Red tape putting Chelsea education agency in bind

Brian Wright O’Connor

CHELSEA, Mass. — An award-winning Upward Bound program with a 40-year record of providing a pathway to college for thousands of low-income students is facing an imminent shutdown over a disputed grant application.

Choice Thru Education, launched in the early days of the War on Poverty, provides federally funded tutoring, mentoring, college visits and application assistance to children of the Bay State’s poorest city.

In November 2006, Choice electronically filed a $320,000 grant-renewal application, amounting to 80 percent of the program’s budget over a four-year funding cycle. A computer glitch kicked back the application, so Choice then re-filed after federal officials extended the deadline.

Susan S. Clark, founding director of the Chelsea agency, said she was shocked when the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) turned them down in spite of extensive documentation showing efforts to file the application on time, including calls to DOE, overnight delivery of a hard copy and e-mails about continuing problems with the electronic application process.

“This will put us out of business. We may have to close down,” said Clark.

Headquartered in a converted parachute factory in the middle of downtown Chelsea, Choice Thru Education provides daily tutoring and mentoring services to about 75 high school students.

Hundreds more attend its summer programs while many parents of the students — mostly immigrants from Haiti, Central America and the Horn of Africa — show up in the evenings at the Pearl Street building to learn English. Over 5,000 students have passed through Choice’s doors since they opened in 1966.

With the program budget gutted, Clark has already laid off staff but continues to serve students who need help.

“We’re applying for foundation grants to keep us going,” she said. “As long as we can keep the building open, we will.”

Letters of support from U.S. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry and U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano appealing to DOE officials to fund the program have gone unanswered.

“We appreciate the difficulty of making these funding decisions,” wrote the congressmen in a joint letter. “However, constituents — and the students they serve — should not be penalized because of computer glitches that are beyond their control.”

In spite of acknowledging eventual receipt of the Choice application — 46 minutes past the extended deadline — the Department of Education did not inform Clark of the application denial until May 2007, six months after the application was filed.

Clark has been scrambling since to get the decision reviewed, all to no avail.

Kerry vowed to continue to push for a review.

“It’s ridiculous that the bureaucrats in Washington refuse to consider Choice’s application,” he said in a statement. “We’ve made repeated attempts for close to a year to get answers from the Department of Education. Our kids are losing while people in Washington take their sweet time responding.”

Reached in Washington, the DOE’s acting press secretary, Samara Yudof, said the agency was investigating the matter.

Former Chelsea City Councilor Juan Vega, a program alumnus, called the DOE ruling ”a heartless, bureaucratic decision.”

“Choice Thru Education and its Upward Bound model provided a safe haven in a trying time,” said Vega, who heads the Centro Latino social services agency in Chelsea.

“It had an incredible impact on my life and this community. We were all from low-income, working families. Choice served as a surrogate educational and life-skills institute that was single-handedly responsible for us to get through that difficult period in our lives.”

While Clark spread out letters of support from judges, lawyers, business leaders and teachers who went through the program, Karen Samedi, 15, a Chelsea High School sophomore, sat down with program staff for help with her homework. The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Samedi said the daily tutoring and an opportunity to spend the summer on the Wheelock College campus gave her more confidence in her ability to get through high school and go on to college.

“I came here on the recommendation of a friend. At first, I didn’t want to be here but it got me more into school and thinking about what I’ll do afterwards,” she said.

The latest go-around with the DOE is not the first time Choice Thru Education faced a funding crisis. In the wake of the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, Republican budget writers zeroed out funding for some 750 Upward Bound programs across the country.

Clark led a national effort to dramatize the cuts and succeeded in restoring funding after support poured in, including from Republican members of Congress who themselves had gone through the program as struggling teenagers.

For Clark, Choice Thru Education is about the only job she’s ever known. Raised in Maine, she worked for Chelsea’s federally funded community action agency right out of Smith College and launched the education program a year later.

Noting that the program has survived Chelsea’s notorious history of arson, police and political corruption, school takeovers and bankruptcy, Clark said it was ironic that a technicality threatens to shut down an institution that has given so much to the city.

“I wanted to go into the Peace Corps, but that didn’t work out,” said Clark. “But I found a way to serve those in need right here beneath the Tobin Bridge.”