[Ed. Note: Below is a list of recent, dispiriting, and not unique occurrences regarding the dissing of the public around our publicly funded schools. Thankfully, an antidote is at hand: The DC Open Government Coalition (in collaboration with the DC Public Library) is providing a free program to empower residents to get information about our publicly funded schools. The program is on Wednesday July 12 at 6 pm at the Shaw library, 1630 7th St. NW, meeting room 1. Sign up is here. Go forth in power.]

–Many large trees were chopped down in spring to build a new facility in Ward 8 for DC’s Community College Prep charter school–to the consternation of some nearby residents. The property owner, CC PREP QALICB LLC, is an LLC whose contact is the school’s board chair (the politically well-connected Monica Ray). The purchase of the property at 1802 Woodmont Pl SE was finalized months after charter board approval of the locale–for about six times its assessed value.

At the charter board meeting on November 21, 2022, there was some discussion about the large trees on this property (see it here in the video, starting at about minute 37).

In its October 2022 application to the charter board for this location (see here for the first, and now publicly deleted, iteration and here for the second iteration), CC Prep said it purchased the property 2 years before. But the December 2022 charter board memo on CC Prep’s application said in a footnote that there was a “sales agreement” that wasn’t “closed.”

That means public knowledge of the sale lagged until after the charter board approved the location on December 19, 2022.

And all of that means there’s now the question of

1. what public money went to tearing down trees in a DC neighborhood against the wishes of at least a few neighbors;
2. what advantage accrued to CC Prep by ensuring public knowledge of the property’s sale was delayed until after charter board approval of its location there; and
3. what public money went toward purchasing a privately held property for six times its assessed value.

Back in 2022, some of those questions were asked of charter board members—with no response.

–In May 2023, Eagle Academy applied with the charter board to add 4th and 5th grades, in what appeared to be a repeat of its application from 2022. Back then, when there was a ban on new charters and expansions of existing ones, Eagle’s effort was rejected by the charter board.

But at some point in the weeks since it showed up in early June 2023 on the public comment section of the charter board website, Eagle’s May 2023 application disappeared from public view!

(Is it me, or is there a pattern here?)

[7/13/2023 UPDATE: The charter board reinstated Eagle’s May 2023 application on its website, noting that it was withdrawn. See the updated website here.]

For the record, here is Eagle’s May 2023 application, which I downloaded before it disappeared from the charter board website; additional application materials are at this website (well, until they aren’t, because public materials aren’t so public anymore or something).

What caught my eye on this application was Eagle’s needs analysis on p. 3:

“According to the 2022 DC PCSB Sector Planning Supplement, the DC Policy Center predicts much lower population forecasts for school-aged children because of fewer births, residents of childbearing age leaving, and District women having fewer children. However, the group that will continue to experience the greatest growth is the 3 to 10 years age group. The expected growth of almost 7,000 students by 2025 will benefit a LEA expanding to become an elementary school serving ages 3 to 10, or grades 4th and 5th. As of today, DC PCSB has approved 2,790 new seats in grades PreK-3 – 5th, while the anticipated public charter schools share is 3,018 by 2025.”

That such so-called “growth” is wrong on its face is one thing (rest assured, it is wrong). But possibly worse is how Eagle implies on p. 6 that its own growth is a budget decision, in a (Ponzi-like?) repeat of its earlier application (boldface mine):

“Eagle Academy’s proposal to expand its grade bands to include 4th and 5th grade would allow Eagle Academy to maintain or improve its current level of finances since (1) our enrollment numbers should go up; and (2) we will be able to keep approximately ninety percent (90%) of our current student enrollment at both campuses”

In fact, on p. 7 Eagle references the income it makes from its $4 million in reserves, noting that “the additional cost [of expansion] would be covered by the interest Eagle Academy receives on its reserves.”

Interestingly, Eagle’s 2022 application mentioned $5 million in reserves.

So: where’d the $1 million in reserves go between September 2022 and June 2023?

And where’d Eagle’s May 2023 application go?? [7/13/23 UPDATE: See update note above]

On July 5, I asked charter board chief external affairs officer Tomeika Bowden that last question; as of this posting, I have not received an answer. [7/13/23 UPDATE: Got the answer today.]

–As parents in June protested teacher turnover and student violence at DC’s Mundo Verde charter school, it is worth recalling that Eagle Academy is not the only DC charter to imply that expansion is necessary for financial stability.

Mundo Verde did just that a few years back in the face of opposition—and is now planning to expand yet again.

Specifically, before and during the June 2017 charter board meeting, Mundo parents and neighbors provided testimony against the formation of a new (Calle Ocho) campus for the school. At the time, school administrators said that expansion was necessary in part to keep fiscally afloat.

As the minutes of the June 2017 meeting make clear, opposition to Mundo Verde’s expansion then was based on—wait for it–teacher retention and student safety issues.

Nonetheless, the charter board approved the expansion.

Then, in September 2022 Mundo applied for DC revenue bonds to expand its Calle Ocho campus at an adjacent location.

But there were a few hitches in the proceedings:

For one, Mundo apparently did not tell neighbors at that time about the revenue bonds or its real estate ambitions, attributing its silence to a nondisclosure agreement. As a result, at the October 5 DC council hearing for the bond legislation, the ANC rep testified (see the video at about the 6 minute, 10 second mark) that the neighborhood had no idea of the school’s formal plan with that site until the council member in charge of oversight contacted the ANC about the bond hearing.

For another, weeks after that revenue bonds council hearing, Mundo Verde applied with the charter board to be at that new (adjacent) location. Its application was publicly posted by the charter board on October 31 (see the screenshot here).

Fascinatingly, that was the day before the DC Council approved the revenue bonds for the site.

(Now who says DC can’t do cross-sector collaboration?)

Yet in its October 2022 charter board application, Mundo Verde declared that “due to having a non-disclosure agreement pertaining to our real estate negotiations with the owner [of the adjacent site], we have only recently been able to begin a more public process” regarding outreach to the ANC.

So here’s the bait and switch:

Mundo Verde decided that a (public) appeal to the DC Council in September and early October for revenue bonds for this location was not a violation of its nondisclosure agreement—while saying weeks later (in its application to the charter board for this location) that telling neighbors was a violation of its nondisclosure agreement.

When I testified to the charter board at its December 2022 meeting about that convenient bait and switch, the school’s executive director said there was “confusion.”

I’ll say!

Naturally, the charter board approved Mundo’s latest plans in March 2023—in much the same manner that it approved the school’s 10-year review in February 2021, which naturally had no mention of either staff retention or student violence.

–At its June 2023 meeting, the DC charter board discussed (starting at about the 1 hour, 46 mark of the video here) a corrective financial plan for KIPP DC in the wake of embezzlement of $2 million at the LEA. At the 2 hour, 3 minute mark of the meeting, board member Jim Sandman asked why it took so long to discover the fraud, which occurred from April 2020 to August 2021.

It is unclear whether he ever got a good answer–but no matter: within 20 minutes of his asking that question, board members approved the corrective plan, with radio silence around the more than $5 million around construction contracts and commitments that were in the last 2 or more years unreported by KIPP DC (see p. 42 in the June 2021 audit).

Ironically, that same June 2021 audit mentions nothing about the $2 million embezzlement, which by that time had been going on for more than a year. KIPP DC was reported to have found the embezzlement months after that June 2021 audit, “during a routine internal review in December [2021].”

In fact, the $2 million embezzlement became public knowledge only after about a year after KIPP DC’s reported discovery of it, when the feds filed a lawsuit for civil forfeiture in August 2022.

(That fact was also unmentioned during the June 2023 charter board meeting. Naturally.)

–On June 7, the ANC6C planning, zoning, and economic development committee hosted an informational presentation by BASIS on its desire to create an elementary school in the ANC. As far as I can see, there is no application yet with the charter board (but then, as the charter board has amply demonstrated above, who in the public really knows?).

While BASIS refused to reveal exactly where the proposed school would be, they said they have 50 families in ANC6C and that they are looking at locating around 300 I NE, behind the Giant grocery store.

The presentation by the school was long on how it is intended for “nerds.” The head of the ANC committee (who is also the head of the ANC) said that the “chief” concern is transportation.

(Here’s the write-up of the meeting.)

Completely ignored were the following:

—The proposed location is close to DCPS elementaries Ludlow-Taylor (7th and G NE) and JO Wilson (7th and K NE).

—BASIS has a track record of not having a student demographic representative of DC students. (Check out the latest DC school report card link here.)

—BASIS applied to create an elementary school back in 2016, but its worrisome demographics were noticed by the charter board, after which the school withdrew its application.

(You can see the only remnant public record of that meeting here, as all charter board meeting videos before January 2018 were destroyed. )

(And no, I am not kidding about the video destruction, which as far as I know the charter board has never said anything publicly about. But perhaps the next time someone opines about how much information DC’s charter board provides to the public, you might send them the link for this blog post.)