Charter School delayed for a year

By Canan Tasci, Staff Writer

ONTARIO -- A lack of signatures and an education code violation have postponed the opening of a charter school in the city.

The Life Empowerment International Charter Academy was scheduled to open in the fall and serve 160 K-2 students. School officials now expect to open in time for the 2010-11 school year at the Life Changing Ministries site at 1801 E. D St.

A petitioner requested the delay at Thursday's Ontario- Montclair School District board meeting.

"The district has been working with us to get this approved, and there are just some things that we need to take care of before it's done, and we plan to resubmit the petition in September," said David Horn<NO1>cq<NO>, lead petitioner and Life Changing Ministries pastor.

The issues that led to the delay, school and district officials said, are:

"We may not have kindergarten for a full year in order to have the charter school," Horn said. "We're going to have to take 14 kids to possibly direct them to another kindergarten program if we have to do that."

Lenapearl Horn, wife of David Horn, is the learning center's director, as well as executive director of the charter academy.

In April, officials said the approval of the charter school was also delayed because of other issues relating to the education code:

The issues have all been addressed by the charter school except for collecting the necessary amount of signatures.

Despite the setback, the school district and the charter school members have diligently met to try and resolve the issues, said Luke Ontiveros, Ontario-Montclair special assistant to the superintendent.

"Our intent is to work together to get the item approved," Ontiveros said.

A charter school is publicly funded but operates independently from a local school board. A charter school does need a school board's approval to open.