In the wake of the closure of Eagle Academy, Phil Mendelson, chair of the DC council, sent a letter on August 23 to the executive director of the DC charter board with questions around the charter board’s actions.

As a first step toward true oversight, the questions were fine (well, once Mendelson got to them after berating the charter board for actually doing its job by rejecting the Friendship takeover bid).

What follows here is a beginning to the rest of what Mendelson should have asked, for which we have no answers. (And, as the charter board’s 9/9/24 response to Mendelson’s questions shows, we do not seem to be getting closer to answers.)

Thus, perhaps the most obvious unanswered question is why hasn’t anyone in DC leadership demanded answers to any of the following:

–Why did it take the charter board nearly a month after the July 10, 2024 board meeting to post its January 2024 notices (see here and here) around fiscal concerns with Eagle? As it was, the inaccurate description of these notices resulted in the charter board correcting its 7/10/24 hearing memo weeks after that board meeting (see footnote 3 on p. 4 of the 7/10/24 board memo here).

–Why are none of those notices for any DC charter school publicly available?

–Why did Joe Smith, Eagle’s former CEO, resign in May?

–What was Smith’s DC salary when he resigned? (I asked this of Eagle’s board at its June 13, 2024 meeting; I got no response.)

–What exactly was communicated to parents at Eagle? (Ditto.)

–What money is owed to DC by Eagle and how is that being repaid to DC?

–What legal proceedings, if any, is the charter board contemplating around Eagle’s closure (presumably the subject of its closed August 12, 2024 board meeting)?

–What will happen with Eagle’s millions in DC revenue bonds, which were granted by the DC council at the mayor’s request in 2016 on the strength of the LEA’s fiscal performance? (Default on these bonds has happened with DC charters—see here.)

–Will there be any criminal investigation of Eagle?

–Is anyone in DC concerned that the charter board’s executive director said at the July 10 board meeting (at the 1 hour 31 minute mark of the charter board meeting video) that even if the charter board determines that Eagle has committed a criminal act, the charter board will not report the LEA to the DC attorney general until after conducting its own investigation? (Charmingly, the chair of the charter board went out of her way at the August 14 meeting to declare (starting at the 12 minute 45 second mark of the video) that this was not what the executive director said! But the 7/10/24 video linked above and the 7/10/24 meeting transcript (see p. 82) say otherwise.)

–What will happen with the lawsuit currently in DC superior court around unlawful termination at Eagle? The lawsuit was filed on August 16, 2024 by Onari Jackson and has case number 2024-CAB-005266.

–What protections are being instituted by DC leaders to prevent what happened at Eagle happening at other DC charter schools? (NB: That requires understanding what happened, which DC leaders seem to think this is best handled by a body that operates simultaneously as a trade board and a regulator.)

–Who is assuming the lease of McGogney, a former DCPS school owned by DC and leased to Eagle? Despite a desperate need for DCPS swing space nearby in Ward 8 (and the entitlement the lease grants to DCPS for it), there appears to be some concern about not leasing it to a charter, given the money Eagle owes.

–Why was the June 2022 tax sale by DC of land Eagle owns around McGogney cancelled in March 2023? (That land–square and lots 5934 0014 and 5934 0015–was the subject of the buyer’s lawsuit (filed in DC superior court as cases 2023-CAB-001257 and 2023-CAB-001258, respectively). The lawsuit was apparently dismissed after DC paid the buyer’s legal expenses.)

–How is all of this tied to Eagle’s Nevada branch, which like its DC branch was also closed down in summer 2024 for fiscal mismanagement and had at its inception two key players in Eagle in DC (Joe Smith and Jai (Julinda) Mallory) along with a charter management organization (Eagle Charter Schools Inc., or ECS) headed by Smith that was closely associated with DC’s Eagle Academy? See here for documentation of ties between Eagle in Nevada and DC.

–How is all of this tied to Eagle’s Ohio branch, which though currently operating was highlighted in October 2023 for nonwithholding of taxes and had at its inception two key players in Eagle in DC (Joe Smith and Scott Knowlton) along with the same charter management organization used in Nevada (Eagle Charter Schools Inc., or ECS)? See here for documentation of ties between Eagle in Ohio and DC.

–Will DC ever have a hearing about an accounting of, and public reimbursement around, Eagle’s DC assets, like Nevada did on August 23, 2024? In the hearing video, starting at the 42 minute 31 second mark, the Nevada board brought in the head of the organization handling the disposition of Eagle’s assets there and discussed that briefly. (That person, Josh Kern, lives in DC and is well known here with regard to profiting from charters.) Then, at the 4 hour, 17 minute, and 10 second mark, the Nevada charter authority’s lawyer discussed the costs that the state had incurred by way of Eagle.

–Given that Eagle represented itself repeatedly to Nevada as an excellent prospect on the basis of its DC evaluations, what liability does DC have for the failure of Eagle’s Nevada branch, which was largely under the control of Joe Smith and his right-hand person in DC for more than a decade, Jai (Julinda) Mallory?

–Why did the charter board in 2024 enact more scrutiny over Eagle’s finances despite years of low cash on hand and questionable finances? Was it because of Nevada cracking down on Eagle starting in 2023? After all, by 2020 Eagle in DC had multiple years of single digit days of cash on hand, was stiffing contractors, had multiple liens against it, was not paying property taxes, and had (illegal) interest-bearing loans from staff members. (See here for a detailed accounting.) Nonetheless, no one at the DC charter board appeared concerned until after Eagle’s 20-year review in January 2023, which declared there was no financial mismanagement.

–Why are NO notices of concern or monitoring publicly available about the fiscal state of any DC charter school? The only notices of concern I could find for Eagle were the April 8, 2024 mystery caller notice of concern (which was lifted on June 24, 2024) and a truancy notice of concern on April 24, 2017.

–Why doesn’t the DC charter board have situational (and public!) awareness of DC charter organizations and personnel operating in other jurisdictions (like Rocketship, Friendship, BASIS, St. Coletta)—especially as there was an allegation (in a comment posted to this story) that DC money from Eagle was flowing into its Ohio school?

–Why didn’t the large percentage decrease of Eagle’s reserves from 2022 to 2023 (from $5M to $4M)—as shown through its summer 2022 application to expand grades compared to its May 2023 application to do the same–trigger any concerns at the charter board?

–Why did Eagle’s statement in both those applications that it wanted to expand grades to “improve its finances” not immediately trigger additional scrutiny of its finances by the charter board in its January 2023 20-year charter review?

There are two more questions associated with that one immediately above that deserve closer attention now:

1. How is what happened to Eagle in 2024 related to the multiple attempts of Eagle starting in 2022 to expand its grades to “improve its finances”?

In summer 2022, Eagle applied with the charter board to expand its grade levels. In its application, Eagle said that the proposal would (boldface mine) “allow Eagle Academy to maintain or improve its current level of finances since (1) our enrollment numbers should go up, closer to the 920-enrollment cap; and (2) we will be able to keep approximately ninety percent of our current student enrollment at both campuses.”

This application was discussed at the September 19, 2022 board meeting (see here for the board memo and here for the transcript). The plan was rejected on October 17, 2022 on the basis of Eagle submitting its application late (see here for the board memo and here for the transcript).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the charter board documents discussed Eagle’s claim that the expansion would potentially improve its finances.

A few months later, in May 2023, Eagle applied again to expand its grades. Page 4 of that application has a chart on enrollment that shows it declining, while the same wording from the 2022 application about improving finances with the expansion is on p. 6. Notably, that time around the school had $1 million LESS in its reserves than it had listed in its 2022 application.

For reasons not publicly disclosed, Eagle withdrew this application in June 2023—which we now know was when the charter board placed Eagle on its fiscal monitoring list (which is not publicly available). All of which raises more questions:

Was the charter board’s fiscal monitoring in June 2023 prompted by Eagle’s repeated claims in summer 2022 and May 2023 that it would “improve its finances” by way of expanding grades?

and/or

Did Eagle withdraw its application because of that monitoring?

and/or

Were all these actions unrelated?

2. Why did the former executive director of the charter board claim in 2013 that Eagle’s enrollment ceiling was 920 when it appears it was never approved to be that high?

In 2016, Eagle applied to have a change of location. The December 19, 2016 board memo about that says this (boldface mine):

“In February 2012, DC PCSB approved an enrollment ceiling amendment for Eagle Academy PCS, setting the school’s maximum enrollment at 920 students. Due to an oversight, DC PCSB staff did not create an enrollment Schedule I reflecting the increased enrollment. In the proposed amendment, the school’s maximum enrollment is aligned to the 2012 authorization of 920 students.”

The charter board included this little table in the materials for the December 19, 2016 meeting, showing exactly that.

The trouble is that what appears to have been approved in February 2012 for Eagle was a ceiling of 770, as shown by the February 27, 2012 board meeting memo.

The discrepancy around Eagle’s enrollment ceiling is underscored by former charter board executive director Scott Pearson. Sometime in 2013, Eagle applied to have an “emergency” increase in its enrollment ceiling from 844 to 920 students because of more accepted lottery slots than expected.

While it remains unclear when Eagle was approved to go to 844 students, the charter board’s executive director himself wrote the October 2013 board memo about this 2013 Eagle application. Here is a screenshot of the relevant portion:

Neither the February 27, 2012 board memo nor the minutes for that meeting provide any documentation in support of this 2013 outline–nor do the materials for the December 19, 2016 meeting, which simply state that 920 was the “2012 authorization” level.

So while Scott Pearson in that October 2013 charter board memo rejected Eagle’s attempt to go to 920 students in 2013, he also appeared to have established 920 as Eagle’s future enrollment ceiling, which was confirmed years later by the December 19, 2016 board materials–all without actual documentation.

The only question is why.