A Matter of Shared Shock
The campus itself was in shock this afternoon, quite without a clue about what happens next. For a stranger, it would have been hard to tell whether the campus was empty or full. The Star Prep Academy’s 17 classrooms are inside of the Star Eco Station, where there is round-the-clock activity every season of the year, whether school is in or out. Classes, which are both rigorous and innovative, are scheduled to begin on Sept. 5, the day after Labor Day. Last semester there were 43 students from grades 6 through 12. For the new term, that is being called the Academy’s third formal year, an enrollment of 60 is expected. None of the parents has yet been notified. The eviction news, it is said, still is too new to have spawned a Plan B. What choices do presumably desperate families have this late in the summer? The Academy’s response to them has not even been written. Does the school assure parents that their children will receive the promised stylized education for which they paid a hefty $15,000? These are the types of important details that City Hall accuses school officials of ignoring since last summer when they started trying to bring the Academy into compliance. Mrs. Bozzi and the financial people she has hired in the last several years have failed to comply with fundamental rules that every business in every city must obey. In a sense, this case is on the order of the spectacular scenario from two years ago involving the son of the Vice Mayor and the Police Dept. Cops stopped the son because his truck registration was five years late. Like the Bozzis, according to the city, he was way out of compliance. Before last night, we could have debated the degree of seriousness of the breach. But now we know that it was strong enough to get the Star Prep Academy evicted.
Two Potential Causes
People who know the Bozzis well bring two possible explanations for the present sad predicament: Priorities and culture. “If the subject had been about signing papers regarding state child regulations, the documents would have been back to Sacramento before the ink was dry,” one man told me. “The family is from Colombia, you know,” another said. “In Colombia, government is viewed more adversarially than it is in the United States. The Bozzis are determined, committed people. This is the way Katia is, and this is the way she raised her children/ I am sure they will not close the school. They will find a way to continue.”
