Parents Challenge Trustees Over Private School’s Endowment
March 9, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
The sudden near-closure of a nonprofit private school financed by a late steel magnate’s trust has sparked a bitter court battle in Wisconsin, The New York Times reports.
Parents sued after trustees of the Conserve School announced this year that due to the dire economic climate, its four-year program would be reduced to a single semester of nature-focused study. Critics of the move contend that Conserve trustees, all officials of the Central Wire and Steel Company, in Chicago, were acting in the firm’s interest rather than the school’s.
More than two-thirds of the school’s $181-million endowment is invested in Central Wire and Steel, whose former CEO, James R. Lowenstine, established the trust that largely supports the 143-student institution.
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