Troubled Florida private academy gets public voucher money, but little oversight.

madfloridian

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Sun Sep-05-10 11:27 PM
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Troubled Florida private academy gets public voucher money, but little oversight.

Bradenton Prep Academy and its troubled rather secretive history is a good example of this lack of oversight.

In Florida, scant oversight of private schools

HERALD-TRIBUNE ARCHIVE / 2010 / CHRISTOPHER O?
Prep Learning Academy wants to operate from this building but has no permit.

BRADENTON - Bradenton Preparatory Academy owner Hendrik Lamprecht recently told parents the school had received a new accreditation from a �prestigious international accreditation body.�

The school's accreditation was also recently renewed by a major accreditation agency.
Both came despite the school's owing the IRS $1.2 million in unpaid taxes and some teachers' claims that they have not been paid.

Florida does not regulate the more than 2,000 private schools that operate in the state. The schools set their own grading standards and curriculum, run their own finances and issue their own diplomas.

The school receives McKay vouchers.

Because it receives tax dollars through Florida's McKay scholarship program, Bradenton Prep also submits a roster of disabled students and a form verifying that teachers working with those students are qualified and screened.

Just a roster should not be enough. Taxpayer money goes to the school through those students. They are not required to be accredited, and that information can be kept secret.

This school has an interesting background. In December they were facing foreclosure suits, but they got a loan from a British land developer. Details are secret.

Bradenton Prep facing foreclosure suits

BRADENTON � Bradenton Preparatory Academy is facing financial troubles but school officials say they are on the brink of settling their problems by connecting with a foreign investor who has expansion plans.

Two lenders are seeking to foreclose on the private school�s campus at 7900 40th Ave. W., saying owner Children�s Place Inc. has defaulted on more than $5.7 million in loans, public records show. And the Internal Revenue Service has filed three tax liens this year, claiming Children�s Place hasn�t paid more than $921,000 in taxes since 2007.

But school officials and the school�s attorney said Tuesday that those debts will be paid off soon thanks to British land developer and investor Hendrik Lamprecht.

..."Hedgcock said the expansion �will complete the campus ... expand from one main building,� but she and Lamprecht declined to elaborate further. Bradenton Prep now has about 400 students from kindergarten through the 12th grade, whose parents pay $12,000 a year in tuition.

Interesting how this school is opening with high security, mainly to keep information seekers out.

Bradenton Prep reopens with high security

BRADENTON � Financially troubled Bradenton Preparatory Academy opened for the new school year Monday but it was far from a normal day. Classes were held in a nearby church hall guarded by a private security firm who threw reporters off the property.

The school still does not have a permit from the county to use a commercial property that it is leasing at 7700 Cortez Road. On Monday, the property was surrounded by chain-link fences with barbed wire. A security guard manned the entrance.

It was not clear how many students have enrolled for this school year, and officials from the school would not comment on anything Monday.

Around a dozen teachers filed letters of complaint with the school after not being paid. Some say they are owed as much as $21,000. Some parents are also suing the school to get tuition refunded.

Now this part about their football team is most interesting. They are so secretive that their next opponent has canceled the game, fearing his team might be harmed by overage players.

Football mystery at troubled school

Bradenton Preparatory Academy owes back pay to some teachers, lost its campus to foreclosure and does not have a permit to operate a school. And yet, the financially strapped private school, now known as the Prep Learning Academy, still has a football team that has played games in Texas and New Orleans and has another scheduled in Minnesota.

Beyond that, the team's roster includes players that have already graduated from local high schools.

The coach of the school's next scheduled opponent has canceled the game, fearing his team could be injured playing what he believes are over-age players.

Some former teachers are yet unpaid, and they resent the travels of the football team.

The revelation about the traveling football team has outraged former teachers who say they are owed as much as $25,000 in back pay.

"I find it amazing that they can come up with all this money to send a team to Texas but they couldn't pay us," said former teacher Mary Conway, one of 15 former staff preparing to sue the school for unpaid salary. "I believe they have money. They just don't want to pay the former teachers."

I firmly believe that if the school gets voucher money from taxpayers, then there should be accountability. Here is more about how the vouchers work:

Is this voucher program constitutional?

More than eight of 10 schools in the program in 2008-09 were faith-based. The state Constitution bars state money from going to religious institutions, and an appellate court cited that ban in declaring a broader voucher program illegal. The Florida Supreme Court cited another provision in 2006 to invalidate that program, and the same flaws are evident in both the Corporate Tax Credit voucher and the McKay Scholarship vouchers for disabled students.

Is this good tax policy?

Corporations already can avoid paying their entire corporate tax bill or insurance premium tax bill by earmarking the money for vouchers. The legislation would add to the list the alcoholic beverage excise tax, direct pay sales and use tax, and the oil and gas severance tax. Letting taxpayers earmark their tax bills for specific purposes is a dangerous path. Using this logic, taxpayers could argue they only want their tax money spent on public education or environmental programs they support. They could starve unpopular but necessary state programs such as prisons. State government cannot function that way.

Expanding voucher program bad idea

I don't know how we got to the place where a school can reach the point of foreclosure, hire security to keep reporters off campus, owe the IRS big sums, and get taxpayer money for children with disabilities without accountability.