PHOENIX -- High school graduation may be the beginning of a new life for many, but one Valley teen it was the start of a bureaucratic ordeal.

New Samaritan Charter School alumna Tiffany Vick said her graduation ceremony was one of the proudest moments of her life.

“I never thought I was going to graduate high school, and then that day came,” she said. “I felt so big.”

After graduation, she headed to start her new life in Santa Barbara, where she planned to study psychology; however, midway through her first semester she found herself embroiled in a nightmare.

“(The school) ended up telling me I could not register for second semester without my transcripts,” Vick said. “I called the school and they told me they did not have my transcripts.”

When officials at the charter school finally found her records, Vick discovered something she never thought possible.

“(The school) told me I ... needed more credits to graduate,” she said. “I did not graduate.”

Her official diploma was worthless; she was short five and one half credits.

Bob Duffy, who took over the charter school after the 2009 spring semester, said Vick was not the only student affected by problems the old administration left.

“I don’t want to say this is an isolated incident because it was a mess with 15 or 20 kids,” he said. “We found the records were not kept … There were taxes that were owed from second term, people were paid sporadically, vendors, and it was just kind of a mess.”

In addition to the organizational chaos, someone from the previous administration sabotaged the computer system, erasing all the student records from the 2009 school year, Duffy said.

When 5 Investigates began to look into Vick’s story, they thought the person who signed Vick’s diploma might know how this happened.

Former school director Carolyn Kennedy refused to speak to 5 Investigates, so the team dug deeper and found a few other reasons she might not want to speak to reporters.

Kennedy and her husband were arrested in California on suspicion of filing false tax returns and not reporting money from a charter school the husband ran.

When they moved to Arizona, Kennedy became the principal at an Apache Junction charter school. According to court records, as principal she failed to report a teacher accused of molesting a student. The accused teacher, Bobby Kennedy, was her son.

Bobby Kennedy was eventually arrested on suspicion of child molestation and sexual abuse, and Carolyn Kennedy and three family members are accused of laundering his bond money.

According to Arizona Charter Board Executive Director DeAnna Row, despite the indictments against her, Carolyn Kennedy can keep her fingerprint clearance card, which is required to work as a teacher, until she has been convicted of a crime.

“I don’t believe the board has the authority to prohibit or restrict a person’s right to work beyond what the statute permits,” Row said.

Row also said she was unaware that Kennedy was involved in a racketeering investigation.

This is little consolation for the teen who believes she was robbed of her dream to attend college. Nevertheless, Duffy has offered to pay for Vick to go back to school to earn the credits she needs to graduate.