Youth Program’s Fate Uncertain

A widely praised program that has educated troubled Los Angeles youths for more than two decades has been temporarily shut down and is at risk of permanent closure after findings that it violated state regulations.

Closed three weeks ago were the 16 schools of Soledad Enrichment Action run by Brother Modesto Leon, which served about 850 high-risk students--many dropouts and gang members on criminal probation--in church social halls and community centers scattered from Pomona to Pacoima.

The action was taken after the California Department of Education discovered that during the program’s phenomenal growth--in which its state funding increased from $39,000 for a three-month contract in 1991 to $3.8 million this year--it improperly hired teachers who are not county employees and housed students in buildings that may not meet seismic safety regulations.

There is no allegation of intentional wrongdoing, however, and Leon, a longtime community activist, complained that he was misled by the county Office of Education, which is responsible for overseeing such alternative education programs. Leon said he has been using lower-cost private teachers for years, for instance, but was never told that was a problem.

“If that was part of the contract, why didn’t they close us down six years ago?” Leon asked. “It was never brought to our attention. . . . Ignorance of the law is no justification . . . [but] the county monitors our program. We concentrate on the students.”

Negotiations to keep the schools operating dragged on for months before the county ended the program’s contract Sept. 30 rather than face the prospect of accruing state fines.

The state has harsh penalties for even minor violations by alternative education programs, established because of past scandals.

*

State officials said the county Office of Education conceivably could be forced to pay back all the independent study funding received for such programs since its first contact with Leon in 1991--about $20 million--although such a sanction is highly unlikely.

The program’s closure has left local officials scrambling to find other places for the students, who in Leon’s schools received counseling and training in parenting and job skills while being required to toe the mark: stay out of trouble with the law, complete their school work and wear uniforms of white-collared shirts and black pants or skirts.

“No other school’s going to take me with my bad record,” said Alfred Vargas, a student at an Eastside site. Vargas, 16, said he was kicked out of three Eastside public schools for carrying a handgun, cutting class and starting fights. “They don’t want to take the chance with a problem student. I’ve straightened up my act since I got here . . . went from an F to a B average.”

Gov. Pete Wilson has asked his staff to seek a way to reopen the community schools. Wilson, however, vetoed legislation Sept. 27 designed to prevent the closure, objecting to its provision relieving the county of responsibility for any future fines in the case.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, who said she was “so impressed” with the programs when she visited them before her 1994 election, also is attempting to broker a solution, which could include a temporary waiver of state laws, perhaps later this week.

“I’m very optimistic that we will work something out,” Eastin said. “But obviously we have to abide by state law. We can’t just wave a magic wand and say, ‘Let’s just send them a check.’ ”

Leon’s schools form the core of a $4-million social services agency begun by the Clarentine missionary in 1972 as a support group for grieving mothers.

Because the program catered to students already rejected by many mainstream public schools, the closure is “definitely a blow to the resources that are out there,” said Robert Sainz, spokesman for the county Probation Department.

Sainz said he believes most of the affected youths are already back in school, but Leon said more than 500 are not.

*

Those include the teenage daughter and son of Livier Moreno, who both attended Leon’s Hollywood school. “They are home now watching TV, staying out till 2, 3 in the morning because they don’t have anything to do,” the tearful mother said. “I can’t go to sleep at night till they come home . . . I’ve had one son killed already by a gang member. I don’t want the same thing to happen again.”

Questions about the program were first raised publicly in May, when state officials began reviewing an application from Leon to gain independent charter status for his schools, allowing them to operate free of many local and state regulations.

The county Office of Education had previously been unaware of the problems, according to Supt. Donald Ingwerson, even though it had taken over policing of the program five years earlier from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“We just didn’t know,” Ingwerson said. “It even slipped by the state. No one particularly did any research.”

*

But officials of the county teachers union insist they had quizzed the Office of Education about the legality of the program more than two years ago, then resurrected the questions after the charter application process began.

“We said, shouldn’t it be staffed by county teachers?” said Tim Hill, a regional representative for the California Teachers’ Assn. He said the county office responded then that the use of private teachers “was accepted practice with L.A. Unified . . . and that [the county] didn’t run it, they just administered it.”

The problems ultimately identified by the state were both technical and fundamental. In many ways, Leon’s program ran headlong into complex laws created after some education providers misused public funds.

The state said his schools were mistakenly being funded as independent study programs, even though they actually provided regular classes that students were expected to attend daily.

It was unclear though, officials said, whether his schools received too much money, because calculating student enrollment differs greatly in the two types of programs.

Independent study programs use the amount of completed student work as their measure--as did Leon’s program--while alternative schools are paid simply on the basis of attendance.

Either way, the schools should have used teachers who were county or district employees, a restriction long imposed on regular campuses and added to independent study programs after 1991.

Finally, officials said, it was uncertain whether Leon’s facilities complied with seismic codes requiring that alternative school sites higher than one story be cleared by an engineer. The state found no evidence of such clearance, although Leon said many of his locations have had such seismic reviews.

*

At one point, county education officials offered to hire Leon’s teachers as a solution to that violation. But Leon rejected the offer, saying he could not afford the additional administrative costs and higher teacher salaries and benefits paid county employees.

“Our teachers work with a counselor, a computer instructor, and parenting skills staff--it’s a model that’s worked for us for many years [that] we wouldn’t be able to afford . . . if we used county teachers,” Leon said.

“I can’t dismantle my program. I’d rather close it down because it won’t work for me.”