Philadelphia School Questioned

Down the street, the Resurrection Life Church looks as if it is in need of salvation; the doors are boarded, and a sign states that it will reopen "sometime in 2006." Directly across the street from HERO is an abandoned apartment building, with seven stories of shattered windows.

The community center has about seven rooms, two of which are used by the school, center director Doris Phillips said. Grade-schoolers take computer classes in the lab and a motorcycle club meets there regularly. Yesterday, a child's birthday party was being held there.

Lutheran Christian has used the center for more than three years, Phillips said. She said she has seen about 20 male students and one teacher arrive on weekdays at 9 a.m. and spend about five hours in HERO's banquet hall. Yesterday the room was set up a little like a classroom, but there were no desks. The room is filled with several white plastic tables, with two chairs pushed into each table. Phillips said that some weeks Lutheran Christian holds school five days. Other weeks, Phillips said, the students come three or four times.

"We don't get too involved in the school. It all happens through Schofield," Phillips said. "We try to help them as much as we can by giving them space, but they pretty much just come and go. With their basketball schedule, you never know when you'll see them."

Phillips said Schofield uses the banquet hall for about 20 hours in an average week. Sometimes, the school moves into a small computer lab down the hall.

"I know they have a lot of recruiters come and talk to them and stuff like that," Phillips said. "And then they have some school lessons."

Schofield, 37, said he was a sanitation worker for the city of Philadelphia before opening the school with David Anwar, now the director of basketball operations at Texas El-Paso. Schofield said he has an associate's degree from Thaddeus Stevens, a two-year community college in Lancaster, Pa.

Lutheran Christian is licensed as a religious institution by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which reports on its database that the school opened Sept. 1, 2003. Schofield said the school is currently not directly affiliated with a church.

Schofield said the school has four part-time instructors: two former players with bachelor's degrees who returned to teach at Lutheran Christian and two women. One of them, Tamara Casey, has listed her residence as one of the houses Schofield said he owns. One current player said Casey taught him in three courses. Property records show that house is owned by Schofield's parents. When asked for the name of the second instructor, Schofield couldn't recall it, calling her "Mrs. Robinson." None of the players he asked could remember Robinson's first name, either.

Casey and Robinson could not be reached for comment.

Lutheran Christian guard Delonte Taylor, from H.D. Woodson High, said he enrolled at the school on the recommendation of his cousin, Chris Matthews, a former player at the school and now a freshman at Washington State. Matthews played three seasons at National Christian Academy before transferring to Schofield's school. Taylor said he had a 3.66 GPA at H.D. Woodson, but didn't earn a qualifying score on standardized tests. Taylor said Lutheran Christian has helped him prepare to take the tests.

"The experience is great," Taylor said. "Basketball-wise, it's a lot more advanced than the D.C. public schools. The schoolwork is, too."