The state Department of Education wants to stop funding a charter school north of Wichita after raising concerns about the school’s curriculum and finding its teachers had little contact with students.

The Moundridge school district has also come under fire for buying religious instructional material for students enrolled at the Mid-Kansas Independent Academy. The two-year-old charter school operates similarly to a correspondence school, serving home-schooled students from across the state.

After auditing the district’s enrollment figures, the state announced in December it would no longer provide funding for the academy’s 386 full-time equivalent students. The state said the district “is not offering a publicly supervised and directed educational program through the charter school.”

The district, located about 35 miles north of Wichita, opened the charter school is 2001 with about 150 students. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are freed of many rules and regulations, which advocates say encourages innovation.

The state first threatened to stop funding the school in December 2001 after officials found problems, including teachers not having enough contact with students.

The district sued the state Department of Education last week, asking a court to determine if the charter school is providing an adequate education. The district also asked the court to prevent the state from reducing its monthly payments to the district until the case is settled. The state started cutting back on the payments — worth about $1 million annually — in February.

Several other charter schools in Kansas serve home-schooled students, providing online curriculum and corresponding frequently via e-mail. But the Moundridge academy shouldn’t be confused with those programs, said Dan Biles, an attorney representing state education officials.

“This isn’t a school,” Biles said. “It’s a fraud on the taxpayers. They are taking kids who are home-schooled, providing them with some educational materials and hoping that they learn something. And those educational materials they are supplying, in some cases, include religious materials purchased with public funds.”

District Supt. Rustin Clark said the charter school is only providing what home-schooled families want.

The school’s teachers issue lesson plans for each skill the district wants the students to learn, offering both suggested activities and textbook readings.

Students gain credit for mastering a skill by mailing in an assignment; teachers evaluate the students’ work to determine whether they have learned the skill.

The main problem, said Rod Bieker, chief attorney for the Kansas Department of Education, is that the charter school’s students’ primary contact with teachers is via mailed lesson plans. Though students can call teachers, that rarely happens.

A mediation hearing has been scheduled for March 10 in Topeka, and the first hearing in the case is March 18 in McPherson County.