Hope Online School Tightening Controls

Hope online school tightening controls

One aim is to ensure tax dollars don't go to religious programs

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News, December 1, 2006

The head of a controversial online charter school on Thursday announced 10 steps to tighten operations, including stricter enforcement of policies prohibiting the use of tax dollars for religious programs.

Heather O'Mara, president of Hope Online Learning Academy Co-Op, said the changes result from a six-week review of the school's 81 publicly funded learning centers across Colorado.

"We understand there are things that we need to do to clarify processes and procedures to ensure the focus is on the educational outcomes and success of our children," said O'Mara, who opened the school for at-risk kids in fall 2005 and saw its enrollment more than double to 3,700 students this year.

Audit due Dec. 11
The changes come as Hope faces increasing questions about whether its centers - many of them affiliated with churches - are in violation of a constitutional prohibition against using public money for "any sectarian purpose." A state audit of Hope operations is due Dec. 11.

Perhaps the toughest step O'Mara announced Thursday is the creation of a compliance office that will be staffed by a chief compliance officer and four compliance auditors as soon as Feb. 1. Team members - with annual salaries ranging from $50,000 for auditors to $100,000 for the chief - will visit centers to ensure policies are followed and to investigate complaints or concerns.

News of the crackdown already has prompted three religious schools to tell Hope that they plan to recommend to their governing boards that they dissolve their learning centers after this school year.

O'Mara declined to identify the schools, saying the withdrawals were not official. At least half of Hope's learning centers have some religious tie, with many located in rooms set aside in churches or religious schools.

But O'Mara said she didn't believe stricter enforcement of policies to ensure that state education funding is not used for religious instruction was solely behind the schools' decisions.

"I think it's really related to the additional oversight," she said. "These learning centers are more established, they existed long before Hope . . . and they can continue to serve their students and meet their mission without Hope's involvement."

Centers see little impact
Other learning center directors said the changes announced Thursday will have little impact.

"I don't think it's really going to change our center at all," said Kathryn Romero, director of the Hope learning center at Our Lady of the Rosary Academy in Mountain View. "We've never had a problem with compliance and (Hope staff) come out and visit our center quite often."

The Catholic school has 50 students, with 11 instructed via Hope's online curriculum.

"We don't teach anything regarding our faith in the computer lab or during the Hope curriculum and we never have," Romero said. "Probably the only change would be, if they plan on coming out supervising or watching more often, we may just see them more often."

Other centers have been less careful. O'Mara placed one center on probation last month for reportedly teaching religion in its Hope classroom. She said Thursday that the center has changed its procedures and is no longer on probation.

She also defended another center located at Christian Fellowship School in Lakewood. The Rocky Mountain News reported this week that it was among several religious schools using twice as much of its Hope money on overhead as on instruction.

For example, the school is budgeting $160,000 it will get from Hope this year to "rent" two small classrooms for its learning center. That's nearly twice as much as the entire school's annual mortgage payment, raising questions about whether Hope is subsidizing the religious school. Christian Fellowship has 160 Hope students and 100 in its private religious school.

"I don't agree that Truman is subsidizing religious education," O'Mara said, referring to the school's administrator Truman Abbott.

Quicker background checks
Other changes announced include quicker background checks of staff members at the learning centers. O'Mara has blamed delays in the checks, in part, for the employment of a convicted felon at one Denver center.

While media reports have focused on the possible use of tax dollars for religious schools, Hope parents are worried about other things, said Romero, whose learning center opened this fall.

"They're making a lot more out of something that parents aren't discussing with us," she said of news reports. "On a day-to-day basis, we're talking about test scores and children who are two to three years behind and how do we get them caught up."

Changes for Hope
Hope Online Learning Academy Co-Op charter school on Thursday announced a series of changes aimed at boosting accountability in its 81 publicly funded learning centers across Colorado. Among them:

COMPLIANCE OFFICERS
Hope is hiring a total staff of five - a chief compliance officer and four compliance auditors - to visit its learning centers and ensure that its policies are followed.

BACKGROUND CHECKS
Hope will use quicker online criminal background checks for all job applicants, followed up by more extensive fingerprint checks. Staff will sign forms certifying they have never been charged with certain crimes.

CURRICULUM STANDARDS
Students must spend at least four hours a day on the Hope core curriculum, including at least 90 minutes online. Hope teachers must approve any other materials used during those four hours. >GOVERNING BOARD
Hope is expanding and restructuring its governing board, including replacing its own chief operating officer with a community member, Carolyn Dowd, executive director of the nonprofit Partnerships for Healthy Communities, based in Arvada.

SEPARATING CHURCH, STATE
Hope promises strict enforcement of its nonsectarian program while students are being instructed in the core curriculum, including:

• No religious symbols, decorations, images or writing in any classrooms used by Hope students during the core curriculum.
• No religious services or prayers during the time Hope students are being instructed in the core curriculum.
• No references to religion as an instructional tool.
• Religious texts such as the Bible, Torah and Quran may not be used for proselytizing, indoctrinating students in a particular religion or promoting religious beliefs.
• Enrollment in a Hope learning center may not be conditioned upon participation in any religious activity.

How Hope works
Students enrolled in the Hope Online Learning Academy Co-Op charter school attend one of 81 learning centers across Colorado. There, they work on computers and study an online curriculum provided by Hope.

Under Hope's model, mentors with at least two years of college work directly with students. They're supported by licensed teachers who rove from center to center. Hope's average student- to-mentor ratio is 18-to-1. Its current student-to-teacher ratio is 231-to-1.

Hope President Heather O'Mara said Thursday she wants to reduce the student-teacher ratio to 200-to-1.

Fair Use Statement: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.