SOUTH-CENTRAL : Parents and Teachers Work to Save School

Teachers are working without pay and parents are selling tamales to pay utilities in an effort to keep open a local preschool recently stripped of its sole funding source because half a million dollars of its state appropriation has turned up missing.

For instructors and parents of 54 mostly Latino children at the David Roberti Child Development Center, it doesn’t matter whether the school’s owner, Marilyn Prosser, is guilty or innocent of fraud and other federal charges, or whether the state was justified in ordering the school closed because Prosser’s organization could not account for $500,000 in state funds.

The bottom line is that they want to keep intact a staff and school that for 12 years has offered poor children a chance to stay abreast academically with their wealthier peers through a curriculum that stresses independent thinking.

“We are caught in the middle of this fight and the children are the innocent victims,” said Fermin Rivera, who credits his 4-year-old son’s proficiency in reading and writing to the school’s Montessori-style curriculum. The program encourages independent thinking by allowing children to choose their own instruction methods under teacher supervision.

The school is one of hundreds of state-subsidized child development programs that provide year-round child care and education at no cost for thousands of poor children across California.

The parents believe so strongly in the Roberti center program that they ignored three offers to transfer their children to similar programs run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The decision means the youngsters are no longer eligible for the state subsidy.

For school supporters, however, the issue transcends money.

“The teachers here are invaluable and the children love them,” said parent Ana Maria Gonzalez. “We’re not going to accept anything but the Montessori program and these teachers even if we have to move to a garage.”

The coalition of parents and teachers hopes to form its own nonprofit group and win state licensing and funding to continue the school.

That process could take months, however, and even if the coalition is successful, there is no guarantee there will be state money available, said Mario Muniz, an administrator with the state’s Child Development Division.

Still, the parents are undaunted.

“We are going to the end with this fight,” said Rivera, who helps oversee the parents’ efforts to raise money for utilities.

The Roberti center was ordered closed on July 7 after negotiations fell through to transfer control of the school from the Foundation Center of Phenomenological Research to another agency.

About a month earlier, the state Department of Education decided not to renew a contract with the Foundation Center in part because the private, nonprofit agency could not account for the whereabouts of close to $500,000 in state funds.

Prosser, the agency’s executive director, was indicted in March on 19 federal counts of fraud, bribery and falsifying tax returns. The counts allege, among other charges, that Prosser used the organization’s money for her own use.

The Sacramento-based Foundation Center, at one time California’s largest publicly funded child-care organization, took in $7 million in state funds each year to operate 19 child-care centers for roughly 2,000 poor children. Just over $550,000 a year went to the Roberti center to provide services for up to 110 youngsters between the ages of 2 and 5.

Muniz said state officials were able to find replacement agencies to run all of the Foundation Center’s former programs except the Roberti site and two others in Compton and Sacramento County.

Prosser reportedly owns those sites and was asking for prohibitively high rents from prospective replacement agencies, Muniz said.

The Mexican American Opportunities Foundation, which operates 10 state-funded child centers locally, had been considering taking over the Roberti program but backed out because the rent on the facility was $11,000 a month, said the organization’s executive director, Cathy Tafoya.

Prosser referred telephone calls to Sacramento attorney Linda Dankman, who declined to comment. All children at the Compton site have been transferred to other programs.

Meanwhile at the Roberti center, Executive Director Linda Villegas said Prosser is letting the program stay in the building rent-free until another tenant can be found.

Run with an all-volunteer staff, the school continues to attract about 50 youngsters a day, and their parents have joined together to raise money for utilities by selling tamales, enchiladas and Mexican sweet bread and raffling off blenders and cassette players. Eight of 15 teachers have stayed with the program without pay.

“For me, this is not just a job. I do it for the love of the children,” said teacher Sonia Alvarez, who plans to make ends meet with her husband’s salary as a construction worker.