Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 11, 1994 TAG: 9401110160
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Carol Buchanan, who heads the proprietary-schools unit of the Virginia Department of Education, said the school - with campuses in Roanoke, Lynchburg and Richmond - "has no hope of opening up."
Employees were notified by letter last week that they were being laid off. Robert McGinty, Career Training president, wrote employees that the school was planning to reopen Jan. 10.
The school, facing a cash shortage and punitive action by the state and federal education departments, was reported to have been negotiating with a buyer. That sale apparently fell through, Buchanan said.
"I have had very little contact with [McGinty], but I talked to his attorney a couple of times today. No one seems to know what happened," she said Monday. "The Department of Education is considering it a closed school."
The Roanoke campus, housed in a Brandon Avenue office park managed by Hall and Associates, had its locks changed Friday. Henry Scholz, leasing and managing agent, said Monday that the school was locked out for not paying rent.
The school has not paid rent in more than four months, Scholz said.
"We're in the process of taking other action against the owner," he said. "We were very patient - extremely patient. We did everything possible to keep them there as a tenant, and, unfortunately, there was no money forthcoming."
Donna Barrette, Roanoke campus director, said school finances, such as rent payment, were handled out of Career Training's corporate office in Richmond. Barrette said she pulled up to the front door of the Roanoke office last week just as someone was changing the locks.
She said she was "in shock" over the school's closing.
"I can't even put it in words," she said. "It's not anything we expected to happen. We thought we were going back to work today, and obviously we're not."
The three campuses had been closed for much of December and the first week of January for a holiday break. The break coincided with a 30-day suspension imposed Dec. 10 by the state Department of Education, during which school administrators were to have restructured the school's financial plan.
The Department of Education withdrew the school's program approval, preventing the school from enrolling students until it could prove financial stability. The department had received complaints from students and staff about instructors being absent, books not coming in on time and paychecks bouncing.
The last paychecks that employees at the Roanoke campus received did not clear the bank. An administrator covered the checks out of her own pocket.
The school, founded 10 years ago, trained young adults in vocational-medical careers such as nursing assistant, medical assistant, medical secretary and medical transcriptionist. Tuition ranged from $3,000 to $8,000 for 20-week to 15-month programs.
The Roanoke campus had a 1993 enrollment of about 200. Fifty-three of those students were carried over into the 1994 year.
The school's enrollment was composed predominantly of women - most of them low-income - who were trying to improve life for themselves and their families, Barrette had said.
Buchanan plans to meet with Career Training students in Roanoke today at 6 p.m. and Wednesday at 10 a.m. Both meetings will be held at the Dominion Business School, 4142-1 Melrose Ave. N.W., Roanoke.
Buchanan said she is negotiating a "teach out" with Dominion, used when a school closes and another school with similar programs enrolls the students who attended the closed school.
Career Training is the fifth proprietary school in Virginia to close in the past 12 months. It is the first with multiple campuses to close during that period.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.