State probes voucher school over forged check allegations

[Judi Lynn]

State probes voucher school over forged check allegations

By S.V. Date, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Saturday, January 24, 2004



TALLAHASSEE -- One of the showcase "start-up" schools of the state's most influential voucher advocate is under investigation by the state Department of Education on allegations that its director forged dozens of parent signatures on voucher checks.

Tallahassee's Capital City Preparatory School, which Tampa venture capitalist John Kirtley used for more than a year as a model of how vouchers could help generate new private schools, had its 68 corporate income tax vouchers suspended by HEROES, its Jacksonville Beach-based "scholarship funding organization," according to documents obtained from the Department of Education.

Parents were told to choose one of a dozen other private schools accepting vouchers in Tallahassee or move their children to a public school, although HEROES Executive Director Cindy Forster recommended against it in a Dec. 9 letter notifying parents of the problem.

"We do not encourage this option for the obvious reason that your child would lose their scholarship, but it is one of your alternatives," Forster wrote.

Neither Forster nor Kirtley, whose $100,000 donation to the Republican Party in 2000 helped ease passage of the corporate voucher program the following spring, would discuss the school's problems, saying they had a policy not to comment on specific schools.
(snip/...)

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_0421501875d161b5009b.html

[soup]

1. Florida, florida, florida

*sigh*

Knew it had to be when I saw the headline. What a mess this voucher endeavor is - from the top to the bottom. Money and politics.

"Ruby Barr admitted endorsing the checks with the parents' name and went on to state how difficult it was to get parents to come in and sign checks themselves" Dumbfounded - just dumbfounded - by this.

My bottom line question is, What happens to the children attending the school now? 13 students were attending on McKay vouchers for disabled children, and 68 were attending using HEROES vouchers.

The 'good news?' is the article mentions the school didn't receive any vouchers from FloridaChild this year.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- FloridaChild, the state's largest distributor of corporate-funded private school scholarships, is getting out of the business, citing uncertainty in how much money is available each year.
>snip<

Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher has threatened an investigation of FloridaChild, saying that it charged families fees to get the scholarships, solicited money from schools that wanted to accept voucher students and had other "irregularities" in how it did business.

====
note: my emphasis - 'threatened' an investigation???? Shouldn't that read IS investigating????
====

The organization responded that it hasn't done anything wrong, or anything other suppliers of corporate vouchers hadn't. The group's president, Patrick Heffernan, declined further comment.

FloridaChild was responsible for 5,629 of the 12,339 corporate tax credit vouchers that were reported at the start of the 2003-04 school year. The bulk of the scholarships awarded by the organization went to students in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles_p/local/C33970/

Florida, florida, florida *sigh*

[salin]

2. More problems with Jeb!'s voucher program

what a surprise...