Voucher Backers Repay Funds
State Says School Got Tuition For No-Shows
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 14, 2000

A pro-voucher group yesterday repaid nearly $70,000 in tax dollars that the state auditors said was paid to a Cleveland private school as tuition assistance for no-show students.

The Cleveland-based School Choice Committee also paid $ 11,723 that auditors said the now-defunct Islamic Academy School of Arts and Sciences owed for utility charges at its leased building on Addison Road.

"The restoration of these funds obviously does not absolve the alleged errors of the former Islamic Academy," Committee Chairman David Zanotti wrote in a letter to Ohio Auditor Jim Petro.

But Zanotti and his committee raised the money because they wanted to prevent the academy's debt from overshadowing the "quality education" provided by other schools in the voucher program.

Petro confirmed that he received the payment and said it satisfied his demand for recovery of money from the academy founders, Fajr S.S. Al-Amin and her husband, Uthman Abdul Quddus.

"Al-Amin and Quddus were not available for comment.  Petro said last week that his office could not locate the couple. 

Petro's audit report, released last week, accused the operators of the former academy of collecting tax-supported tuition for twice as many students as actually attended classes.  The audit called for recovery of the tuition and $11,723 that the academy owed for utilities at the building it leased from the Cleveland school district.  Petro also ordered recovery of $5,250 that the state paid to a Cleveland taxi company to take no-show students to the academy.

Zanotti said his committee paid the entire debt--$86,940--with donations from voucher supporters whom he declined to name.  the committee chairman said only that the donors numbered fewer than 100, that many of them lived in Ohio and that they did not include Akron industrialist David Brennan, one of Ohio's leading proponents of school choice.

"They are anonymous and prefer to stay anonymous," he said.  "They don't want to grandstand.  They felt it was just something that needed to be done."

Gerald Henley, who described himself as a ceremonial chairman of the academy's board and said he had nothing to do with the school's finances, praised the committee's payment on behalf of the founders.

I'm glad the money part of it has been removed, but their credibility is left in question," he said.