16340: (Hermantin) Sun-Sentinel-Parents vow to fight closing of Lauderhill charter scho (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Parents vow to fight closing of Lauderhill charter school



By Karla D. Shores
Education Writer

August 6, 2003

Parents are threatening to protest Broward County's decision to close a
predominately Haitian charter elementary school after three years because of
zoning violations.

Diana Clark, of Lauderhill, who plans to send her two children to the
Charter School Institute Training Center this fall, said she would be the
"lead protester" if the school does not open in 19 days.

"What are they going to do with the parents? Already I am buying them
uniforms and I don't see what other school my children can go to unless it's
a private school," she said. "But I can't afford that."

As the school district scrambles to reassign up to 500 children to
neighborhood schools, attorneys for the charter school are searching for a
way to legally open it when the semester begins on Aug. 25.

And at the center of the chaos, a county zoning official who determined that
school founder Joseph Valbrun does not have proper operating permits,
conceded he did not even know the school existed until two weeks ago.

"The county thought there was church and a daycare at the school and our
indications from various meetings were that they planned on getting a
charter school there," said Stan Morris, assistant director of the county's
zoning code services division. "But I don't think that we were aware there
was a full-fledged charter school there."

Morris and the county fire marshal's office maintain that Valbrun has
approval only to run a daycare and a church at the site. "If there's
anything else on the property there's no approval for that," said Morris.
"And there's never been approval for a charter school there."

Morris said Valbrun does not have a certificate of occupancy, which means
several county agencies, including fire, building, and traffic divisions
have not signed off on the safety of the school building.

The concession that county zoning was unaware of his school further
frustrates Valbrun, who said he put everything into the school at 5420 North
State Road 7, trying to serve a population the district does not serve well.

"We exist because the district has a tough time addressing the needs of
these children," Valbrun said Tuesday outside the school. "My school is open
and I will fight it until I die."

Valbrun said he cannot believe the county did not know he operated a school
in the building, since county building inspectors had been there before. "We
have inspections from the county ... "

Though Valbrun vows his school will be open Aug. 25, the school district's
safety director disagreed. The district cannot authorize a school to open
without a proper certificate of occupancy, so the district is prepared to
turn away students from the building if necessary, said Jerry Graziose.

Lauderhill Commissioner Tyson Jones said the matter boils down to paperwork,
not the safety of children. Jones said the county should allow the school to
open, while giving Valbrun more time to comply.

"I've been to the school several times and I think this is a situation where
there's equal concern that these kids have some place to go so they don't
get interrupted," said Jones, who is on the charter school's board. "I think
there should be an effort here to assist in terms of that total welfare, not
just whether they're going to get hurt, but whether they're going to get
hurt in life."

Marlene Dubois, a Margate mother of a third-grader at the charter school,
said she would send her son to North Lauderdale Elementary if the school
closes. But she'd prefer to leave him where he is because the school has
helped him develop his English-speaking skills.

"What the charter school gives me is the privacy to talk to the teachers,"
said Dubois, who said she enjoys speaking Haitian Creole with school
administrators when she needs help. "That's more than enough to me to trust
somebody like that. I'm not going to find that anywhere else."

Karla Shores can be reached at kshores@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4552.
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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