The following is by Joe Enge of EdWatch Nevada:
March 30, 2006
Let Halima Academy Stay Open!
This afternoon Judge Polaha of the Second Judicial District Court heard Halima Academy's case to remain open as a charter school. The Nevada State Board of Education represented by Deputy Attorney General James E. Irvin was intent on shutting Halima Academy down. The crux of the case against Halima presented today rested on minor, paper pushing non-issues. The issues being not providing proof of a sub-category of insurance coverage and the criminal backgrou nd check of 4 employees.
Marc Deal testified that the proper papers and fingerprints for filing the criminal background checks were submitted to Tom McCormack, consultant for charter schools with the Nevada State Department of Education in late August of 2005. McCormack mailed them back to Halima in October, directing that they must directly submit the criminal background checks themselves to the responsible agency. That agency then informed Halima they could not process them because they do not have an account. These procedural delays, no fault of Halima, resulted in them still waiting for the results. It can take 2 to 4 months to get the results after an account is established.
The Nevada State Board of Education has portrayed it in a far different light, trying to convey incompetence or worse. Marc Deal testified that the Nevada Department of Education receives 2% of their funds for the consulting provided by Tom McCormack. That Mr. McCormack did not return the criminal background check materials until October to Halima raises some serious questions. Mr. Deal further testified that clarifications and directions asked by him from Mr. McCormack were not illuminating and were simply telling him to check the given N.R.S. or N.A.C. when requested without details regarding application and practice. Does this sound like consulting or a set up?
I won't pretend to understand insurance, but Mr. Deal's testimony conveyed that a portion of coverage for the insurance renewal that did not in any way jeopardize the students was overlooked and rectified when brought to their attention.
Two statements stand out from this afternoon's proceedings. Mr. Deal was asked if the Nevada State Department of Education bent over backwards to help Halima Academy. Mr. Deal responded, "The only time I've seen the state bend over backwards is for revocation!" Another revealing statement was made by Deputy Attorney General James E. Irvin when he said, "Those dollars could go with those children to other schools." I see a motive here, and I doubt Mr. Irvin was advocating vouchers.
What is really on the line is the education of Halima's students. Mr. Deal testified 20 students may not graduate if they are closed down because they can not transfer to a school with the Washoe County School District. The court proceeding has been continued to tomorrow morning at 9:30. The future of the students and Ha
The following is by Chuck Muth of Citizen's Outreach
STAY OF EXECUTION
March 30, 2006
7:52 pm (PST)
The good news is that the besieged Halima Academy charter school in Reno lived to fight another day.
The bad news is that it's only because the Department of Education's government-paid lawyer huffed-and-puffed so long that the day's proceedings had to be continued over to 9:30 am tomorrow morning.
The case the education department - presented by Deputy Attorney General Ed Irvin - is bringing against Halima will make your blood boil. If you're truly concerned about education but have high blood pressure, do NOT show up for the continuation of these proceedings at the Washoe County courthouse in the morning. Let me just try to summarize some of the low-light's of the bureaucracy's case. . .
When I arrived a few minutes late, Irvin was already pontificating about this and that and this and that and on and on and on...generally uninterrupted Finally, the school got its chance and called Halima's principal, Marc Deal, to the stand. Alas, Irvin continuously interrupted the questioning over and over and over again with one technical objection after another. After the school's lawyer was finally allowed to finish his questioning, Irvin began grilling Deal, trying to paint him as nothing but an incompetent liar.
It was truly infuriating to see a man - whose life for the last 18 months has been dedicated to helping poor, minority, at-risk students which the public school system had already given up on - being treated like pond scum. After the hearing adjourned, Deal told me he'd rather face combat again than go through what Irvin put him through on the stand. It was pure character assassination. And Marc Deal didn't deserve it.
Anyway, the main body of the department's complaint is that the school hasn't complied with various technical reporting requirements. It's pure paperwork BS. The bureaucrats' two primary concerns are that (a) the school didn't submit certain criminal background checks on four employees, and that (b) it didn't have the required insurance in place.
As for the first item: The school submitted the fingerprints and background paperwork to the department last August, before the school year began. Two months later, the department informed the school that they weren't supposed to turn those reports into the Department of Education, but to another government agency. So the school turned around and submitted them to the other agency.
Alas, THAT bureaucracy said the school wasn't allowed to submit those reports directly without an account. So Halima had to FILL OUT MORE PAPERWORK to become an approved agency with an account to submit the reports directly.
The school then filled out the required paperwork, submitted it, got their account set up, then re-submitted the background check reports and fingerprints. Then...somewhere along the line, two of the four reports were lost
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