On December 5, the DC council held a hearing on what went down at Eagle Academy. It was an unusual moment, if for no other reason than the council has never exercised any extensive oversight of DC’s charter sector. As it is, at least some of what little the council has done on that score, such as making charter school board meetings open to the public, is not really enforced (though funnily enough, the charter board just announced a new staff member whose job entails attending charter LEA board meetings–see #6 on p. 3 here).

Which makes it all the more incredible that the December 5 Eagle hearing lasted more than 5 hours. It started with a few (invited) public witnesses, after which the charter board executive director; its chief operating officer (COO); and its board chair came on as government witnesses. The hearing is well worth listening to in its entirety—but if you have only a few minutes, be sure to listen to public witness Onari Jackson (the former Eagle staffer whose lawsuit against Eagle Academy for unlawful termination was recently certified for class status), starting at the 1:06:43 mark, and public witness Sharn Boone-Ruffin (an Eagle parent and board member), starting at the 1:03:07 mark. Their testimonies are simply jaw-dropping.

In truth, however, while a lot has been said about Eagle, what was not said and/or deftly avoided on December 5 by the charter board government witnesses bears a closer look—as do the actions of both council and mayor going forward.

Disappeared Fiscal Information

The Eagle timeline presented by charter board government witnesses begins in 2017, which leaves out key events in 2016. (See the video starting at 3:31:55 and p. 15 of the charter board’s December 5 slide deck.)

Specifically, in 2016 Eagle’s cash on hand dropped significantly, while Eagle purchased a Ward 8 property (what became 2345 R SE) in August 2016 for $1.6 million. Then, starting in October 2016 and going through July 2018, two Eagle staff members–CEO Joe Smith and someone who is unidentified–loaned the school >$600,000, charging 4% interest:

–A loan from Smith for $20,000 (due 6/22/17);
–A loan from Smith for $125,000 (due 10/12/16);
–A loan from an unidentified staff member for $301,000 (maturity date 7/14/17); and
–A loan from an unidentified staff member for $325,000 (maturity date 7/16/18).

None of these pre-2024 staff loans is mentioned in any charter board FAR (financial analysis report). The FARs are the charter board’s annual published review of finances in DC’s charter sector; FARs also contain annual fiscal reports on individual charter LEAs. These pre-2024 Eagle staff loans were also unmentioned by charter board witnesses on December 5–and, perhaps unsurprisingly, were not mentioned in the charter board’s September 9 response to the chairman’s August questions.

Instead, at several junctures at the December 5 hearing charter board personnel were asked directly about “a” loan (singular) from Joe Smith to Eagle—and there was considerable wobbling in the responses.

For instance, at 4:14:55, Ward 5 council member Zachary Parker asked when the charter board became aware of Smith’s loan (singular)–and the charter board COO Will Henderson said it was May or June 2024. No longer after, at 4:25:56, COO Henderson said he didn’t know the amount of “the” loan (singular) from Smith to Eagle. But about an hour later, at 5:27:10, charter board executive director Michelle Walker-Davis said Smith loaned the school $50,000 in March 2024. (Left hand, meet right hand!)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the silence on the pre-2024 staff loans, nothing about that 2024 loan of $50,000 from Joe Smith to Eagle was mentioned in any fiscal accounting by the charter board—including the charter board’s September 9 response to council questions (which came months after the COO said the charter board knew about the loan). The general public apparently first learned of the 2024 loan from Smith himself, as reported in the Post in October. Smith also alluded to it in his written testimony for the December 5 hearing.

There are several things to unpack here:

–In 2016, Cassandra Pinkney–co-founder and co-leader of Eagle with its CEO Joe Smith–died. As Ms. Pinkney was apparently ill before her death in September of that year, Joe Smith was likely the main driver of the LEA’s finances from 2016 on–including arranging both the pre-2024 staff loans and 2024 loan.

–The only places the pre-2024 staff loans appear to be mentioned publicly are on Eagle’s fiscal audits from 2015 through 2020 (see p. 15 of the 2019 fiscal audit, for example, which is posted with Eagle’s other fiscal audits on the charter board website).

–In response to a question from Ward 6 council member Charles Allen (at 4:29:45) about why FARs (which for some reason Allen suggested are intended only for LEA boards) did not include things like Eagle’s low cash on hand for years running; interest-bearing loans from staff; outsize marketing budgets; or the CEO’s high salary, the answer Allen got was revealing:

Walker-Davis: “The FAR is our report that we publish to the public. It is not written for the LEA’s board. Those things that you mentioned are the things that should be the subject of the financial reports that the school leader is giving and the board treasurer is requiring at the LEA level.”
COO Henderson: “Much of that information should be in the audited financials, which would come out much sooner than the FAR.”

Notice that the charter board witnesses gave no reason why those items are not in the FARs. They also did not reveal whether this information is ever taken into account in assessing charter fiscal health. (Holy missing information, Batman!)

Thus, despite having years to have reasonably known about Eagle’s pre-2024 staff loans, the charter board either did not know about those loans (which means they were not looking at the fiscal audits) OR the charter board knew about the loans and ignored them. And the hearing responses revealed the same about Smith’s 2024 loan to Eagle, which the charter board clearly knew about and avoided all mention of in its publicly available fiscal accounting for Eagle in 2024.

–At 4:31:50, Walker-Davis suggested that all charter board fiscal corrective action plans (FCAPs), like that issued for Eagle in July, are on the charter board’s transparency hub and finance page of its website.

That is indeed true—at least as of the day after the hearing, when this was posted. It remains, however, neither easy nor obvious to find on the charter board’s financial web sites. (I actually found that item linked here first on the charter board’s list of news items.)

Walker-Davis also noted (at 3:44:55) that “when appropriate” the charter board will publish any FCAP on the school’s profile page. At about 4:31:00, when asked to define “appropriate” in that context, Walker-Davis suggested it is any time there is an FCAP.

–A short time later in the hearing (at 4:40:40), at large council member Christina Henderson asked how many charter LEAs are meeting minimum fiscal targets. COO Henderson replied that he didn’t have an answer (despite this metric being mentioned as a percentage in the charter board’s annual FAR—ie see p. 2 of the most recent FAR). Walker-Davis then stepped in to say that 7 LEAs are currently on the charter board’s fiscal monitoring list, with 3 having FCAPs.

Are we clear here yet?

Obscuring The “Who” And The “What”

Eagle’s pre-2024 staff loans and specific charters not meeting minimum fiscal targets were not the only things the charter board left out during the December 5 hearing—or obscured altogether.

For instance, outlining Eagle’s timeline of recent fiscal issues starting at about the 3:34:34 mark, Dr. Walker-Davis mentioned nothing about the July 10, 2024 board memo that noted terrible stuff happening at Eagle in February 2024. (See p. 5ff of the 7/10/24 board memo here.) In fact, the terrible stuff outlined in that July board memo suggests that by the end of March, the charter board possessed information that the school was unlikely to continue to the next school year. (If that raises for you the question why the charter board waited until July to issue an FCAP to Eagle, you are correct to wonder–just put a pin in that for a moment.)

Then there was the devastating line of questioning from CM Allen (starting at 4:21:00). In less than 10 minutes, Allen managed to get the charter board witnesses to show that

–the charter board knew nothing about what Eagle was doing in Nevada and Ohio, despite its intimate connection to DC’s Eagle and Joe Smith;
–the charter board was unsure whether Eagle’s 2021 increase in liquidity (and hence removal from the charter board’s fiscal monitoring) was connected to its newly signed contract in Ohio; and
–the charter board knew but didn’t previously disclose what remained of the $4 million given to Eagle in July for SY24-25. As a result of council questioning, we now know that $1 million remains of that $4 million, frozen by “the” bank (whichever that is), with $1 million having gone to payroll; $1.3 million gone to pay off a line of credit; and $1 million gone to preparing for the school year that never was.

Incredibly, absolutely none of what the charter board witnesses disclosed at the December 5 hearing in response to council questions is specialized or privileged information. Yet it almost always felt that way.

Consider that at 4:42:38, council chair Mendelson asked about that list of the 60% of charter schools (ie 41 total) in FY23 meeting minimum fiscal targets, as reported in the most recent FAR. The charter board witnesses were also asked for more recent (FY24) information around that. The charter board witnesses promised to get back to the council with this information.

But here’s the thing: To calculate that 60% number means you have to know exactly which schools are, and are not, meeting minimum targets! So someone at the charter board elected to not make this information public in its public reporting of charter fiscal health.

In the same vein, CM Parker asked a series of questions starting at 5:18:15, including the number of notices of concern for Eagle’s finances; complaints filed; and how much Eagle sold its property (at 2345 R SE) for. Again, none of this is specialized or privileged information, and it directly concerns Eagle’s finances and standing. Yet it’s not easily or publicly available.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of what we know about Eagle’s real estate adventures in DC comes from Nevada, by way of a FOIA production. One can see on p. 108 of the google doc (or p. 99 of the original) that Eagle spent $20 million renovating its leased W8 building (McGogney) and $9 million building its W8 school building at 2345 R SE. So by my tally, Eagle laid out $20M for McGogney; $1.6M to purchase 2345 R SE; and $9M to build the building at 2345 R SE–and received $11M from Lee Montessori, which purchased 2345 R SE in 2021.

Finally, at several points at the December 5 hearing (4:50:00, 5:44:32), Ward 3 council member Matt Frumin asked what constitutes charter schools’ unrestricted cash, a metric used in all FARs. (He didn’t get an answer.) Frumin also asked about the KIPP DC missing $7 million. (Ditto—despite the closed charter board meeting about it in 2023.) In addition to answers to all those questions being promised, Walker-Davis also promised (at 5:40:40) to get back on whether the charter board has ever taken over a school.

So we wait—again—for basic fiscal information that should be readily publicly accessible.

Whither The Council & Mayor?

Despite his reported reluctance to hold the Eagle hearing, council chair Phil Mendelson insisted at several points (at 3:51:10 and 5:05:50) that the trend with Eagle had been really in one direction only starting before 2023 and that by the time the FCAP was enacted by the charter board, in July 2024, it was much too late.

While that take appears to be accurate, Mendelson also seemed to believe that Friendship should have taken Eagle over. But CM Henderson noted (from 5:29:53 on) that DC would not have known a lot of what went down if Friendship had, in fact, taken Eagle over–and that the charter board clearly missed a lot. CM Henderson’s take on that is IMO also accurate.

Interestingly, CM Henderson asked (starting at 4:37:10) about the charter board itself taking over the school, per the law crafted at the request of the former charter board executive director. That law gives the charter board considerable leeway in determining whether and when to take over an LEA.

But Henderson did not get a straightforward answer to her question. Indeed, here is where we might unstick that pin from a few paragraphs ago, about the lateness of the charter board in issuing Eagle an FCAP in July 2024 while apparently making no effort to take the school over: It is possible, if not likely, that the charter board wanted nothing to do with Eagle for legal reasons.

Recall that the charter board held a closed meeting on legal issues around Eagle 2 days before voting on the Friendship takeover. All of that occurred about a month after the charter board issued the FCAP. There were also multiple references during the December 5 hearing about legal actions by the DC attorney general and possible crimes. It thus seems reasonable to presume that if Eagle was taken over by another LEA or went out of business on its own, whatever legal issues were involved would likely not accrue to the charter board itself. But the charter board might not have found itself as happily insulated if involved directly in the operation of the school by taking it over.

Such potential self-preservation on the part of the charter board is not a defense for what appears to be a clear line of delay in interceding on behalf of Eagle families. But it puts into context what at best can be called a deist view of oversight by the charter board. Simply put, the charter board (staff and members) act on what they want to act on according to what they want. That none of what they want is publicly shared in full or (sometimes? ever?) in the public interest is beside the point. They have the power and they use it, end of story.

While this has (ironically? tragically?) prepped us here in DC for what 2025 will hold for the rest of our nation, it also means that the December 5 hearing revealed much less than it ought to have revealed. Consider that the charter board witnesses’ total tenure at their respective posts amounts to barely more than a review cycle for Eagle. (Really: Will Henderson started as COO in 2023; Michelle Walker-Davis started in 2020; board chair Shantelle Wright joined the board in 2022 and became chair just last month.) Most of the people at the charter board who overlooked years of what went down at Eagle were, literally, not present.

Thus, the December 5 hearing left us only with the most devastating revelation of all: that the DC charter board doesn’t act in the public interest as a matter of habit and principle.

Unfortunately, the council seems ill-equipped to deal with that reality. Consider the odd moment when CM Henderson asked–in the wake of my testimony about how the public was not informed about Eagle’s fiscal problems—whether thusly informing the public would disadvantage schools in fiscal distress, as it would also affect enrollment.

Setting aside the grotesquery of worrying about a private nonprofit’s fiscal status before letting parents know that their school might not survive the school year (yeah), utterly no one at the council has any problem publicizing DCPS budget shortfalls and financing snafus!

In fact, the council not only has hearings several times a year about that, but the chair of the council rammed through legislation specifically to address it. I know I want to live in the bucolic town where CM Henderson apparently lives, where charter propaganda doesn’t exist; DCPS school budgets don’t get cut and fought over publicly; and DCPS school enrollment doesn’t drop precipitously from one year to the next as a result of that and whatever vibes waft from listserves and playgrounds around all of it.

Clearly, if the council is going to do something around the train wreck of oversight of DC charters, that action cannot just be hands-off. In the days preceding the December 5 hearing, for instance, CM Henderson introduced legislation mandating training for all charter LEA boards.

I hope we can agree that mandating training of volunteers for oversight of $1 billion annually from DC taxpayers is a pretty low bar. Indeed, it’s such a low bar that it could be mistaken for a tripping hazard in hell. Because while the mistakes and looking away by Eagle’s board were legendary, there was a lot the charter board could have (and didn’t) flag that absolutely would have resulted in a different outcome no matter what Eagle’s board did.

To be sure, the council is hardly alone in not touching DC charters with anything as harsh as actual oversight to benefit the public directly. The mayor is right there with them. There is no democratic reason, for instance, that all charter leases of former DCPS schools owned by DC should not have a clause allowing DCPS to use those buildings if needed. And there is no democratic reason to pay charters surplus facilities money every year. Or to ever build in an annual increase for that money when it is patently obvious that some charters are simply stockpiling the cash for uses that remain publicly unseen and untraced.

Yet even after Eagle’s spectacular meltdown, and more than 5 hours of video showing how the charter board is not committed to serving the public, it is unclear whether the mayor and the council accept any of that.

Specifically, if your take home from Eagle’s demise is that Friendship (or the charter board itself) should have taken over Eagle; that Eagle’s board just needed training; and/or that Eagle was uniquely bad, you are missing the flaming billboard showing that DC charter board fiscal oversight is poor by design.

Consider that on December 5, charter board witnesses demonstrated they did not know

–what constitutes unrestricted cash in their own fiscal analyses;
–whether the charter board has ever taken over a school;
–the specific schools meeting minimum fiscal targets in ANY given year; and
–what is (and is not) on the charter website for fiscal information.

That’s pretty basic stuff—and what should be a very minimal floor for oversight of $1 billion annually.

Yet at the December 5 hearing the charter board witnesses also suggested that the charter board doesn’t take into account in its fiscal analyses key financial indicators (yes, KFIs) central to Eagle’s fiscal misadventures, like interest-bearing staff loans; excessive CEO salary and marketing budgets; liens and fines; and nonpayment of taxes. The charter board witnesses also indicated they did not know (or apparently care) about specific fiscal problems that affect charter finances (ie what Eagle was doing in Nevada and Ohio and its connections to DC; what went down with KIPP DC’s missing $7 million; the years of Eagle’s staff loans; etc.).

In the meantime, despite all those hours on December 5 that outlined the charter board’s poor oversight, the charter board has embarked on a financial responsibility tour, highlighting the virtues of their fiscal oversight that spectacularly failed Eagle families. The charter board presentation last month, on November 18, was about charter board metrics of fiscal analysis. The presentation this month, on December 16, was on what the charter board does when things go financially sideways at charter schools. The next presentation (slated for winter/spring 2025) is supposed to be on lessons learned and changes the charter board is making.

Bless their hearts for thinking that anyone could believe this!

Setting aside the sheer depth of what the charter board ignored for years around Eagle, the charter board’s first presentation on November 18; the charter board’s slide deck from the hearing on December 5; and its second presentation on December 16 all contained a single slide outlining charter board; school board; staff; and family roles and responsibilities in oversight (on p. 5; p. 5; and p. 4, respectively).

Yet each slide purportedly showing the same information was slightly different.

So: Did the roles and responsibilities of all those entities change between November 18 and December 16?

Or is this all nonsense on some level?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is nothing in any of those slides to show what happens if a charter school decides to openly flout the law—like, not publicizing its board meetings as Eagle did. There is, of course, a law saying DC charters have to publicize their board meetings. But if the law is unenforced (and it is), and if the charter board knows of violations (as they did, because I told them) and does nothing, then what does it mean for a charter school to “promote transparency” (as all the slides mention)?

It.

Means.

Nothing.

And the charter board knows it. And everyone in DC from the mayor on down should know it, too. As it is, if the charter board had done with Eagle what it outlined as its fiscal oversight in its December 16 slide deck, Eagle would have ended well before August 2024.

In the end, all the events of 2024 around Eagle have shown clearly that DC charter board is deeply uncommitted to serving the public. They serve who they want to serve—which appears to be the private nonprofits that run DC charter schools and, ultimately, themselves.

And the December 5 hearing made clear that we have at least two council members who seem OK with that. While no one can know (at the moment, at least) what the other half of the council who didn’t show up on December 5 thinks, it’s a reasonable guess that they probably are cool with merely tweaking at the edges of the status quo. All of this suggests that absent (massive) change, the council will not deliver anything more than the window dressing that has stood in for charter oversight in DC thus far.

So welcome to 2025—where getting what the public needs and deserves will likely be a fight against entrenched wealthy and powerful interests whose wealth and power is greater than ever. For DC’s publicly funded schools, it’s the same story as before—only more so.