Marcus Garvey Public Charter School (Washington, DC)

“School principal avoids jail sentence in assault on reporter, police.”Reporters Committee for Fredom of the Press, 11/3/1997

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A Washington, D.C. charter school principal was sentenced in mid-October to two years' probation for assaulting a Washington Times reporter and two D.C. police officers.

A D.C. Superior Court judge rejected the prosecutor's argument that Mary A.T. Anigbo, principal of the Marcus Garvey Public Charter School, deserved jail time for assaulting reporter Susan Ferrechio and the two officers at the school in early December. Instead, Anigbo will have to perform 240 hours of community service.

Ferrechio had gone to the school to complete a story on charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed. According to testimony during the trial, Ferrechio said that inside the school, she was assaulted by Anigbo, other staff members and students. She said Anigbo, who is black, yelled racial epithets as Ferrechio was physically ejected from the school.

Ferrechio returned two hours later with a Times photographer and two police officers. Another scuffle broke out when the photographer began snapping photos of Anigbo and other school employees.

In D.C. Superior Court in early August, Anigbo was convicted of three counts of simple assault for attacking Ferrechio and the two police officers and one count of taking property without right for stealing Ferrechio's notepad. Three other Garvey employees were also found guilty of similar charges.

Prosecutors urged that Anigbo be jailed for the incident because "a defendant who expresses no remorse for her crime and no respect for the court shows little chance of genuine rehabilitation on probation," The Washington Post reported. Anigbo could have faced up to 21 months in prison and fines totaling $3,300.

According to The Post, Judge Truman Morrison III called Anigbo's conduct "serious," but added that "by failing to incarcerate her, the court is not condoning her conduct."

Morrison also said he was not pleased with Anigbo's recurring claim that the trial was an exercise in racism, The Post reported.

Anigbo said she is appealing her conviction and that she will file a civil suit against The Times and the D.C. police. Her attorney would not elaborate. (D.C. v. Anigbo)

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Friendship Public Charter School

“Teacher at Friendship Public Charter School Accused of Taping Visually Impaired Student To Chair; Teacher has been placed on administrative leave.” WTTG FOX 5 (DC), 3/8/2012

WASHINGTON - A teacher at Friendship Public Charter School has been placed on administrative leave after allegedly taping a nine-year-old visually impaired student to a chair.

The alleged incident happened Wednesday afternoon during an after school tutoring program at the Friendship Blow Pierce Junior Academy Campus in Northeast.

Christian Washington, a fourth grade student, says he asked his teacher if he could get up, and when he did for a second time, the teacher first threatened to tape him to his chair, and then did. Washington says he was wrapped with the tape several times around his chest and his legs. He says he was embarrassed.

"She was laughing. Everybody in the class was laughing at me," Washington says...

Terik Washington says Christian is visually impaired, and she placed him at Friendship because he had been taunted by other students at his previous school. She says it has been just as bad at Friendship, and now for a teacher to cross the line, she's heartbroken...

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Howard Road Academy Public Charter School

“Cheating on DC-CAS Costs Charter School.” Washington Post (DC), 8/12/2009

The teacher at Howard Road Academy Public Charter School suspected something was seriously amiss in April when a student taking the math portion of the DC-CAS standardized test announced that she was finished -- way early.

"You can't be finished. Go back and check your work," the teacher said.

"We did this yesterday. I know all of the answers," the student said.

The scene comes from a report by school officials detailing the investigation of a cheating scandal at their G Street campus in Southeast D.C. When the probe was done, an administrator and two teachers were dismissed and 27 fourth- and sixth-graders had their test scores invalidated...

When the teacher looked at the student's exam, she found that the problems were identical to those in a packet of practice questions distributed to students a few days earlier. A colleague had a similar experience, and they shared their concern with the school's leadership.

According to a statement from an unnamed school official, copies of the test were "distributed strategically to two new teachers who have never administered a DC-CAS before and didn't know what they looked like. The pages were copied without covers and distributed to them as extra practice for the kids."

Security was also lax, according to another staff member's statement. Copies of the exams were sitting in an unlocked cabinet for three weeks prior to testing week.

The administrator who leaked the test, and two teachers who knew of the cheating but did not report it, were dismissed, according to the report.

The report also strongly suggests that school politics may have helped create an envionment [sic] in which cheating could take root. It includes a letter of "reprimand" and another of "admonishment" to two unnamed Howard Road employees from Mosaica Education Inc., the company that operates Howard Road and charter schools in eight states.

One of them, who was apparently in a senior position, was cited for a failure of leadership because the teachers who suspected the cheating "did not feel comfortable" coming to him/her. "Had they not seen you as so personally close to [name redacted] they would have brought this issue directly to your attention."

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William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts

“D.C. charter school slaps founders with lawsuit, restraining orders.” Washington Examiner, 7/5/11 

The founders of a District charter school have been in an escalating feud with the school's board of directors over control of the Northeast campus that has spawned a lawsuit and prompted a judge to slap the school's former principal with a restraining order.

But as the battle over William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts heads for a Superior Court hearing Thursday, the founders, the William E. Doar, Jr. Educational Foundation, now say they will quit the fight...

It's a stark turnaround after months of infighting between the school's board of directors and its founders, who in May claimed that they had dissolved the board of directors.

In the letter, Mary Robbins, former principal of the upper school, along with founders Nadia Casseus-Torney and Julie S. Doar-Sinkfield, charged the board chairman with "blurring the lines between management and governance of the current board as evidenced by ... his attempts to influence day to day operations, oversee personnel and management decisions around attendance, creation of a hostile work place and the attempt to exercise line item approval over school based expenditures."

The founders then told parents and teachers to ignore an emergency meeting called by the directors, dubbing it an "unauthorized and uninsured meeting of former Board members," according to the lawsuit...

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Hospitality Public Charter High School

FORMER CHARTER SCHOOL BOOKKEEPER PLEADS GUILTY TO THEFT OF FUNDS; November 9, 2010; Department of Justice Press Release

WASHINGTON—Ashanti Bumbray, a former bookkeeper for the Hospitality Public Charter High School in the District of Columbia, pled guilty today to a felony charge stemming from her theft of more than $23,000 of school funds, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.; John G. Perren, Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office; and Charles J. Willoughby, Inspector General for the District of Columbia.

Bumbray, 32, of Waldorf, Maryland, pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Judge Rosemary M. Collyer to a charge of theft from a program receiving federal funds. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' incarceration and a fine of up to $250,000. Based on the sentencing guidelines, the likely range is probation to six months of incarceration with a fine of $1,000 to $10,000. Sentencing is set for February 9, 2011.

According to the Statement of Offense filed with the Court, Bumbray was a bookkeeper at Hospitality Public Charter High School from approximately September 2008 until February 2009. Starting in early October 2008 through late January 2009, she stole more than $23,000 of Hospitality's funds by issuing checks and initiating banking transactions for her personal benefit.

In announcing the plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director Perren, and Inspector General Willoughby praised the investigative efforts of the special agent who worked on the case for the FBI's Washington Field Office, as well as Special Agent Kerthalia Peavely of the District of Columbia Office of Inspector General. They also recognized the efforts of U.S. Attorney's Office Legal Assistant Jared Forney and Assistant United States Attorney John D. Griffith, who prosecuted the case.

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Kamit Institute for Magnificent Achievers

POOR ACHIEVEMENT BRINGS CLOSURE OF DC HIGH SCHOOL; August 8, 2010; Washington Examiner (D.C.) 

The D.C. Public Charter School Board voted unanimously Wednesday evening to shut down Kamit Institute for Magnificent Achievers, a charter high school in upper Northwest.

The school’s achievement wasn’t quite as magnificent as the board had hoped for. Since 2005, no more than 43 percent of students scored proficient on the city’s reading and math exams. In 2008, math proficiency dropped to 10 percent, with reading at 22 percent. Since 2007, the truancy rate has been at least 30 percent.

Supporters of the African-themed school attended the meeting in force, as they did at a late July public hearing to defend the school’s results…

The board was not convinced, citing a decade of poor performance and shoddy organization. They voted 7-0 for the charter’s revocation.

KIMA’s 190 students have about three weeks to enroll at other District senior highs in time for their first day at a new school.

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Young Technocrats Math and Science Public Charter Laboratory School

DEEPLY IN DEBT, D.C. CHARTER SCHOOL CLOSES; July 7, 1999; The Washington Post (DC)

More than 400 D.C. students are scrambling to find a place to attend classes this fall after their year-old public charter school closed for good Friday, with the co-principals fired by the school's Board of Trustees for alleged financial mismanagement.

The chairman of the governing body of the Young Technocrats Math and Science Public Charter Laboratory School said the principals' actions left the school deeply in debt and unable to fight an attempt by the elected D.C. Board of Education to revoke its charter.

"We're not even sure" how much the school owes, Board of Trustees Chairman George R. Carruthers said. "We're still in the process of trying to figure it out." The co-principals, Wali Williams and Maisha Washington, who have defended their school and their own performance in past interviews, could not be reached for comment yesterday… Envisioned as a comprehensive science-and-technology curriculum for prekindergarten through grade 12, Young Technocrats struggled even before its opening in September. It was even unclear how many students attended, with estimates ranging from 400 to 460. The school leased the former Langley School just a month before opening day and found the building completed looted, without electricity, running water, a good roof or working restrooms. Money intended to pay salaries went for emergency repairs, and contractors were hired without going through the appropriate bidding process. Parents complained of lax security and poor academics. Teachers and staff members left because they hadn't been paid. In April, the school board placed Young Technocrats on probation and last month proposed revoking the school's charter.

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AFTER CHARTER SCHOOL CLOSING, SOME WAIT FOR PAY, TRANSCRIPTS; July 20, 1999; Washington Post (DC)

Eighteen-year-old Resa Wynn has already overcome many obstacles. One of 15 children, she moved from her mother's home in Northwest Washington to her own apartment as a high school senior and worked in the principal's office after class to help pay the bills for herself and her toddler son.

Last month, Wynn was one of two students to graduate from the troubled Young Technocrats Math and Science Public Charter Laboratory School at First and T streets NE. But now the school has closed its doors, sunk by financial and administrative mismanagement the Board of Trustees said is so severe that it fired the school co-principals and decided not to try to reorganize it.

The closure has meant new troubles for Wynn. She, like many other employees of the school, is owed several paychecks. Also, Wynn says the school cannot find her diploma or transcript, which has hampered her efforts to apply to college…

Wynn said the other student she graduated with also hasn't been able to get his transcript. Some of the other 10 seniors, who were a few credits short of graduating, now fear they will have to repeat a full year or more because they have not received grades for the classes they took, she said.

George R. Carruthers, chairman of the Board of Trustees at Young Technocrats, said the skeletal staff left at the school is working to give Wynn and other former students what they need. He said the pay problems stem from a dispute between the board and the ousted principals about who controls school funds. "We're doing the best we can with the manpower that we have available," Carruthers said.

The 400-student school for pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students was founded last fall by co-principals Wali Williams and Maisha Washington, who previously operated a much smaller private school.

Carruthers said he and other board members did not realize how badly the school was being run until the D.C. Board of Education, which awarded the school its operating charter, proposed revoking the charter last month because of financial and classroom problems. The school board plans to formally revoke the charter at a meeting tomorrow afternoon…

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Thea Bowman Preparatory Academy

DISTRICT CHARTER SCHOOL TO SHUT DOWN AT END OF SCHOOL YEAR, CITING LOW ENROLLMENT AND FINANCES; March 23, 2010; Washington Post (D.C.) 

WASHINGTON — A Washington public charter school says it is shutting down at the end of the school year.

Thea Bowman Preparatory Academy, which serves 130 students in grades 5-8, says low enrollment and financial troubles forced its decision. Craig Powell, the chairman of the academy’s board of trustees, says the school will work closely with parents to find placement options for next year…

The academy, founded in 2008, was one of the District’s first public charter schools.

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Nia Community Public Charter School

“DC Charter School Head Accused of Embezzling Funds.” AP/NBC4 Washington (DC), 1/29/2013

A co-founder and former executive director of the Nia Community Public Charter School in Washington has been charged with embezzling $29,000 from the school.

The Washington Examiner reports that Monique Murdock wrote five checks to her foster child ranging from $4,000 and $8,000, using school funds in 2008. Court records show the checks were then deposited in a savings account Murdock created for the child. Then all but $100 was transferred to other accounts belonging to Murdock.

Nia Community Public Charter School was located in Ward 7 but closed in 2011 after the D.C. Public Charter School Board revoked its charter.

The charter school board initially placed the school on probation for possible financial mismanagement. A spokeswoman says its charter was revoked as a result of poor academic performance.

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”School board votes to pursue closure of two D.C. charters.” The Examiner (Washington, DC), 3/30/2011

The D.C. charter school board voted Tuesday night to move forward in closing Nia Community and Ideal Academy, charters that have not following the academic programs they proposed, the board said…

Board members said Nia's charter is on the chopping block because it failed to design and implement the educational program it described in its application, and failed to meet student achievement goals.

Nia also has not complied with federal requirements for educating special-education students, and did not submit an annual report in compliance with the School Reform Act…

Both Nia and Ideal have 15 days to request a public hearing before the board's final vote. A charter going through the process has never remained open, spokeswoman Audrey Williams told The Washington Examiner.

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Ideal Academy

SCHOOL BOARD VOTES TO PURSUE CLOSURE OF TWO D.C. CHARTERS; March 30, 2011; The Examiner (Washington, DC) 

The D.C. charter school board voted Tuesday night to move forward in closing Nia Community and Ideal Academy, charters that have not following the academic programs they proposed, the board said…

Ideal also failed to design and implement its proposed educational program, and test scores have been low. When a board member asked if the scores were improving, staff answered that they'd dropped from low to lower.

Board members also pointed out that Ideal hasn't appropriately served its special education and English language-learner populations and has a high level of debt. Ideal will lose its high school campus on June 30, which the board said threatened its viability.

Both Nia and Ideal have 15 days to request a public hearing before the board's final vote. A charter going through the process has never remained open, spokeswoman Audrey Williams told The Washington Examiner…

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