Croft School Board Says Founder Hid $13 Million in Debt, Forged Letter of Credit

To many parents, The Croft School seemed like a remarkable find. Its classes were small, its teachers devoted, and its curriculum mixed academic rigor with “social-emotional learning.” Concierge-style services, including a curbside dropoff option, let parents leave their children and get to work quickly. Parents believed the school would be a pillar of their children’s future. Gustavo Quiroga, whose son is enrolled in Croft’s prekindergarten program, said, “My wife and I, we just can’t imagine sending our son anywhere else for school.”

Croft, which has locations in Jamaica Plain, the South End, and Providence, appealed to progressive, white-collar parents who wanted a private alternative to public schools that still matched their values. Scott Given, an education entrepreneur and Croft’s founder, described the school as a “diverse, inclusive, anti-racist community.” Tuition was thousands of dollars less than top-tier private schools, and Given was known to offer steep discounts to families of more modest means. The school opened in 2018 with 20 kindergartners in Providence. By the time of the reporting, nearly 600 students from preschool through middle school were enrolled in Boston and Providence.

Demand was high enough that, by late last year, the school was hiring for a dozen new positions and planning a new school in Cambridge as well as expansion in the South End. Details about how Croft would finance that growth were limited, but Given wrote to parents in a September email that the school’s “financial performance” was “strong.”

According to the school’s board, Given had mismanaged the budget for years, kept two sets of books, and hid $13 million in debt. He allegedly forged a $500,000 letter of credit that was meant to serve as a security deposit for a South End lease. The board’s account and the allegations described in a lawsuit also say Given sold bonds to parents, promising that they could invest in their children’s school while earning a virtually guaranteed return. One lawsuit alleges that Given then sold a second set of bonds to cover payments on the first, which the lawsuit describes as a Ponzi scheme. Croft’s board members say they did not know anything was wrong until Given alerted them in early March, after the school’s bank detected a forged document and called the police. Hidden debt and dual records of this kind show the cost of dishonest dealing (Proverbs 11:1).

Boston police have said they are investigating. The school’s four-member board, which did not respond to a Boston Globe interview request, suspended Given and has suggested that federal and state investigations are underway. The Croft School was effectively left broke and faced closure within weeks. Given, 45, has not been charged with a crime. In a statement released last month through his lawyers, he said he is cooperating with the school’s investigation and that he “has never used any school funds for his own personal benefit.” Given did not respond to an interview request, and when a reporter knocked on his door on Tuesday, no one answered.

Many parents remain loyal to Croft and its teachers and have launched a fundraising campaign to keep the Boston schools open. Parents have also been asking, in conversations, text chats, and while waiting to pick up their children, why Given would risk so much, including his reputation, the schools he built, and the futures of hundreds of students. Allison Cox, whose 8-year-old son attends Croft, said Given clearly believed in the school’s mission but got in over his head. “Scott conflated hope with facts. I feel like he really believed that it would work,” Cox said. “I think it was hubris.”

Given, a graduate of Dartmouth College and a Harvard Business School alum, was already a prominent education entrepreneur in his thirties. He started the nonprofit UP Education Network in 2010, which took over failing schools in Boston and Lawrence and raised millions of dollars from prominent Boston foundations and philanthropists. In some cases the organization achieved notable turnarounds. Josh Angrist, an MIT economist and Nobel laureate who studies public education, said his research found that UP’s first school, which replaced the Gavin middle school in South Boston, was “outstanding.” In its first year, UP nearly doubled the percentage of students who demonstrated math proficiency on the state’s annual test.

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