New Haven Independent

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (pictured) and State Auditor Robert Jaekle confirmed Tuesday that they’re looking into lower-than-projected enrollment figures for the K-8 school.

The city spent $32 million, most of it state money, rebuilding the Prospect Street school, as part of New Haven’s $1.6 billion school construction program. When it applied for the money, New Haven projected that as many as 654 students would attend the school.

As of this school year, the school had 433 students. The state reimburses cities based on the number of students at a school.

Over $8 million could potentially be at stake, according to school system estimates.

The attorney general’s office received a complaint under the whistleblower statute in the first quarter of 2006. It handed the matter over to the state auditors to investigate. Jaekle and Blumenthal said they haven’t yet completed the investigation.

“The complaint related more broadly to whether numbers of students were overstated — not only at that school,” Blumenthal said. He said the city has been cooperative in the investigation.

Jaekle said at this point the investigation has centered just on Celentano.

Schools chief Reginald Mayo sent the state Education Department a letter last month explaining what happened at Celentano. New Haven originally planned to house adult special ed students at the school, which has historically served that population. Then the federal Office of Civil Rights notified the city that it couldn’t, under rules requiring that students with disabilities be mainstreamed. Then the city planned to house some special needs students older than 15 in an observatory space at the school; the state said it couldn’t do that, either.

Click here to read Mayo’s letter.

In the meantime, the city has been phasing in more students into the school, the way it always does with newly built or rebuilt schools, according to Sue Weisselberg, the system’s school construction chief.

And, faced with growing demand for pre-school spots in the neighborhood, the city expects to add pre-K classes in that observatory space come this fall, Weisselberg said. She projected that the school would have 600 students by then.

Weisselberg said she hopes that satisfies the state and the city won’t have to pay any money back.

“If the whistleblower complaint is that we’re not at our highest enrollment yet — we’re not,” Weisselberg said. Under state law a city has eight years from its original application to reach its full enrollment, she said. The city originally applied to the state for funding for Celentano in 2000.

“New Haven has done a marvelous job of rebuilding its schools,” said state education spokesman Tom Murphy. “Many people recognize New Haven of having done a stellar job of using state resources to do that.” He stressed the word “alleged” in reference to the whistleblower complaint’s charges.