A student who did not attend classes there paid a fee and graduated.

MIAMI (AP) – Florida’s education chief does not like what he sees as a growing loophole in the state’s standardized graduation exam, allowing failing students to obtain diplomas from a private school in Lewiston, Maine.

North Atlantic Regional High, a private school designed to assist home schoolers, is issuing diplomas to seniors who flunk the Florida test.

One of those who received her diploma from North Atlantic Regional is Stephania Fourron, who failed the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. She came to Florida from Haiti two years ago.

For a $255 fee, North Atlantic Regional offered to accept her course credits and issue a diploma – even though she has never attended classes there. Within weeks, Fourron was able to begin classes at Miami Dade College.

Education Commissioner Jim Horne said he does not like the scenario but does not know if he can do anything about it.

“Somebody’s trying to turn a buck on families who probably don’t know any better,” Horne said. “It just smells fishy.”

Despite the opposition of Horne and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the practice is likely to grow, at least for now, as the director of the Haitian Refugee Center and the first group of graduates spread the word.

“I told everybody, everyone,” Fourron said. “They say, “I can’t pass the FCAT,’ and I say don’t worry about that.”

So far, at least 77 Miami students have received diplomas from North Atlantic Regional. At Miami Dade College, a diploma from North Atlantic Regional is treated the same as a Florida diploma, said registrar Steve Kelly.

“It’s listed as a legitimate high school,” he said. “There would be no questions asked at admissions.”

But a spokesman for the Maine Department of Education said the high school may be misleading students when it claims on its Internet site to “have the authority and privilege to grant high school diplomas in the State of Maine.”

“The state of Maine does not recognize their grades, credits, transcripts or diplomas,” said spokesman Edwin “Buzz” Kastuck. “If you’re home-schooling your children, you can issue them a diploma from your kitchen table – we look at it the same way.”

The school’s husband-and-wife administrators, Steve and Carol Moitozo, said the state of Maine is trying to discredit a legitimate program.

North Atlantic Regional, Steve Moitozo said, screens students’ accomplishments – course work, standardized test scores, internship experiences and other parts of an educational portfolio – and converts them into measurable credits. When a student has met Maine’s graduation requirements – a set number of classes in subjects such as math and English – they receive a diploma.

“The students in Florida earned those credits,” Moitozo said. “They can take them and cash them in anywhere they like.”

North Atlantic Regional has about 400 students in Maine, Moitozo said, most of whom attend occasional classes taught by certified teachers and designed to prepare parents to handle everything from Macbeth to mitosis.

“Our job as a high school is not to teach children; our job as a high school is to teach parents to teach their children,” he said.

More than 80 percent of North Atlantic’s students live outside Maine, Moitozo said. The largest concentration is a group of 400 in Florida.

AP-ES-02-29-04 1401EST