‘We Will Not Give Up’

Soon after the two top administrators at Enlightened Minds School in South Los Angeles disappeared last year, amid charges that they had sexually molested a student, thieves pillaged the school at night.

They took telephones, fax machines, books, shelves, desks and even the computers that stored the students’ academic records. It seemed like the end of the road for the Afrocentric school with nearly 200 kindergarten-through-12th grade students.

But neither the scandal nor the burglary could destroy the dedication of a core group of teachers and parents. With their own money and resolve, the half a dozen women have managed to open a new school in a new building with the same emphasis on black history and pride and high academic standards.

A lesson in perseverance, the new Adoma Learning Center started its second semester this week, with five volunteer teachers and 20 students in a converted barbershop on West 48th Street.

It has not been easy overcoming the shocking scandal involving the two Enlightened Minds administrators, who remain missing and are on the Los Angeles Police Department’s most-wanted list. Stunned teachers said they were caught off guard by charges that the administrators had sex with a 16-year-old female student.

In the aftermath, parents withdrew nearly 90% of the students. For several weeks, the remaining teachers and students held classes in a teacher’s two-bedroom apartment. “We had days when we were extremely discouraged,” said Nana Gyamfi, an attorney and a parent at Enlightened Minds who has become the new school’s director.

But then things began to look up when the grandmother of a student refinanced her home so that parents and teachers could lease the school’s current building.

Tuition (about $400 per month) from the remaining students has generated enough revenue to pay the rent and utilities but not enough to pay the salaries of the teachers and administrators, who are all volunteers.

“We love our children and we love our school,” said Vice Principal Geri Armstrong. “We will not give up.”

Enlightened Minds was opened nearly four years ago on West 54th Street by a couple who called themselves Tisa and Ty Yiyara. Within three years, the school had earned nonprofit status, received scholarship funds from a respected national education project and won a proclamation from Mayor Richard Riordan praising the couple for their “outstanding work as educators and mentors.” Ty Yiyara, who acted as the superintendent, claimed he had a master’s degree in social work, which he posted in the school.

The school’s curriculum taught students about the contributions of Africans and African descendants in American and world history.

But Tisa and Ty were found to be aliases for Channell Nicola Warren and her husband, Joseph Horace Green, a convicted sex offender who police say bought his fake master’s degree from a mail-order catalog.

Police also discovered that the couple had been soliciting sex partners on several Internet swingers sites.

No state or local authority ever questioned the couple’s background because there are few regulations for private schools. Enlightened Minds did not have formal accreditation, which is optional; the new school does not have it either.

Couple’s Trail Grows Colder

The couple disappeared in April after a 16-year-old student accused them of molesting her in their 37-foot recreational vehicle. Police believe that the couple skipped town in the RV and are traveling with their two young children.

The FBI has joined the search but LAPD Det. Wesley Potter said authorities have yet to receive any confirmed sightings of the pair.

“The longer it goes on, the colder and colder the trail gets,” he said.

Potter worries that Warren and Green may have already settled in another community with new identities.

“This was an exceptionally good disappearing act,” he said.

When the couple vanished, they left Enlightened Minds in chaos. Children from other schools teased the students, calling them “Endangered Minds.”

The remaining teachers and parents decided to rename the school Adoma--Swahili for “child of love”--to escape the stigma.

Some parents felt that they had to stay with the new school because the academic records had been taken in the burglary, making it difficult to enroll the students in other schools. No suspects have been arrested in the burglary.

Parents and teachers held a group therapy session with the older students to talk about the sexual allegations, Gyamfri said. The students felt betrayed and confused but wanted to remain in the school, she said.

For a month, the school operated out of the apartment of Lisa Boatemah, a teacher at the school, who explained: “I hate to see parents desperate.”

Enrollment dropped to seven children.

Hatshepsut Nabulungi, the mother of two girls who attended Enlightened Minds, said she enrolled her children in Adoma because it is run like a village, in which family and teachers participate in the education of children.

“I like the concept of why we are all together,” she said.

Nabulungi’s mother, Loretta Reid, refinanced her home to help make the $5,000 down payment needed to lease the former barbershop and an adjacent house a few blocks from the shuttered Enlightened Minds building.

The teachers and parents held bake sales and other fund-raisers to add new lighting and other improvements. The school also received donations, such as computers and furniture from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Alexandria House, a transitional residence for women and children, among others.

“I really admire their commitment to keep an alternative school going,” said Judy Vaughan, Alexandria House director.

The Agape International Spiritual Center of Truth in Culver City took up a collection for the new school. “The individuals that we knew there were extremely upstanding folks who wanted to make a difference where education was concerned,” the Rev. Michael Beckwith said.

Enrollment has slowly increased.

Amina Muhammad said the scandal at Enlightened Minds did not dissuade her from recently enrolling her fourth-grade daughter at Adoma. She said the current teachers have proved they are dedicated to educating the children.

She is also not put off by the lack of supplies and facilities at the new school.

“I feel they can learn under a tree if they have a good teacher,” Muhammad said.