> Experts say they're wary of some voucher schools
>
> By LONA O'CONNOR (Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel)
> Web-posted: 12:13 a.m. June 4, 2000
>
> This fall students will be able to leave Florida's failing public
> schools and use vouchers -- public money -- to attend one
> of 118 private schools that will accept them.
>
> Many are well-known, longstanding institutions in their
> communities.
>
> But an even larger number on the list are small and
> relatively untried. Fourteen of the voucher schools have been
> open less than a year. Only eight of them provide federally
> subsidized meals for poor children.
>
> Many of the schools on the list would not pass the basic
> membership requirements to join at least one prominent
> private-school organization. And a large, national
> private-school management company would consider many
> of them too risky to buy.
>
> These officials say that smaller schools often are not
> equipped and staffed well enough to educate children as well
> as larger schools. If they are too small -- 150 students or
> fewer -- they also may struggle to pay their bills. Ultimately,
> their small size may affect their survival.
>
> But small schools have their virtues, proponents say.
> Students get more personal attention, and the schools can
> offer specialized programs.
>
> A Sun-Sentinel analysis revealed that, of the 118 schools
> that plan to take vouchers:
>
> More than half (67 schools) have fewer than 200 students.
> Nearly half (49 schools) have fewer than 100 students.
>
> Only eight provide federal free lunches to students.
>
> Fourteen were not registered with the state before 1999.
> The state requires a private school to register each year.
>
> School vouchers, also known as opportunity scholarships,
> were conceived by the state Legislature in 1999 as a way to
> allow parents, especially needy parents, to choose better
> schools if the state rates their children's public schools as
> failing for two years out of four. Last year, 78 Florida schools
> were rated as failing.
>
> During the third week of June, the state will release the
> second batch of school ratings, and parents will know
> whether their children are eligible to take a voucher -- about
> $3,300 in public money -- to a private school. Students also
> have the options of transferring to a different public school
> or staying in the failing public school.
>
> The state places few requirements on private schools that
> plan to accept voucher students: They may not violate
> health and safety laws, they may not force children to attend
> religious services, and they must have been in business for
> at least a year.
>
> But there are factors that indicate whether a private school
> can provide the educational stability a child needs -- and the
> economic stability to stay in business:
>
> School size. Private school management companies say
> schools can become economically marginal when their
> enrollment dips below 200 students. Small schools also may
> struggle to provide advanced classes that students may
> need.
>
> Length of time in business. Some private-school
> organizations will not even let a school become a member
> until it has been in existence for at least five years. During
> the first five years, private schools are subject to the same
> high failure rate as other new businesses, private-school
> representatives say.
>
> Further complicating matters for economically
> disadvantaged families is that almost none of the private
> voucher schools participate in the federal free and
> reduced-price lunch program.
>
> In many cases, poverty-level children are the largest
> group at F schools. In Broward County, for example, all the
> elementary schools except two receiving D or F grades also
> have high percentages of students receiving free or
> reduced-price lunches.
>
> If the parents of those children choose private schools, the
> lunch program does not follow the children. In Escambia
> County, the first county to have vouchers last year, free
> school meals were a factor in one parent's decision to move
> her three children from a private school back into the failing
> public school they had left two months earlier. The working,
> single mother took a voucher to a Catholic school that did
> not provide the meals, and she said the extra $15 a week
> was a financial burden. The mother also felt her children
> were not being treated as well at the private school.
>
> Financial concerns
>
> Representatives of private-school organizations worry
> about whether small schools have enough money to cover
> more than the basics.
>
> "With less than 100 students, you really need to be
> subsidized or have higher tuition," said Jim Kaull, director of
> business and development services for the National
> Association of Independent Schools. The organization does
> not accept schools as members until they have been in
> existence for five years, and part of Kaull's job is monitoring
> the member schools' financial viability. "Below 150, you're
> really working with bare-bones administration."
>
> A very small school might also have to cut corners on vital
> expenses such as teacher salaries and student services. It
> might have to make do with a small van rather than a
> larger, safer -- and more expensive -- school bus, Kaull
> said.
>
> Smaller schools also are less able to defend themselves
> against lawsuits than larger, well-established schools.
> Smaller and younger schools also tend to run up their debts
> while getting established. Debt is the first thing Kaull checks
> when examining a school's financial records.
>
> Few of the association's schools are small. Only 22 percent
> of the 1,025 members have 201 students or fewer, a
> spokeswoman said.
>
> Another thing that may work against small schools is their
> stubborn independence and lack of a larger support system,
> said Lynn Fontana, vice president for Nobel Learning
> Communities, which manages 140 private schools around
> the country, including several in South Florida.
>
> As a corporation, Nobel's schools decided not to participate
> in Florida's voucher program, Fontana said. One reason was
> that the $3,300 voucher didn't cover Nobel's costs, she said.
>
> Some exceptions
>
> However, three Nobel schools are participating, the Paladin
> schools for students with learning disabilities, partly out of
> self-interest and partly community outreach, said Paladin's
> Dennis Kelly.
>
> "Bottom line, it's a way to get our name out into the public
> and provide service to those who can't afford it," Kelly said.
> Tuition at Paladin ranges from $7,000 to $17,000,
> depending on educational needs.
>
> Paladin is the exception to the rule in voucher schools.
> About half are Catholic schools, whose low tuitions are often
> subsidized by local parishes. Many of the rest are small
> religious schools, some supported by churches, others
> depending on tuition for income.
>
> Some schools say no
>
> Notably absent from the list are well-known prep schools.
> Grandview Preparatory School in Boca Raton, which serves
> children from kindergarten through high school, gave full
> scholarships to two teenagers of a local migrant worker this
> year -- but decided not to join the voucher program, said
> Headmaster Jeff Devin.
>
> "We looked at this very seriously," said Devin, who said
> the school is continually searching for ways to increase the
> diversity of its students.
>
> Two things finally swayed Grandview to sit out the voucher
> program: The $3,300 voucher "wouldn't even come close to
> covering the hard costs of educating a child," Devin said.
> Grandview's tuition for upper-school students is $9,000 a
> year. And the school shied away from the state's
> requirement that private voucher schools take all applicants
> with vouchers, without screening them as they do the rest of
> their students.
>
> Small-school owners stoutly defend their ability to educate
> children well -- and pay their bills. "We do not have bad
> credit, and we're coming up on five years," said Arline
> Spencer, owner of Harvest Time Christian Academy in
> Pembroke Pines. "We depend on God, more so than man,
> and God always provides."
>
> The private school, which will accept vouchers, has 25
> students attending kindergarten through 12th grade.
>
> Harvest Time's valedictorian, Tiffany Thomas, 17, left
> McArthur High School, one of the biggest public schools in
> Broward County, to come to the tiny school two years ago.
> She described her former school as hectic and filled with peer
> pressure. She said she misses nothing about McArthur, ,
> except perhaps for playing in the band.
>
> Coming to Harvest Time, she said, was "calming. It was
> coming out of the rain. It was wonderful. I just thought I
> could do a lot more here. I chose to come to a Christian
> school where they dug a little deeper."
>
> A small school can accommodate the needs of bright kids,
> said Spencer, who vowed to keep her school small even
> though she already has begun to get calls from parents
> hoping to use vouchers for Harvest Time.
>
> "The way our curriculum is set up, they can go ahead in
> any subject," Spencer said.
>
> With help from the Internet courses, video conferencing
> and other modern gadgetry, some small schools may be
> able to overcome their limited resources, said Nobel's
> Fontana. That company's smaller schools have the
> advantage of sharing resources with other Nobel schools, a
> support system that single-owner small schools such as
> Harvest Time may not have.
>
> Harvest Time's science lab is one small room. Nobel is
> planning to stage virtual laboratory experiments, dissecting
> virtual frogs on computer screens and staging virtual
> chemical reactions that would be too dangerous or expensive
> to conduct in a real-life lab, Fontana said.
>
> "All that is going to open up a small school," she said.
>
> Concerns about size
>
> Even with shared resources and sophisticated multimedia
> equipment, Fontana worries that a school with fewer than
> 100 students is just too small.
>
> "I personally can't see a way to make that work
> educationally and financially, just bringing together a group
> of children," she said. "It would take a very sophisticated
> curriculum if you're going to make that work. I don't know of
> anybody that's done that."
>
> Lona O'Connor can be reached at lo'connor at sun-sentinel.com
> or 954-356-4604.