2 others may lose funding over rule violations

By Alan J. Borsuk, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Last Updated: December 20, 2006

A small Milwaukee private school in the second year of receiving payments for its students through publicly funded vouchers was removed from the program by the state Department of Public Instruction in an order released Tuesday.

Other orders show that two other voucher schools may join the list of schools dropped from public funding because of failure to meet administrative and financial rules. Another school was ordered out of the program this month; about a dozen have been closed in recent years.

The new addition to the list is Nubian Preparatory Learning Academy, which reported that it had nine students qualifying for vouchers as of September.

The school did not provide an annual, audited financial report for last year, DPI officials said. The report was due Sept. 1 and has not been submitted, according to Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of public instruction.

The school, at 2801 W. Wisconsin Ave., offered 4-year-old kindergarten through third-grade classes. It listed 10 students in September 2005, its first year.

Evers called the financial report, part of tightened plan for oversight of administration of voucher schools enacted several years ago, "very, very important."

"If that information never appears, they are essentially not part of the accountability process," he said. "That's a huge issue."

Harleen Peters, head of the school, said she had thought the person she selected to conduct the audit was a certified public accountant, as required, and then found out the person was not. She said she hired a different person to do the report, but information had been difficult to compile and other problems interfered.

"It's a sad story," she said. "We were running a good program."

She said she didn't think she had a choice at this point but to close the school. She said the nine students on vouchers made up the entire enrollment.

State officials also have made preliminary determinations that STS Christian Academy, a first-year voucher school that listed nine students in September, and DJ Perkins Academy of Excellence, a third-year school that had 58 voucher students this fall, should be dropped from the program. Each school has appealed that decision, and administrative hearings are planned for next week.

Evers said there appeared to be problems with STS' using facilities that did not have occupancy permits, while DJ Perkins had not provided some necessary financial information. STS listed an address of 4248 N. 76th St. with the DPI, while Perkins is at 9155 N. 76th St.

The phone number listed by the DPI for STS was not in service Tuesday. A phone call seeking comment from Demetria Perkins, operator of DJ Perkins, was not returned.

DPI spokesman John Johnson said none of the three schools has been paid this school year. In general, private schools, including religious schools, in Milwaukee are eligible for up to $6,501 in public funding this year for each qualifying low-income voucher student. Almost 18,000 children in 124 schools were counted as voucher students as of September.

In another development, Evers said Elijah's Brook God's Nation Children School, which was ordered out of the program after a bus transporting students to the school hit a firetruck, has appealed its removal. State officials said the bus was not insured, as required by rules, and the driver was not licensed. They said the school was not operating in a safe fashion. Evers said a hearing on the appeal was scheduled for early January.

The above article appeared in the December 20, 2006 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.