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Berean supporters determined to save school despite 'serious mismanagement'

A recent Pennsylvania State Department of Education audit found "serious mismanagement of funds" at Berean Institute, a department spokeswoman said.

A recent Pennsylvania State Department of Education audit found "serious mismanagement of funds" at Berean Institute, a department spokeswoman said.

The state has not released the report, but sources close to the school told the Daily News that the mismanagement allegedly included someone at the school filing financial-aid forms with the U.S. Department of Education that falsely listed part-time students as full-time.

The school, on Girard Avenue near 19th Street, was given $6,000 per student in federal financial aid for full-time students, but only $3,000 for part-time students. At the same time, the sources said, school officials told board members that Berean was receiving $3,000 per student.

The 109-year-old North Philadelphia school has a history of helping black workers lift themselves out of poverty by teaching them skilled trades and crafts.

The school's supporters, including former and current students, are scheduled to rally outside the institute at noon today in an effort to save it.

E-mails announcing the rally were circulated because Berean was served with an eviction notice from the state on July 7.

Although the notice gave the school 30 days to leave, Berean board chairman John Braxton, a former Common Pleas judge, said that the school could close as early as tomorrow because the state had not renewed last year's $1.4 million in funding for the current fiscal year.

But the rest of the Berean board issued a statement late yesterday contradicting Braxton's statements about the school's impending closure.

The board's statement also announced that Dr. Lorraine Poole-Naranjo, a former board member, has just been named the new interim president of the school.

"Contrary to these rumors and allegations, Berean Institute will not close its doors. . . . The cosmetology department will resume its normal day and evening schedule of classes on Monday, July 21," said the statement, which was signed by the board and Poole-Naranjo.

It noted that "there is an ongoing dialogue" between board members and state education officials "to re-evaluate what is needed for the school to remain a viable source of education to the community."

One solution to keep the school in operation involves Community College of Philadelphia, several sources said.

Yesterday, Community College spokesman Anthony Twyman confirmed that the college has been in talks with state officials about Berean.

"We value Berean Institute and what it's done for the community," Twyman said.

The discussions have focused on keeping the school "open and continuing to be a value to the community," Twyman said. He added, however, that the college was not likely to work with the school "under the Berean name."

Other sources said that the Maxwell Group, a consulting group hired in recent months to try to salvage the school's accreditation problems, was being paid as much as $40,000 a month to manage the school. Naranjo-Poole confirmed that the contract was for that amount.

After the Maxwell Group came in, several administration officials, including recent acting president, Andrew Carn, a former state representative, were fired.

Carn, who had worked as president since mid-2006, after Berean was put on probation by the accrediting commission, was hired to replace Berean's longtime president and CEO Norman K. Spencer, a retired principal of Benjamin Franklin High School. Spencer could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Frank Oliver is still an active member of Berean's board of trustees, but two state senators have resigned in the past couple of years.

State Sen. Shirley Kitchen said yesterday that she resigned from the board because of her concerns that "there were things going on" at the school that did not seem proper.

And a spokeswoman for state Sen. LeAnna M. Washington confirmed that Washington resigned from the board, but didn't say why.

Poole-Naranjo said yesterday that Berean has gone through crises in the past and had its accreditation revoked three different times in the past 12 years.

In addition to losing accreditation in 2007, the same occurred in 1996 and in 2002 or 2003, she said.

"Berean has been such a jewel for this community and as a native-born North Philadelphian, to see the things that have happened over the last five or six years haven't been good," Poole-Naranjo said.

"Berean has had many challenges over the years that we have survived. We're in a survival mode now, and we plan to survive." *