State: Voucher complaints chase pair

PENSACOLA -- They are under scrutiny by state law enforcement and under fire from angry parents and former employees. At least one school they manage already has decided to sever ties to them.

Now Art and Angel Rocker, the entrepreneur educators who stand to collect $1.5-million in school voucher money this year, are getting out of the private school management business.

"It's just not worth it," Art Rocker said. "The schools can continue, but they'll do it on their own."

The Rockers are among the biggest players in a small but growing industry emerging from the nation's only school voucher program for children with disabilities. They had planned to expand from the six private schools they now run statewide for 250 students.

Rocker said the main reason they are quitting is money.

"We've been running and ripping and not enough has come out of it," he said. "We are tired of all the lies and misinformation."

Church leaders at the schools, including the Bethel Metropolitan Christian School in St. Petersburg, plan to keep them open next year. The Rockers have offered to consult, but it's unclear whether the churches are interested.

The Rockers' decision leaves the small church schools -- there are two in Pensacola and one each in Tampa, Lakeland, Palatka and St. Petersburg -- with both the money and the responsibility for daily operations. But it is unlikely to put an end to the problems and questions that have hit the Rockers and the voucher program for months.

Among them:

Former employees question what happened to much of the $1.19-million in state money the Rockers received this school year, and puzzle at the state's lack of oversight of a program that will send about $25-million in tax dollars to private schools this year. "All I know is the money wasn't going into the classroom," said DiAnne Taylor, former principal at Bellview Junction Academy in Pensacola.

Former teachers, who were paid $10.50 an hour, say they spent their own money on food for students and books and supplies for their classrooms. "We went to the Santa Rosa County warehouse to get discarded books all the time," said Heidi Burdess, a former teacher at Bellview.

Some parents are unhappy with the teacher turnover and lack of services for the students, some of whom require regular speech or physical therapy. "My son would come home and say "Well, Mom, another teacher walked out today,' " said Melissia Ford, whose son, Latarius, attends the New Jerusalem Learning Center in Lakeland.

The Escambia County Health Department ordered the Bellview school to stop feeding the children from the local food bank. Former food service director Lanita Duckworth said she "was relieved when I came to work and the kids weren't dead from what we fed them the day before."

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is conducting an inquiry based on those and other allegations.

The FDLE has interviewed parents and former employees, and has requested documents from the state Department of Education. The inquiry is not limited to the Pensacola schools.

The Rockers say they welcome the scrutiny. Art Rocker dismisses the critics as a few "disgruntled employees." The bottom line, they say, is that very few parents have pulled their kids from the schools.

"We're an excellent target," said Mrs. Rocker, whose husband was a fundraiser for conservative Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes. "If you're against vouchers, this is what you do: attack us. We're Republicans. Most African-Americans are not. That makes us controversial."

Taylor shakes her head at that. "It's wrong what they're doing," she said.

Taylor said she was drawn to the job of Bellview principal because the Rockers said they wanted to help black children. She quickly became disillusioned, but had no plans to quit.

"They had no intention of delivering what they promised," said Taylor, who was fired last month.

Just 10 days ago, Art Rocker was under pressure but still talking of expansion and eagerly showing off one of his schools.

Rocker bounded up onto the front porch of the Bellview Academy, pointed to the fresh paint on the old two-story structure, and rhapsodized about "this beautiful school we have here for the children."

He fished in his pocket for the key, all the while telling of the job he and his wife, a former school guidance counselor, had done getting this private school up and running.

"We just want to help black children. That's all," he said, sounding like the son of a preacher that he is. "We want to reach down to low-income families, to help children who came from where we came from."

Suddenly his monologue of achievement and ambition was interrupted.

His key didn't work.

Rocker had had the locks changed. He had to. He and his wife fired most of the staff of the Bellview school last month after they went public with complaints about conditions at the school.

The turmoil did the most damage to the Rockers' plans. But the unraveling began months earlier.

First, there were problems at the Bethel Metropolitan Christian School in St. Petersburg. Parents complained of a lack of books and classroom materials and a chaotic environment. A few parents removed their children. The pastor and his wife were removed as the heads of the school. A new principal, Marva Dennard, took over. Things settled down.

"We stuck with it," said Connie Davis, head of the Bethel parent association, who has two children in the school. "Our children are doing very well. We do not want our school to close."

The complaints aired in October were not unique to St. Petersburg. In Lakeland, former teacher Pamela White-Wilson saw that her classroom needed the basics, so she used her own money to buy books, papers and a blackboard. She said she did what she could for the children, and sometimes she complained. She was fired in January.

Dissatisfaction turned to crisis in February after a former administrator, Ed Anderson, sent documents to the FDLE and requested an investigation.

Anderson was director of Good Schools for All-Florida, the nonprofit arm of the Rockers' for-profit management company AJC 2000 Management Team Inc. In the packet to FDLE, he claims the Rockers regularly misrepresented the cost of nonvoucher tuition and overstated revenue. He included statements from employees who said children were not getting the specialized services they needed.

"If what they're doing isn't illegal, it should be," Anderson said.

"These are some serious allegations," said the Rockers' attorney, Tom Gilliam. "Ed has used the term "misappropriation.' That's theft. That's not true. There's been no theft of money."

The Rockers' company is not the largest chain of voucher schools. The Lincoln-Marti Community Agency in South Florida operates more schools and has more students on McKay Scholarships, the name of the voucher program for disabled kids.

The Rockers say they are losing money. A financial statement Art Rocker provided said that last calendar year, AJC 2000 showed a profit of $19,000 through Dec. 31.

"We provide transportation. We provide meals. We pay for uniforms," Art Rocker said.

Some of the problems at the Rockers' schools are the usual annoyances that are to be expected in schools. School choice advocates point out that ultimately the parents can decide to leave the schools at any time.

But the idea of tax dollars going to private schools puzzles some parents.

"If it's government money, don't you have to have someone watching how the money is spent?" asked Hazel Allen, whose son attends the Bellview school. "I don't think the money is being spent the way it should. And it's hard to find another school because my son's money went to Bellview.

"They need to have some kind of control, and not just tell people "If you don't like it, you can leave.' "

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk