Citing an error, the Minnesota Department of Education released state aid owed to a controversial Inver Grove Heights charter school on Friday, two days after the payment was due.
In a letter to Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a K-8 school being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota for allegedly crossing the line between religion and public schools, Deputy Education Commissioner Chas Anderson said almost $125,000 was transferred to the school’s account Friday morning.
In a statement, a spokesman for the department said it “inadvertently withheld aid to TiZA and has apologized to school officials for that error, which has been corrected.”
According to the school, education department officials told TiZA last month they would recommend withholding $1.4 million in public funding from the school as a result of teacher licensure violations. After an earlier investigation this spring, the department found in June that 14 staff members were still out of compliance.
Of that $1.4 million, TiZA has also requested that the department release $875,000 in federal grant money that it has withheld since March 30 as part of its investigation into the licensure violations, the school said.
