| Polygamous school district under scrutiny | |
|
By Mike Watkiss KTVK News Channel 3 - Phoenix | |
The school district in Arizona's largest polygamous community, Colorado City, has missed a second deadline to file necessary financial papers with state auditors. Records of the district's finances for 2003 were due in March. The district failed to meet that deadline. A 90-day extension was granted, and the district missed that deadline, too. Colorado City school Superintendent Alvin Barlow has never liked answering questions from reporters about the way he runs his school district, but now he isfacing tough questions from the state authorities about the finances of the school district that critics say is completely controlled by Colorado City's all-powerful polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs. "If the allegations are true, the situation has become totally dysfunctional and and there needs to be a receiver appointed because it’s not being governed in a rational way now," said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne. Horne talked Thursday about the possibility of taking over the Colorado City school district, a district rocked by controversy. The problems reportedly started five years ago when Jeffs ordered all of the city's thousands of followers to pull their children out of public schools in favor of home schools or charter schools. "While I think the invitation from church to strengthen their home schools and private schools had a very significant impact," Barlow said. Edict or invitation, the bottom line is that nearly 100 children were pulled out of public school. But even as enrollment dropped like a rock, loyal followers of Jeffs, like Barlow, maintained their jobs and still run the school district where there are now about three students per instructor. The average statistic in Arizona is about 20 to 1. "The only thing that matters to the school district up there is that they continue getting state and federal money so they can use it and abuse the system," said journalist John Doughtery. Doughtery has written extensively about Colorado City for Phoenix New Times, documenting how the district spends lavishly on travel, SUVs and even purchasing an airplane while racking up thousands of dollars on personal expenses. Doughtery said the district is spending money on what ever type of projects they want including building a compound in Texas where it is believed that Jeffs will retreat with his closest followers. "Believe me I went through thousdands of pages of travel reports, credit reports , receipts and all sorts of documentations as far as the school is concerned," Doughtery said explaining gross misuse of funds inside the district. | |
|
azfamily.com Originally published Thursday, August 19, 2004 | |
| Back | |
| For more information email: | |
