Private School’s Legal Fights Create Year of Divisiveness

School is out at Ribet Academy, and the students are not the only ones feeling relieved. A nasty legal fight between the school’s owners made for what parents and teachers say was a divisive year at the 650-student campus near the Glendale Freeway.

Unlike most private schools, Ribet Academy (pronounced rib-BAY) is a for-profit corporation, owned entirely by Ronald Sires--now in a protracted divorce--and the man he is suing for alleged embezzlement, Gerd Heymann.

Separately, Sires is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by parents who contend he let their twin daughters ditch class and drink alcohol, and that he kept quiet when the teenagers dropped out of the $10,000-a-year high school.

The parents’ suit aside, that a school could be distracted by one man’s failed marriage and a squabble between two business partners points to what can happen in the business of for-profit education, say Ribet parents, employees and private school associations.

“Private schools can be like an owner’s toy,” one Ribet teacher said. “They can do whatever they want, positively or negatively.”

Fewer than 4% of the nation’s private schools are for-profit, and many in private education frown on them.

“We feel that nonprofit governance--where there is a board overseeing the operations--makes for strong, healthy schools,” said Mimi Baer, director of the California Assn. of Independent Schools, which does not admit for-profit schools. “A school that’s run without a board, to us, isn’t a well-run institution.”

Owners of for-profits counter that the free market oversees their businesses, because dissatisfied parents can take their tuition elsewhere.

“If we don’t do it right, we go out of business,” said Greg Cygan, a member of the board of the National Independent Private Schools Assn. and the owner of an elementary school in Yorba Linda.

Ribet, a coed school for preschool through 12th grade, is doing it right, many parents said. While the past year has unsettled the school, parents and teachers report the classrooms have not suffered.

Turmoil Involving Owners Makes Impact

In recent years, enrollment at Ribet has been up, the corporation is paying debts that had threatened to close the school, and teachers have received pay raises.

But the turmoil surrounding the owners “kind of kicked the momentum in the teeth,” said Joan Newton, Ribet’s admissions director.

Jacques Ribet, Heymann’s life partner, started the school in 1982 and left it to Heymann when Ribet died 10 years later. In 1997, Heymann transferred half of Ribet Academy’s stock to Sires, who had been the school’s attorney. Sires jumped into improving the Glassell Park campus that Ribet leases. The campus once served as a hosiery factory.

Sires’ wife, Tracey, filed for divorce in 1998, and the couple have been bickering since over her rightful share of Ribet Academy. In trying to appraise the school, accountants determined the financial records were a mess.

As Ronald Sires’ divorce dragged on, he and Heymann grew apart. Last fall, after Heymann had agreed to retire, Sires had his business partner’s name removed from the “Fighting Frogs” gymnasium. Sires then sued Heymann in October, alleging embezzlement, and secured a restraining order that bars Heymann from campus unless he gives 24 hours’ notice.

Sires contended that Heymann maxed out Ribet Academy credit cards and diverted tuition checks and cash from the school’s bookstore, fund-raisers and cafeteria to finance a “grandiose” lifestyle.

“Do I think it was malicious? No,” Sires said in an interview. “Do I think he knew what he was doing? Yes.”

Heymann Alleges He Lent Funds to School

Heymann, 58, said he lent Ribet Academy nearly $200,000 of his money over the years to keep it open but said he never recorded the loans.

“Why would I embezzle money from my own company?” he said in an interview. “Why would I steal from myself?”

Heymann’s behavior threatened to close Ribet, Sires alleged in court documents. The school fell behind on taxes, rent to the Catholic archdiocese and bills for the campus gym and running track. Ribet was about $800,000 in debt but should be current by August, Sires said last month.

Heymann said Sires is trying to conceal his own income and understate Ribet’s fiscal health to mislead his estranged wife.

As for Heymann’s personal spending, he defended the cost of his worldwide travel as a business expense. Heymann said he never took students on his adventures, but brought back photographs, books and a life-size sculpture of a Chinese warrior that stands in a school stairwell. “In this country . . . most of the kids are totally ignorant when it comes to geography,” Heymann said. “So, I think, from that point of view, the kids learned a tremendous lot.”

While Sires has his supporters, a corps of Ribet parents has rallied around Heymann. They cite the lawsuit brought by the parents of two former students as reason Sires should not be in charge.

Identical twins Sharis and Talin Mardirossian were recognized by students, teachers and administrators as Sires’ shadows. “The twins” were said to have cartes blanches to roam the school halls and leave campus whenever they wanted.

Off campus, the girls joined Sires at restaurants, where he let the teenagers drink cosmopolitans and plum wine, Talin said in court filings that are part of her parents’ lawsuit. Sharis wrote in her legal declaration, filed by Sires’ attorney, that Sires never offered her or Talin alcohol.

“Did I talk to them? Absolutely,” Sires said. “I will deny any inappropriate activity with either one of the girls.”

Neither sister states in court papers that Sires, 38, was anything more than a confidant and friend. The twins dropped out of Ribet in February, just shy of their 18th birthdays.

Their parents, Timmy and Seda Mardirossian, sued Sires and Ribet Academy in March, alleging breach of contract and fraud. They contend that during the month their daughters pretended to go to school, no one at Ribet told them the pair had actually dropped out of school. To keep up the ruse, Talin said, Sires helped the girls forge their report cards. (Sharis admitted in her declaration the girls forged their grades but denied Sires knew.)

The Mardirossian parents want a refund of $50,000 in tuition. Their lawsuit also seeks to block Sires from contact with any students at Ribet.

Sires Contends Ties to Students Cut

Sires said he has already cut most ties to students because the Mardirossians’ lawsuit has taught him behavior can be “misconstrued.” In turn, teachers say, the school has been operating with little attention to its owners.

“We’re happy and we will continue to support the administration, and the owners are a separate entity,” said Jami Murphy, a teacher in the elementary school.

Parents said they have been impressed by the faculty’s ability to stay out of the fray.

“My mantra has been, ‘How has your child’s classroom been affected?’ ” said Julia Lewald, the president of Ribet’s parent organization. “It hasn’t been affected by any of this.”

Lewald and other parents praise Ribet for providing a good education at below-average cost, with a student body that is remarkably diverse for a Southland prep school.

Some families are pulling out, but most appear to be staying, said admissions director Newton, whose husband is Ribet’s principal.

“What we have to do is be very aware, very alert, see how next year starts and play it by ear,” said Bill Sterling, whose daughter is entering the second grade.

Sires’ divorce goes to trial next month, and his lawsuit against Heymann is set for trial in August. Adults at Ribet Academy say the school is too established to fall because of nastiness between its owners.

“There’s so many people who love the school,” parent Michael Salkow said, “that [it] would go on even if these two guys dropped off the planet.”