by David Safier
Last week the Republic broke a story about students at Joy Christian, a private school, using the services of Sequoia Choice, and online charter school, to furnish coursework for its students at taxpayer expense. That's a major violation of ethics, and possibly the law, by both schools.
Now, Joy Christian has kicked two children out of school because their mother, Lise Hopson, was quoted in the Republic story. She said she wondered why she was paying tuition to the private school if a charter school was providing most of the coursework.
The day before Hopson was quoted in an Oct. 2 Republic story, Hopson said she picked up her two daughters as usual after school. Joy Christian School administrators took the mother aside and told Hopson her children could not return to the school, Hopson's sister Lori Gumm said. At the advice of a lawyer, Hopson declined to be quoted about the expulsion and is permitting her sister to speak for her. Hopson is considering suing the school.
“They told her the kids were no longer allowed to go to school there because ‘you're the troublemaker’,” Gumm said. “The girls are a mess.” Hopson’s daughters, 12 and 9, have attended Joy Christian School since they were in preschool. Hopson and her children are not permitted anywhere on church or school property and Hopson's oldest daughter is not permitted to continue to participate in church youth activities, Gumm said.
Let's review. The children did nothing wrong, yet their lives and their educations were disrupted by a school whose primary purpose is to enrich the lives and education of children. The mother was concerned about what she thought was an impropriety, and a Christian school, which should be concerned about ethics both because of its religious and educational missions, took out its anger on the mother by punishing the children.
Simply saying, "Joy Christian should be ashamed of itself" doesn't go nearly far enough.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It seems interesting to me how quickly you ignore the actual issue, Joy Christian received $590,417 in donations for scholarships through Arizona’s private-school tax-credit program in 2008 (as calculated by the Republic) and that same year had 60% of its classes taught by Sequoia Choices’ teachers who had already been paid by public funds. The lady with the vendetta against Joy Christian may be a good, old-fashioned nut-job, but from where I sit, it still looks to me as if someone has been caught with a hand in the mega-church cookie jar!
Lise’s complaint her tuition is being used incorrectly by Joy is a joke. Her kids were there completely on scholarship – she paid NOTHING! She’s a sick and angry woman – aks 2 dozen other families….why focus on one nut case?