Vocational School

Harrison Career Institute, a regional chain of vocational schools fined and barred last month from participating in federal student-aid programs, now appears to be the subject of a federal criminal probe. Agents of the FBI and the U.S. Department of Education's Inspector General on Thursday raided and removed boxes of files from four Harrison locations: the schools' headquarters in Voorhees, Camden County; 1619 Walnut St. in Center City; a site in Deptford, Gloucester County; and one in Kingston in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Ashley Burg lived in two worlds: the one she was born into, surrounded by sex, drugs and crime, and the one to which she tried to escape. She left the darker side of Fishtown for the South Jersey suburbs, donning a Catholic school uniform, spending time with her father, and later excelling in high school computer classes. But each weekend she returned to Philadelphia, where, as a young teenager, she dated a man with a criminal record. There, she was introduced to the exotic dancers who hired her out as an escort and are now connected to her death.

The state has issued subpoenas to the Burlington County Bridge Commission and the Burlington County Institute of Technology, demanding documents relating to work done by State Sen. Martha Bark. The Division of Criminal Justice investigation follows questions surrounding two part-time positions that Bark, 75, formerly held at the GOP-controlled institutions. Between 1997 and 2003, the Burlington County Republican, who makes $49,000 as a senator, earned several hundred thousand dollars total in the two jobs.

At Barrett Recreation Center in Olney, the thumps of basketballs and the swoosh of points scored usually fill the air on hot summer days. But yesterday, only the whispers of friends mourning Sunday's fatal shooting of 15-year-old Seth Whack could be heard on the playground, where swings hung empty and visitors sat on benches instead of shooting hoops. Philadelphia police are searching for at least two assailants who gunned down Whack as he fled the recreation center at Eighth and Duncannon Streets.

In most respects, these are good times for the Chester County Intermediate Unit's vocational-technical programs. Enrollment is high at both the Center for Arts and Technology-Pickering (CAT-Pickering) campus in Schuylkill Township, near Phoenixville, and at the CAT-Brandywine campus in Caln Township, just outside Coatesville. More than half the graduates of the two schools, which have a combined enrollment of about 1,500 and an operating budget of about $11 million, have gone on to post-secondary programs in recent years, say officials at the Chester County Intermediate Unit, which manages the schools.

Maple Shade, with its Victorian-style clock on the square and its stores lining Main Street, would never be mistaken for New York. Nevertheless, Alan Rabinowitz and Jay Joy think Maple Shade is ready for a New York-style men's hair lounge. And as the pair - both 28 and barbers by trade - would be quick to tell you, Pompadours is not your typical South Jersey barbershop, despite the traditional barbershop pole out front. Yes, there are three barbershop chairs and other ubiquitous accoutrements of the trade, but behind the three chairs are a pool table and a large TV attached to the ceiling, one that seems to be always tuned to a sporting event.

In an emotionally charged meeting, the zoning board approved an early but important step in building a Catholic high school in Deptford. Much to the chagrin of neighbors who thought the land should be preserved, the township's Board of Zoning Adjustments voted, 5-2, on Tuesday to allow the Diocese of Camden to move forward with plans to build a 1,600-student school on Blackwood-Barnsboro Road. At the meeting - the third in as many months to end close to midnight - diocese officials were seeking a use variance that would permit the school even though Deptford's master plan does not call for such a large institution in that area.

On the morning of Sept. 11, Chalina Clemons, a limousine driver, had just dropped off a passenger from Newark International Airport in Lower Manhattan and was driving back to New Jersey when she saw the second plane "disappear" into the World Trade Center. Soon after the terrorist attacks, with people avoiding air travel, "my jobs just got cut in half and I decided to change careers," she said. Now, the 32-year-old widowed mother of four from Northeast Philadelphia, who had been working for a Princeton limousine service, is preparing for a career as an environmental technician by attending ETI International, a Center City vocational training school.

The Tredyffrin/Easttown School District is contemplating pulling out of a four-district vocational and technical school, saying it pays too big a portion of the school's bill. "We're in effect subsidizing the education of students in other districts," said Linda Bravacos, chairwoman of the property and finance committee of the Tredyffrin/Easttown school board. The school in question is the Center for Arts and Technology's Pickering campus, one of two vocational schools operated by the Chester County Intermediate Unit.

Justin Taylor was friendly enough as he shook hands with a visitor, but administrator Bob Stoebnau thought the Mercy Vocational High School senior was behaving out of character. "Where's the business card you give everyone when you meet them?" Stoebnau asked. Taylor reached into his pocket and pulled out a card for PLS Inc. Plumb Level and Square, with the teenager listed as president. "He once handed it to the head of a company we were courting as a potential employer," Linda Leighbody, the school's development director, recalled.