Double dipping in charter and tuition tax credit funds

by David Safier

A complex new story in the Republic about a too-close-for-comfort relationship between Sequoia Choice Arizona Distance Learning, a charter school, and Joy Christian, a private religious school whose students get tuition tax credit money, deserves a careful read. The word "scam" springs to mind.

I'm going to be gone today, so instead of trying to break the complexities down, let me give you some excerpts from the story.

State officials are raising questions about an arrangement in which a private school in Glendale and a public charter-school operator have teamed up to help finance the private school with taxpayer dollars.

State records obtained by The Arizona Republic show that Sequoia Choice Arizona Distance Learning, a charter-school firm, collected at least $1.9 million in state funds from 2005 through 2008 to teach courses to students of Joy Christian School.

During the same period, Joy was collecting tuition payments from the parents of the same students, many of whom used private-school tuition tax credits to help pay. Tuition ranges from $6,710 to $8,000 this year.

[snip]

In 2008, Sequoia taught nearly 60 percent of Joy Christian's courses. Sequoia said that the arrangement started when it was asked to help the students and that Joy does not pay it to provide the classes.

Mike Eblin, Joy Christian's board president, could not provide details on how the school's tuition money was used. He defended the arrangement between the private and charter schools, saying that the state's interest "doesn't make sense."

"What I can say is that they (Sequoia) perform services on the Joy campus that is owned by the church," he said. The use of those services has increased, he said, and is based on student needs.

[snip]

While Sequoia received per-pupil funding from the state for teaching the classes, Joy continued to collect the same tuition from its parents, including amounts paid via the school-tuition tax credit.

[snip]

By 2008-09, Neil said, Sequoia attorneys warned the charter school that religion had become too prominent in Sequoia's classrooms at Joy; classroom prayer and crosses displayed in class could raise issues related to separation of church and state, Neil said.

[snip]

Last school year, state officials began receiving complaints from a few parents who didn't like that they were paying tuition at Joy Christian when most courses were provided by a public charter school.

"When I started to piece things together, what we were paying for really came down to music, PE, art and Bible class," said Joy Christian parent Lise Hopson, who has two children at the school. "It almost feels as if our kids are pretty much at a charter school, with a little bit of biblical emphasis."

[snip]

Joy Christian School has received the majority of its scholarship money from the Mesa-based Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, the largest such organization in the state.

From 2005 to 2008, the tuition organization gave 807 scholarships worth $1.8 million to Joy Christian School students.

Steven Yarbrough, a state lawmaker and executive director of the tuition organization, said he learned about the Joy-Sequoia arrangement in June from a parent. He asked Joy to provide him with an attorney's opinion that the private school still was legally entitled to private-school tax-credit scholarships.

No surprise to me that Yarbrough's name is in the mix here, or that he "discovered" a years long relationship between the charter and private school right around the time people started snooping into the shady nature of his STO. I imagine he was "Shocked! Shocked!" to find out what was going on.