An embattled charter school accused of illegally promoting Islam has faced intense scrutiny from state officials in the past year, including a probe that apparently checked for -- but did not find -- evidence of test fraud or cheating.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) faces a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota over how the public school handles religion, and it could lose $1.4 million in public funding because of alleged teacher-licensure violations, the school estimates.

But the Minnesota Department of Education's investigation of TiZA has gone beyond those topics, according to records released last week by the state. Among other reviews, the state asked its testing contractor to analyze tests taken by students at the school. The test security company said in June that it found no evidence of wrongdoing, records indicate.

"The silver lining of this cloud is that it is absolutely clear that our test results are valid," said Asad Zaman, executive director of the K-8 school, which has campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine.

The Education Department has visited the school more than a dozen times since January 2008, Zaman said, reviewing the school's special education services, after-school programming and more.

"We are glad to be held to a higher standard," he said. "We are perplexed that this has continued for so long and so aggressively and so repeatedly."

Officials at the Education Department declined an interview request last week, citing pending litigation. "In recent weeks, [TiZA] officials and their team of lawyers and consultants have become increasingly litigious and have also ramped up an aggressive public relations campaign," said Deputy Education Commissioner Chas Anderson in a written statement. "It's important for Minnesotans to know that the Department of Education will not be distracted from its commitment to working through the legal process to ensure that publicly funded schools are following the law."

A 'special project'

Earlier this summer, department officials told TiZA they would cancel $530,000 in state aid to the school because, they said, 14 of its teachers lacked proper licenses.

TiZA is appealing the licensure ruling and argues that state officials have dragged their feet in providing the school with records the school needs in order to defend itself. In a lawsuit filed last month, the school asked a Ramsey County district judge to make the department turn over additional data related to the investigation. In response to instructions from the judge, the state released more than 10,000 pages of documents last week.

Among other things, the records show the department asked its testing contractor to do a "special project" analyzing tests taken by TiZA students -- a review state officials said they requested in light of allegations made by the ACLU.

TiZA's students have posted impressive scores on standardized tests, despite the fact that many come from poor immigrant families whose first language is Somali or Arabic. This summer, the school received an award for outstanding growth in student achievement from the Northwest Evaluation Association, a nonprofit organization with more than 3,400 member school districts nationwide. The school also recently posted the highest scores on state reading tests among metro-area schools where at least 85 percent of students live in poverty.

Caveon Test Security told the state in June that the company found no evidence of testing irregularities at the school, state records indicate. The report compared state math and reading tests taken by TiZA students in the spring of 2008 with those from students statewide. It examined the tests for signs of cheating or fraud, such as tests with identical answer sets.

TiZA was also among a handful of public schools tagged for on-site monitoring during testing this spring. Records indicated that department officials who visited the school reported no problems.

Negative publicity's toll

State scrutiny of the school heated up in spring 2008 after Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten questioned whether the school, where most students are Muslim, was promoting Islam. In January, the state's ACLU chapter sued the school for allegedly crossing the line between public education and religion, violating the Constitution's First Amendment.

Zaman said the ACLU suit, state probes and negative publicity have taken their toll on the school, which has grown to serve 480 students since it opened in 2003.

TiZA students have always taken testing seriously, he said, but this year was the first when several asked school administrators, "If we flunk the test, will the school get shut down?" Pressure on the school has prompted several students to leave because parents "do not want to put their children through that," Zaman said.

The school has also had a hard time recruiting teachers, with controversy driving away at least 10 prospective employees, he said.

Because of the licensure allegations, state officials have also withheld two grants that had been awarded to TiZA. One, a federal grant for $375,000 to help other schools replicate TiZA's learning program, was supposed to go into effect this year.

The other, for $500,000, was tagged to help the school pay for renovations of its Inver Grove Heights campus, including dedicated space for parent meetings, art and science labs. The renovations, which were supposed to wrap up by this fall, have not begun, Zaman said.

If TiZA ends up losing all the grants and state aid that are in jeopardy because of the licensure allegations, it's possible the school may not be able to open in the fall, he said.

"We will do our best to live without that money," he said, adding that he doesn't want to panic parents and staff. But for a school that received $4.7 million in state aid during 2008-09, the stakes are high. As Zaman put it, "$1.4 million is enough to cripple just about any charter school in the entire state."

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016