Financial woes shutter Education Partnership

PROVIDENCE – The Education Partnership, a public-policy coalition established to help improve the quality of education in Rhode Island, has filed for receivership.
“You have reached the office of the Education Partnership. Unfortunately, the company is now closed and under receivership,” said the answering machine at the nonprofit’s offices, which referred all calls to bankruptcy lawyer Alan M. Shine of Winograd, Shine, & Zacks PC.
In recent years, as public support has waned, the EP has tried to generate more income by expanding its consulting business with school districts across Rhode Island and nationwide. But that effort was not as successful as the company had hoped, according to a report this morning on WGBH radio 89.7 FM, a National Public Radio affiliate based in Boston. So the EP board of directors agreed to place the nonprofit into receivership, to protect the organization, its assets and its creditors.
It was unclear what that might mean for programs administered by The Education Partnership.
“We just got appointed on Thursday. … We still have to sort through things,” Diane Finkle, a lawyer with Winograd, Shine, & Zacks, told Providence Business News in a telephone interview this morning.
“I can’t answer specifics on any specific program right now. … I think people just have to sit tight,” while forms are sent to the creditors and the receiver sorts through the information on each program and its funding, she said.
The group is a partner with the William D’Abate Elementary School in the Olneyville Community School initiative, which received financing from sources including The Public Education Network and the Rhode Island Department of Education/21st Century Community Learning Centers. It is the founder and organizer of the Principal Residency Network, a federally-supported program that pairs aspiring school principals with trained mentors for one-year internships. It is the administrator for the Louis Feinstein Memorial Scholarship, founded in 1992, which awards $10,000 aid packages to students with a history of community service and an interest in a teaching career.
The EP also was a founding member, with the City of Providence, of the now-independent Providence After School Alliance (PASA). (READ MORE)
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 8 in Providence County Superior Court. But, Finkle said, “it probably will be several weeks” before specific information is available. “And it may be a different answer for each program.”
For more information about The Education Partnership and its programs, go to www.EdPartnership.org.