A state auditor said Noble Minds Institute, a former New Orleans charter school, may have improperly used more than $600,000 of public funds for rent, teacher incentives and consultants as it moved to become a private school, allegations that were met with a sharp defense from the school’s founder.
Noble Minds Institute, a K-8 school, opened in 2017 as a publicly funded charter school under the oversight of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. In June, after receiving an F-rating from the state for the 2023-2024 school year, the school gave up its charter.
In the fall, it opened as an independent private school that charged tuition, provided summer programs and offered full, or part-time programs for home-schooled students. It continued to use the Noble Minds name.
According to a report released by the state Legislative Auditor last week, after the charter school’s board voted to close the school in December, the school used public funds to fund employee incentives and hire wellness consultants. The payments included more than $100,000 to founder and CEO Vera Triplett, which the audit said could violate compensation rules. The report said the school also paid a year’s rent in advance for its space on Carrolton Avenue where it continues to run its private school.
“By improperly using public funds to benefit the nonprofit corporation and/or donating public funds,” the report said, “Noble Minds management may have violated the Louisiana Constitution, which prohibits the donation of public funds, and state law.”
The audit report recommended that the state Department of Education and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education review the findings with legal counsel to determine whether it should try to recover the money, which totaled $606,000.
In an interview Tuesday, Triplett called the audit’s suggestion that the funds were used improperly “irresponsible.”
“They’re trying to criminalize spending when there’s nothing criminal about it,” said Triplett. “As a school we have every right to spend our funds.”
The school’s attorneys also maintained that each expense was necessary and legal.
“Noble Minds has acted within its scope and authority regarding the school’s finances both prior to and after the decision to relinquish the charter,” Noble Minds’ attorney Halima Narcisse McKenna wrote. “It is absolutely within the school board’s and school leadership’s authority to expend funds in areas that are prioritized.”
Shift to private
After several years of D and F-ratings from the state, Noble Minds was ineligible for renewal under the state’s criteria. As a private school, it stayed in the location on Carrollton Avenue that it rented from Central St. Matthew United Church of Christ.
In an interview last year, Triplett said about a third of Noble Minds’ 150 students stayed on, opting to pay the $350 monthly tuition.
State board of education policy stipulates that when a charter is surrendered, all of its assets and cash on hand should be transferred or “disposed of” as instructed by the state education department. If it isn’t clear whether something was purchased with public or private funds, the asset goes to the state, according to the policy.
After the board voted to relinquish its public charter, the school paid the church $174,000 in rent. The church told the auditor the school pre-paid for a new lease that started in July, 2025, and runs through June, 2026. Triplett told the auditor that the amount was a payout for breaking the lease, which ran through 2027.
If it paid rent for the school year when it would be a private school, it may have violated state laws against donations of public funds, the report said.
The school also paid a total of $238,000 to three consultants last year that the auditor said either benefited the nonprofit corporation or were “unnecessary.” They included a fundraising consultant who was paid $40,000 and a wellness consultant who was paid $78,000. The wellness consultant provided mental health services, including guided meditations, yoga, sound baths and other stress and anxiety interventions. Between February and May, the school also paid at least $120,000 for professional development, including administrative support, and classroom observation and feedback.
McKenna disputed the auditor’s findings, writing that the characterization of the expenses as unnecessary was only an opinion and “has no bearing on the charter school’s right to spend its funds.”
The attorney said that none of the expenditures were improper, including the wellness consultant who was hired after employees, parents and students reported high levels of anxiety and depression after learning of the impending school closure. According to the attorney’s letter, there was an uptick in suicidal ideation and self-harm among Noble Minds’ staff and students.
The auditor also flagged $168,425 paid to employees who stayed on with the school after it agreed to relinquish its charter, including $100,500 to Triplett and $67,925 to other charter school employees. Triplett said in an interview that the Department of Education encouraged the school to offer incentives to employees to encourage them to stay through the end of the school year.
“Nothing we did was abnormal,” Triplett said. “Everything was pro forma.”
According to Noble Minds’ records, Triplett was paid $50,000 on January 17, 2025, and again on June 30, 2025. The payouts were listed as for unused PTO and compensation for continuing to work for the school and transitioning it from a charter back to an education nonprofit.
The auditor said that those payments may have violated the state constitution because Triplett was being paid for services that had not yet been provided and was being compensated for duties that would already fall under her role as CEO. McKenna, the school’s attorney, argued that shepherding the school through the closure process fell beyond Triplett’s normal scope of work and that her incentives were “moderate and aligned with industry standards.”
“The language used in this report has the potential to defame and malign her professional reputation,” McKenna wrote.