Hearing postponed on Thea Bowman school
By Carole Carlson
A Lake Superior Court judge has extended a temporary restraining order filed by the Thea Bowman Leadership Academy, a Gary charter school which is fighting the revocation of its charter by authorizer Education One, based at Trine University in Angola.
On Friday, Judge Rehana R. Adat-Lopez agreed to push back a hearing for a preliminary injunction to 1 p.m. on Feb. 14. The hearing had been set for Friday. She also extended the terms of the restraining order she granted last month to Feb. 19.
The Education One board voted to revoke the charter Dec. 13 and then set forth a school closure process.
The school, whose leaders said they were unaware the revocation was on the board’s agenda, cited irreparable harm if the revocation process continued. The order barred Education One from holding parent and staff meetings that had been set for Dec. 19.
Since last year, Thea Bowman officials have been in talks with Calumet College of St. Joseph to become the school’s new authorizer.
School officials said the revocation was retaliation by the Education One board for beginning talks with a new authorizer.
Meanwhile, Calumet College announced it will hold a public hearing at 5 p.m. Thursday at Thea Bowman, 3401 W. 5th Ave.
Carrie Hutton, Calumet College’s charter school liaison, will conduct the hearing.
Calumet College’s charter board set a 9:30 a.m. meeting Jan. 29 at the college to vote on its decision.
In a statement on Friday, school attorney Jewell Harris Jr. said the school and Education One negotiated the new agreement to extend the restraining order.
Last month, Education One officials said the revocation came after it placed the school on probationary status at the beginning of the year for a lack of academic improvement and poor organization.
Its director, Lindsay
Omlor said the revocation was necessary after Thea Bowman’s board began seeking a new charter authorizer, Calumet College.
The State Board of Education will have to approve the change in authorizers, if Calumet College agrees to sponsor the school.
Thea Bowman opened as a K-6 charter school in 2003 just after Indiana lawmakers established charter school legislation. It built a new 7-12 school that opened in 2009. The school holds K-12 classes on the same campus at 3401 W. 5th Ave.
The state Department of Education lists its enrollment at 825 students.
A Lake County jury has indicted a man in a December 2022 hit-andrun death of a Lake Zurich man.
Grand jurors returned an indictment last week against Gary L. Bozza, 67, charging him with failure to report a crash involving injury or death, a Class 1 felony, authorities said.
The charge stems from a Dec. 17, 2022, incident in Lake Zurich in which Jose Portillo, 38, was struck and killed by a vehicle.
Lake Zurich police responded at 11:40 p.m. to a call for an intoxicated person near the intersection of U.S. Route 12 and June Terrace, according to authorities.
A responding officer saw a vehicle strike Portillo, who was in the road. Police attempted lifesaving measures, but Portillo was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy confirmed death by blunt force injury, according to the coroner’s office.
Lake Zurich police called in the county Major Crash Assistance Team to aid in their investigation.
The same grand jury that indicted Bozza also returned an indictment against Juan Vega-Montoya, 37, of Chicago, for concealment of the killing of Megan Lewis.
Lewis, a Chicago resident, was about 16 weeks pregnant when she was killed in late November, according to authorities. Her body was discovered along Hunt Club Road in northern Lake County on Nov. 28.
Lake County sheriff’s office investigators said they believe that Vega-Montoya picked up Lewis on Nov. 26 in Chicago, and that he strangled her to death after they got into an argument. Vega-Montoya kept the woman’s body in his car for two days before dumping it along Hunt Club, police said.
Since the homicide is alleged to have happened in Chicago, Lake County detectives turned over their files to Chicago police so they can pursue charges there. Vega-Montoya was taken into custody Dec. 12 on the Lake County charges and has been ordered to be detained until trial.