Gibson said all the leases have been negotiated at arm’s length, and his unpaid, volunteer position on the school’s board does not cause a problem. “I get no personal gain out of it,” he said.

Though some Academica schools paid rents as high as 23 percent of their revenue in 2010 — higher than the average rent of 13.5 percent for Miami-Dade and Broward charter schools last year — the company’s schools almost always make more money than they spend.

The Mater Academy chain, with 16 schools, has stockpiled assets of more than $36 million now held by the nonprofit corporation, records show. The Somerset Academy chain, with 28 schools in three states, has assets of $25 million, the management company says. The money is controlled by the schools.

Academica deploys a team of accountants, lawyers and education experts to help these schools make money while sustaining academic standards. In this way, Academica stands out from much of the charter school industry in Florida, where one in four charter schools have closed.

“You need to manage your finances very, very closely,” said Zulueta, a lawyer and a former accountant. “I’m obsessive about that part of it. If you don’t track it carefully, you’ll get killed.”

An advisory role

Zulueta says Academica is nothing more than an advisor to its schools, and the governing boards at Mater, Doral, Somerset and Pinecrest all make independent decisions.

While the school networks are not formally affiliated, they have pursued similar agendas of expansion. In the past two years, the boards of Mater, Doral and Somerset have begun planning to open private colleges, and all four school networks have submitted plans for new facilities and “virtual” online schools, records show.

The different school networks sometimes share staffs, with teachers and principals migrating from one group of Academica schools to another — and, in some cases, to Academica’s staff. And the boards that oversee these school networks each include at least one principal from another Academica school.

For example, Judith Marty serves as the chairwoman of the board at Pinecrest Academy, while also working as the principal at Mater Academy Charter Middle/High. At Mater, Marty received a salary of almost $143,000 in 2010, plus almost $24,000 in bonuses for “outstanding performance” in 2009 and 2010, Zulueta said.

Marty said the volunteer boards recruit Academica principals because they try to seek people with educational expertise — a task made difficult because the Miami-Dade school district discourages its employees from serving on charter boards.

Zulueta calls the reliance on other principals a “best practice” that encourages the different school chains to share ideas.

“It must be an excellent practice because a lot of districts don’t like it,” Zulueta said.

But the principals and Academica managers are never far apart.

Bahamas retreat

In September, Zulueta and other Academica staffers joined a group of principals at a leadership retreat at a Bahamas resort. In an interview in November, Zulueta said the trip was organized by the Mater Academy principals for “strategic planning” after the Mater schools were recognized as a school district by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. However, a Miami Herald reporter also observed principals from the Somerset and Doral academies on the trip.

The trip was also an opportunity for fun. A Herald reporter observed champagne flutes along with a copy of a Mater Academy PowerPoint presentation in a conference room at the resort after a Friday morning meeting. The reporter also observed Zulueta and the Academica principals sipping drinks one late morning at Cain, described on the Atlantis website as “an adults-only ultra-pool with an outdoor gaming pavilion.” That afternoon, members of the group sang and danced on the way to the waterslides. Just before midnight, some visited the casino.

Zulueta initially said the trip was paid for in part with a “contribution” from Academica, during the November interview. But last week — after Herald reporters began asking questions of others about the trip — he said he was mistaken, and the trip was paid for with other private funds of the schools.

Joseph Raia, an attorney for Mater Academy, said Tuesday that the Mater principals’ expenses were paid for with a $25,000 gift from ADP TotalSource, a company that provides payroll and other services for many Academica schools. “ADP wanted to do something for these schools to support and recognize the good work they have done,” Raia said. ADP executives could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

It’s unclear how the expenses for the Doral and Somerset principals were paid. Zulueta stressed that no tax dollars were used, and said there was nothing inappropriate about the trip.

The Mater and Somerset schools did not provide records of the trip expenses.

Marty, who was among those on the Bahamas trip, said the retreat was “created by principals for principals,” and it allowed the principals to share information about new techniques and technologies.

“I don’t believe this trip created a conflict of any type. Academica did not pay my travel or hotel expenses,” she said in an email to The Miami Herald.

John Schuster, spokesman for the Miami-Dade school district, said he could not comment on the specifics of the Bahamas trip, because the district has not been made aware of it. But the district does have the authority to audit charter schools if the district receives a complaint.

“Of course, we do not have the right to audit a for-profit management company,” Schuster added.

Eye on the future

Zulueta sees the Academica school networks as part of an “emerging new phenomenon” in education, citing the schools’ test scores and national accolades for many Academica schools as proof of this phenomenon’s success.

It’s a phenomenon that promises to grow larger: In Miami-Dade alone, Academica’s schools have 30 new charter school applications awaiting review, including nine under consideration by the Miami-Dade School Board on Wednesday.