By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The private operating company of a former embattled charter school might be back in Cincinnati this fall.Minnesota-based Sabis Educational Systems Inc., which ran a charter school called Sabis International School in Mount Auburn for two years, has preliminary charter approval from the University of Toledo Charter School Council..

Charter schools, which first opened in Ohio in 1998, are publicly funded tuition-free schools run by community groups, parents, non-profit agencies or for-profit companies.

Sabis Educational Systems has received a $50,000 federal grant to plan for the new college preparatory charter school, the International Academy of Cincinnati, in Mount Auburn.

If the University of Toledo Charter School Council gives the company final charter approval in late June or July, the K-6 school would be housed where the former Sabis International School was located on Southern Avenue. A new five-person board would oversee the school's operations.

Sabis Educational Systems expects to attract about 660 students. Some could be the same students who abandoned the former Sabis International School last year when the for-profit Sabis Educational Systems operating company was forced out by the school's board of education. The company provided the school's curriculum and hired the staff.

"Hundreds of parents remain interested in school choice and high-quality education," said Jose Afonso, the company's director of governmental affairs.

The former school board terminated the company's contract in 2001, saying the company was overly concerned with turning a profit, leaving insufficient funds for operation. The firm disputed that claim.

The board sued to close the school and later reopened it with a new curriculum and staff. Many parents who were loyal to the school's mission under Sabis Educational Systems abandoned the school, causing enrollment to plummet from 650 students to fewer than 50 by September.

Sabis sued for breach of contract.

A court ruling in September forced the school board to close the revamped school, which by that time was no longer affiliated with Sabis Educational Systems.

The court ordered the school board to repay $600,000 it owed to the state for payments the school received. The state had said the school opened without a certificate of occupancy, fire inspections, health and safety inspections and a state letter of approval to operate. An official at the state department of education could not say late Thursday whether that money has been repaid.

Sabis runs 20 private schools and seven charter schools worldwide for about 24,000 students.

For information on the new school or job openings, call (513) 241-1141.

A parent meeting will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the school, 244 Southern Ave.