Voucher School Takes Over Noah’s Ark Preparatory

By ALAN J. BORSUK

Noah’s Ark has sunk, but the kids who were on board are staying afloat right where they were.

In what state officials say may be the first case of a voucher school taking over another voucher school in the middle of a school year, Noah’s Ark Preparatory School has become part of Jared C. Bruce Academy.

Jack Tatum, executive director of Bruce, said that 131 out of 141 students at Noah’s Ark have stayed on since the merger several weeks ago, as have nine out of 10 of the teachers. They continue to operate from the building at 334 W. Brown St. that was the home of Noah’s Ark.

The circumstances that brought the end of Noah’s Ark are not clear. Clara Wright, who was executive director of the school, declined to speak to a reporter. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said he could not answer questions about whether the school had encountered problems meeting tax requirements.

Approached in January

Tatum said he was approached about taking over the school in early January. He said the parents of Noah’s Ark students had been told that the school had to close. The two schools shared similar education philosophies, he said, and both had Christian orientations. Both served kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

Tatum said state Department of Public Instruction officials who oversee the voucher program — which allows thousands of students from low-income Milwaukee families to attend private schools — were cooperative in allowing the transition to go forward.

"We felt it would be a good fit," he said. "We certainly were concerned about those kids and the disruption that would be caused if they had to be uprooted."

Building connections

Things have been going well, he said, and there are plans to try to build connections between the students at the Brown St. building and the 238 students who attend the Bruce campus at 6090 N. 35th St.

Noah’s Ark started in the voucher program in the 2000-’01 school year. In 2005-’06, it had 155 students attending on vouchers, based on the official September enrollment figure, which was the highest number the school recorded. It listed 148 students on vouchers as of September.

Schools in the voucher program will receive up to $6,501 in public money to support each qualifying student this year.

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