of a second building, according to the school board.
“If a change is not made, I fear that the school could close, and our investors would have to look to selling the real estate to recover as much of our investment as possible,” Clark wrote in October.
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