State Orders Private School Out of Choice Program
Ohanian Comment: I was all set to be sympathetic to this school. Students who don't thrive in "regular" schools need a place to go, and all that. But then I got to the line that no teachers had been present all day because teachers had not been paid. A school without teachers?
Reacting to a series of fights involving dozens of students on Monday, the state Department of Public Instruction ordered a large private school on the north side out of the publicly-funded school voucher program on Thursday.
"There is an imminent threat to the health and safety of the pupils at the school," Deputy State Superintendent Tony Evers said in invoking for the first time provisions of a state law that allows schools to be dropped from the school choice program for safety reasons.
The action is expected to close the school, Academic Solutions Center for Learning, since all or almost all of its students are enrolled through the school choice process. The school is believed to have had an enrollment of near 500 last fall, and it served, in general, students who had not done well in other schools.
School officials declined to answer questions when a reporter visited the school Thursday, and they did not issue any statement.
It was the third time in seven months that DPI ordered a school out of the voucher program. Last July, two troubled schools were terminated, largely for violations of program regulations and for financial problems. They were Alex's Academics of Excellence and the Mandella School of Math and Science.
Police were called Monday to one of two buildings operated by Academic Solutions, a large, one-story building at 4055 N. 34th St. with almost no windows and corrugated metal exterior walls.
The DPI order said that police were told by students that no teachers had been present all day because teachers had not been paid. In their absence, several students in a classroom began fighting.
"As the officers were investigating this incident, another, much larger fight broke out in the common area of the school," the DPI order says "This melee included over 100 students, chaotically fighting among themselves."
Police told the Journal Sentinel earlier in the week that it took 12 to 15 officers about an hour and a half to stop the fighting and that 10 to 12 people, some of them non-students, were given citations for disorderly conduct.
After the problems Monday, school officials closed both the N. 34th St. building, which houses the school's high school program, and a second building at 4840 W. Fond du Lac Ave., which serves middle school students. They said earlier in the week that school would resume on Monday. .
DPI said it was the sixth time police had been called to the building since Nov. 22, five of them because of student fights and once due to an irate parent.
The DPI order also said that the N. 34th St. building had an occupancy permit that called for the building to be used by no more than 200 students, but that the school had reported at one point that there were 626 students using the building. An audit conducted in December found that the number as of the official attendance day in September – a number that drives school payments – was 396.
The DPI order does not necessarily close the school; it could continue to operate without public funding.
However, Milwaukee Public School officials announced they would hold an open house from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. next Thursday at the central administration offices at 5225 W. Vliet St. to help students at Academic Solutions enroll in new schools, including charter schools and other private schools.
Academic Solutions already had been under scrutiny from the DPI for major questions about its enrollment this year. It originally said it had more than 700 students at its two locations, which could have brought the school more than $4 million in public money. After Milwaukee Public Schools officials disputed that total, based on visits to the school, DPI said it believed enrollment was below 500 in both buildings, which an audit conducted by the school subsequently confirmed.
The school received $1.3 million in payments from the state in September, but a second payment of $1.3 million was held up in November and has not been made because the school has not answered questions related to state-rule compliance to the satisfaction of DPI, Evers said.
But Evers said the closing order had to do with safety issues, not finances, and that the safety aspects justified fast action.
"Safety is something that you can't have an ongoing, month-long dialogue about," Evers said. "There is clearly, we believe, immediate danger."
Howard Fuller, a former MPS superintendent who is a leading advocate for the school choice program, said he knew little about Academic Solutions and nothing about the problems this week.
"If that school or any school is doing something that threatens the safety of children, then whatever actions have to be taken have to be taken," he said.
However, he said, people should remember there have been large fights at public high schools in Milwaukee and no school system or program should be judged by one episode.
Outside the 34th St. building Thursday afternoon, a trickle of parents came and went for conferences the school had called to discuss the aftermath of the incidents Monday.
One parent, Lynn Smith, said her daughter, Teka Allen, 16, had been doing well at the school, where she enrolled as a sophomore this year. She said her daughter had been getting F's at Milwaukee Marshall High School but was getting nearly straight A's at Academic Solutions.
"I know it's a little rowdy," Smith said. "When you're dealing with a bunch of troubled kids, that's going to happen. . . . This is a good school for the kids who need it."
The school has the right to appeal the DPI decision in court or to re-apply to get back into the voucher program.
— Alan J. Borsuk
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
2005-01-27
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan05/296688.asp
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