State Cites Violations in Home-Study Program : Education: Allegations lead to funding cutoff, insolvency for Acton-Agua Dulce district. Adviser to oversee its finances.

Improper administration of a program under which children study at home has driven the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District into insolvency, forcing the county to appoint an adviser to oversee the district’s finances, authorities said Friday.

The problem may have its origin in the district deliberately recruiting stay-at-home students from Antelope Valley communities outside its boundaries in an attempt to pump up the state subsidies it collects, one teacher speculated.

Carolyn Pirillo, deputy attorney general for the state Department of Education, said that teachers without proper credentials have been assigning or grading work in the home-study program. Because of that and possibly other violations, she said, the state is withholding or asking repayment of $365,000 in funding to the district.

The district had included that money in its budget, but is now expected to be $206,000 in debt when the 1994-95 fiscal year ends June 30, according to county records.

That automatically triggered the appointment of a financial adviser, said Steven Horowitz, a spokesman for the county Office of Education. “When there is a negative balance for whatever reason, the county office is required by law to assist the school district in balancing their budget again,” Horowitz said.

The appointed adviser monitors district spending and helps develop a recovery plan, Horowitz said.

District Supt. Tom Brown said he believes the independent-study program was properly run and the state’s decision is being appealed. Other district officials said that if errors were made, they were unintentional.

Public school districts receive about $3,000 per year for each student enrolled in an accredited school. Pirillo said the state pays the same amount for students enrolled in independent-study programs if they work at home to state standards, with an accredited teacher assigning and grading state-approved instruction material.

In such a program, “the parents are generally acting in the role a teacher’s aide would,” Pirillo said.

Independent study differs from home schooling, in which a non-credentialed adult--such as a parent--may be teaching a non-standard curriculum. Home schooling is legal, but unlike independent study, the state does not compensate school districts for any assistance they provide, Pirillo said.

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The Acton district may have collected funds from the state for helping what amounted to home study--not independent-study--programs--she said.

“There’s some indication in the paperwork I’ve seen that this is referring to parents acting as teachers to teach their children, and we don’t pay for that,” she said.

Pirillo said she has not reviewed all of the reports in the case, so she does not know if there are additional reasons the funding was denied by state education officials. The state requires independent-study programs to meet about 10 different criteria to qualify for state funds, she said.

Fred Fate, one of three trustees elected to the five-member school district board in March, said the board had received incorrect advice from a county official about the independent-study program when the program was established two years ago.

He said former members of the board also left behind a number of other budget problems--such as $330,000 in back pay owed to teachers--that resulted in the deficit.

About two-thirds of the 150 students enrolled in the independent-study program now are from locations outside the school district’s boundaries, such as elsewhere in the Antelope Valley, authorities said.

Elaine Adelman, a fourth-grade teacher at Agua Dulce Elementary School, said she believes the district was trying to solve its cash crisis by recruiting students for the independent-study program and the tactic backfired.

“If you can’t feed your own kids, you have no business making a banquet for anyone else,” she said.