Principal’s Daughter Ran Program on Campus

The principal of a highly regarded elementary school allowed her daughter to run a child-care program on the San Fernando Valley campus without a state license and without fully reimbursing the district for utilities and staff, an internal audit found.

Investigators in the district’s inspector general’s office concluded that the program at Carpenter Avenue School in Studio City violated state law and district policy. The program closed last year.

They said Principal Joan Marks failed to obtain a lease or rental agreement or to obtain approval from the State Department of Social Services or from the district to run a child-care center.

She also authorized the use of district funds to pay program employees and allowed the business to reimburse the school through its fund for private donations. As of last August, the program still owed $4,759, according to an audit report.

Attorneys for the Los Angeles Unified School District released the report this week in response to a legal demand from United Teachers-Los Angeles, the teachers union.

Marks remains principal. District officials declined to comment on whether any discipline was handed out. An attorney for the district said all the money has been returned.

“No one gained anything by this,” said attorney Terrence McConville, the district’s director of litigation research. “Any dollar amounts have been paid.”

In a cover letter, McConville said a follow-up investigation determined that the program had owed only $2,290, and that it had been repaid.

In a five-page rebuttal to the audit, Marks characterized the program as enrichment, rather than child care. She said it was her understanding that enrichment programs do not fall under any state licensing requirement.

Marks said she played no part in the selection of her daughter, Allison Marks, to run the program. Parents were unhappy with its predecessor and proposed that Allison Marks, then a volunteer at the school, start a new one, she said.

“I told them that I could not participate in the interview process, because I thought that it would be a conflict of interest,” Marks said.

A committee of parents, teachers and staff members made the decision, she said.

The investigation was prompted by complaints by teachers to the district’s fraud hotline.

A parent interviewed by The Times said she paid $225 per month to enroll her child in the program.

“I wasn’t aware until six months into the school year that this girl was the daughter of the principal,” she said. “If I had been aware of that, I would have had a problem giving her my money.”

In her rebuttal, Marks detailed her efforts to restore neighborhood confidence in Carpenter. Upon her arrival in 1985, she said, only 60 of the school’s 460 students lived in the school’s attendance area. The rest were bused in.

She and a few parents and teachers walked door-to-door touting the school, Marks said. Today it has 800 students and a waiting list of 200.

With a 9 (out of a possible 10) on the recent state Academic Performance Index ranking, Carpenter has become the envy of East Valley elementary schools.

Parents contribute both time and money to improve it, Marks said.

A Times computer analysis last year showed that Carpenter had more than $100,000 in its donation account, which is for money raised by parents to improve the school.

Marks said she did not know that it was improper to use that account to reimburse the school for the program’s costs. She said she had used the same procedure for other enrichment programs, but had discontinued the practice after the audit.