The Arkansas Board of Education is exercising its rarely, if ever, used subpoena power to obtain financial records and furniture from the former superintendent of the now-closed Covenant Keepers charter school.
The Education Board voted 8-0 to compel Valerie Tatum of Maumelle, the former leader of the taxpayer-financed sixth-through-eighth grade school in Little Rock, to attend the Education Board's April 11 meeting with the financial records, including records in filing cabinets that were taken from the school campus.
Arkansas Department of Education staff contend that the filing cabinets were taken from the school at 5612 Geyer Springs Road "without proper approval."
According to the subpoena, Tatum will not have to appear at the Education Board's April 11 meeting if she produces the documents on or by April 5.
Tatum said in a telephone interview after Monday's meeting that she didn't have a comment on the state's request for school-related documents, and that she didn't watch the state Education Board meeting earlier in the day.
"OK, allrighty, I'll get out there and listen to what they have to say," Tatum said after being told about the contents of the subpoena.
The state's Charter Authorizing Panel in January voted to accept the voluntary surrender of the Covenant Keepers' state-issued charter effective at the end of the current 2018-19 school year.
But in February, the Education Board voted to immediately revoke the Covenant Keepers' charter after learning that unauthorized withdrawals from the school's bank account had left the school's managing organization -- Friendship Education Foundation -- at risk of having insufficient money to meet payroll or otherwise operate the school for the remainder of the year.
Foundation leaders filed a complaint with the Little Rock Police Department accusing Tatum -- who had resigned from the superintendent's job last fall -- of making unauthorized withdrawals of almost $190,000 from a school account in January and February of this year.
Tatum, in a brief telephone interview Monday afternoon, declined to comment on any Little Rock police investigation into the funding of the school.
To accommodate most, if not all, of Covenant Keepers' approximately 100 pupils and their teachers, the Education Board last month agreed to amend the Friendship Education Foundation's charter for the planned Friendship Aspire Academy at 3615 W. 25th St., to allow it to open immediately -- rather than wait until August -- to serve Covenant Keepers pupils.
Mary Claire Hyatt, an Education Department attorney, told Education Board members at a special meeting Monday that the agency's multiple requests for the return of the furnishings that had been removed from the Covenant Keepers' campus -- including the filing cabinets containing financial records necessary to close out the Covenant Keepers' operation -- have been unsuccessful.
Those requests, Hyatt said, were made by letter, email and phone calls to City of Fire Community Development Inc., which is the nonprofit organization that sponsored Covenant Keepers, as well as to Tatum and her husband Tyron Tatum, a pastor who was a member of the City of Fire Community Development board of directors.
On March 6, Valerie Tatum indicated to Education Department staff that she would not be turning over the original documents in her possession. But she did provide the name of her attorney and photos of the filing cabinets and other furnishings, Hyatt said.
The Education Department responded to Tatum, requesting copies of the original documents or, alternatively, asking to schedule a time when department staff could make those copies.
Tatum has never responded to that request, Hyatt said. The department, however, did receive notice that the person whom Tatum had identified as her attorney is not representing her.
Hyatt said the financial records -- including account numbers, inventory lists and other related information -- are necessary to oversee the payment of school debts and to do an audit of the school.
While the state is not responsible for a charter school's debts, it does have the authority to take control of and sell the school's assets to pay school bills, Hyatt has said. If the assets aren't sufficient, the vendors go unpaid.
Hyatt said the Education Board is authorized to issue a subpoena by Arkansas Code Annotated 6-17-425. The subpoena, which does not involve any law enforcement agency, is issued by a state Board of Education order.
Jay Barth of Little Rock, chairman of the Education Board, called the subpoena ""somewhat extraordinary" and not something he has dealt with previously in his seven years on the board.
Metro on 03/26/2019