Director: Use Of School Money `Ill-Advised' -- But St. Christopher Academy Chief Defends Her Mixing Of Personal, Business Finances

KENT - The director of a special-education school who the government says took $343,000 of the school's money for her own use now admits she may have mixed personal and business finances, but only because she risked so many of her own resources to create the school 13 years ago.

In a letter to parents of learning-disabled children at St. Christopher Academy, director Darlene Jevne says she had been "ill-advised" over the years and "may have failed to adequately separate my personal interests from the interests of St. Christopher Academy."

The letter is the first public comment from Jevne about news stories three weeks ago that she used money from the then-nonprofit school to buy and maintain condominiums in Sun Valley, Idaho, renovate a 400-acre ranch she owns, and pay personal expenses such as her property taxes and a legal bill.

Jevne also announces in the letter that she is stepping down as the day-to-day director of the school, the largest in the region for children with attention-deficit disorder or dyslexia. She bought the school in April, converted it to a for-profit institution and will continue to oversee its operations, she said.

Kent Police and the King County prosecutor's office last week interviewed several former employees of the school. Jevne has not been charged with any crime.

All but one of the 21 teachers at the school planned to resign after their last day of work, which was today, according to Hugh

Flint, a fifth-grade teacher. Eleven of them have signed letters of intent to teach at a new nonprofit school in Renton catering to learning-disabled students, called New Horizon School.

Jevne's letter, sent to parents last week, assails the news media, saying the reports have "only served to confuse and hurt everyone who cares about this school and the young people we serve."

It also says that many of the allegations "are so erroneous as to be unworthy of public response." The letter does not identify any errors but says, "This controversy and its facts will conclude in court, not in the news media nor the rumor mill so filled with emotion and half-truths."

Jevne did not return a phone call to the school yesterday. She has sued the school's former bookkeeper and secretary, claiming they defamed her by illegally spreading details of her tax-return information to others.

The bookkeeper, Judy Colson of Pacific, says she has no access to Jevne's tax-return information and that the lawsuit is frivolous.

In the letter to parents, Jevne acknowledges St. Christopher bought condominiums in Sun Valley but says they were "good real-estate investments" that benefited the school financially and were not used by her or her family.

Jevne also says she spent school money on a "bunkhouse" on her Idaho ranch with the aim of establishing a summer camping program for students. She adds that she "viewed the arrangement as a way that St. Christopher Academy could begin a summer-school program without using financial resources to also purchase the land."

Government documents show that the Internal Revenue Service saw it differently. The IRS found that Jevne, using St. Christopher's bank account, had wrongly poured $215,331 into upgrading a property the school does not own. The IRS recommended Jevne be forced to pay back the money or convey ownership of her ranch to the school.

Jevne opted to repay the money, said Dick McDermott, president of the school's board when it was a nonprofit institution.

The letter also does not mention other findings of the government audit. The IRS found Jevne used the school's money to pay a personal legal bill, boost her salary through a consulting company, finance gasoline credit cards, pay off a $33,699 loan she owed the school, and pay $27,537 in dues and upkeep on two ski-resort condos that were owned solely by her, not the school.

Jevne says in the letter it was a mistake to create the school as a nonprofit in 1982 because she used so much of her own money to keep it going, and that money was never repaid to her.

"Having created, nurtured and risked my personal assets to see it grow into a school, it was hard for me to view the school as a separate legal entity," she writes.