It was a chapel before it was a taxpayer-funded charter school.
Now that public dollars have furnished the building, God has returned to the private property at 1127 Copley Road, where delinquent taxes and court-ordered liens remain.
Formerly a Methodist church, the building was rented to the Next Frontier Academy in 2013. Entrepreneurs, including the son of the school’s founder, bought the property in 2014 to help the charter school catch up on rent.
But the school closed in June. Now, its status as a facility for both church and state raises questions about Ohio’s ability to control the flow of public dollars to the charter school movement, and whether publicly funded charters have moved into the religious realm.
Next Frontier received more than $530,000 over three calendar years to educate about 60 students. However, the state auditor has determined that attendance and grade records are in such disarray that it’s impossible to determine how many children actually attended, and if they received any education.
Yet, young people still are able to arrive at the building, participate in Bible study and move to a computer lab connected by wire to an online charter school based in Reynoldsburg near Columbus.
About half of the students who returned to the building this year — enough to fill a classroom — already have dropped out of the online charter school, according to Akron Public Schools, which tracks children who would otherwise enroll in the city district.
And there’s a new building tenant this year. Word of Life Ministries, a faith-based outreach group, has moved in — rent-free. The ministry, led by pastor Alice Anderson, has thrown out the last educators associated with the Next Frontier Academy but kept the relationship with the online charter school.
Through the lease agreement, the church pays half the utilities and, as a tax-exempt organization, qualifies for a tax-free status for property owners already $13,000 behind on their county tax bill.
The online charter school supplies computers. Church tutors use the chairs and desks purchased, in part, with tax dollars and abandoned by the Next Frontier Academy.
Anderson is recruiting dozens of families to enroll, which allows children to sign in from home or at the church in an arrangement that’s “more like home school,” she said.
To educate these students, the Ohio Department of Education is on track to transfer $191,117 away from Akron Public Schools to the online charter, a 300 percent increase over what was diverted last year to Next Frontier.
Church and school
Jeff Nelson, superintendent of the Virtual Community School of Ohio, visited the building before and after the ministry moved in.
“When I was in there, it didn’t look like a church to me,” he said.
His online school enrolled 59 Akron students at the beginning of this school year. Many were recruited by Next Frontier founder Don Tabor, according to Anderson and Nelson. Of the 59, only 26 remain, according to Akron Public Schools.
Anderson, the church’s pastor, said the relationship with Nelson’s school is all that remains of Tabor’s work. And it falls under the church’s mission of healing and helping the community. Anderson said there are Bible studies on Thursday nights, daily tutoring, more than 25,000 federally funded meals in the summer and Sunday services next year.
Nelson said Word of Life will help students with “a support structure they’re not getting from home.”
The school adds to that structure.
“As a ministry, part of our community outreach mission is to reach out to families with the desire to home school in some capacity and Virtual Community School offers an excellent curriculum,” Anderson said.
The church recruits and helps teach the children. The Virtual Community School provides the online courses and sends a federally funded tutor to the Akron church.
There are 10 families in the school and plans to reach 20 more. “All of these are the people who will be the foundation for what we are doing,” Anderson said.
Anderson calls the building neither a church nor a school, but rather a community center. The educational component is considered the online school’s “success site.”
Nelson said this is the only arrangement in Ohio between his public school and a church. Anderson’s teachings, he said, may lean on the Gospel, but his curriculum is nonsectarian.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @DougLivingstonABJ.