Alberta home-schooling group fires back at government report

A home-schooling organization that's been effectively shuttered by Alberta Educationfor alleged financial misdealingsand lack of oversight has fired back with more claims the government was wrong.

Wisdom Home Schooling posted a message on its website Saturday, refuting government allegations that were made public last week.

The group said it had not been shown the report before Oct. 25, when Education MinisterDavid Eggen went public with his decision to close the private Trinity Christian School Association. Theschool associationhad contracted Wisdom onathird-party basis to deliver its home-schooling services.

"Alberta Education has not provided Wisdomor Trinity with any opportunity to know or defend itself against the misleading and in some cases outright false accusations in the government's report," the latest statement says.

Trinity Christian School Association had just 13 students in its bricks-and-mortar school in Cold Lake. But in addition, there wasenrolmentof 3,500 home-schooled students across the province. That's almost a third ofhome-schooledchildren in Alberta.

Through its association with Trinity, Wisdom received millions of dollars per year to organizehome-schooling.

Wisdom's point-by-point rebuttal to government allegations include:

• The government alleges that Wisdom was paying 10 times the market rate to lease an office space on a farm owned by the family that heads Wisdom.In its statement, Wisdom said the office was built and upgraded for home educationadministrationand that the rate includes "utilities, snow removal, emergency power plant for backup during outages, a comprehensivecameraand motion security system and day and night premises supervision."
• In response to an allegation of double-dipping, Wisdom said:"one person mistakenly claimed mileage reimbursement while also receiving a car allowance" and it was a "singular error."
• Wisdom says allegations about "lack of adequate oversight" are "based on the false assumption that Trinity was not entitled to contract with Wisdom to provide home-schooling services."

This is the third time that Wisdom has released public statements about the controversy. In the first statement, Wisdomencouragedparents not to enrol their children in a new school board as requestedby Alberta Education, and advisedit would be seeking legal counsel to contest the removal of accreditation.

Response to Eggen's decision has been mixed. There isanger from home-schooling parents who say they've been left in a lurch, while somecritics saythe move was an ideological attack on private, Christian education. But oneWisdom graduate was critical of the organization, sayingher coursesweren't even recognized by the universities that she wanted to attend.

• Wisdom home-schooling graduate says changes needed to home-school system

While several financial questions have been raised, Alberta Education hassaid its decision was made because Trinity "has failed to appropriately supervise its home education program." In a statement, Wisdom also denied this claim and said Alberta Education mandated the establishment of Wisdom in 1997.

• Closure of Christian school association angers Alberta home-school parents
• Alberta Christian home-schooling group vows to fight government