Emma Brown of The Washington Post reports on an outrageous scandal at the city’s oldest charter school:
“Former senior managers and the board chairwoman of the Options Public Charter School for at-risk youths diverted millions of taxpayer dollars that were meant to fund programs for students, according to a lawsuit District authorities filed Tuesday.
“The lawsuit filed in D.C. Superior Court claims that three former managers, the school’s board chairwoman — Channel 9 news personality J.C. Hayward — and a senior official at the D.C. Public Charter School Board concocted an elaborate contracting scam that led to improper payments of more than $3 million since 2012. It alleges that the group of school leaders engaged in a “pattern of self-dealing” that included large payments to for-profit companies that the managers founded while running the school.”
And more from the story:
“The city’s charter board launched an investigation of Options on Aug. 19, days after The Washington Post submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking contracts between the school and two for-profit companies founded and controlled by its senior managers: Exceptional Education Management Corp. (EEMC) and Exceptional Education Services (EES).
“Those contracts and other payments to the companies — including a $2.8 million contract for management services during the 2013-2014 school year — are at the heart of the District’s case against Options.
“The senior managers who allegedly co-founded the two companies are the former executive director, Donna Montgomery, who was paid an annual salary of $254,679, according to the school’s 2011 tax return; former clinical director David Cranford, who made $202,443; and former general counsel Paul S. Dalton, who was paid $146,372.”
The school enrolled 400 students in middle- or high school, most of whom have disabilities.
The apparent misuse of public funds was a pattern.
“Jeremy L. Williams, who was the chief financial officer of the D.C. Public Charter School Board until August, also allegedly aided the scheme. He “regularly forwarded confidential, internal PCSB e-mails” to the three managers, including e-mails alerting them to a planned inspection of Options that was meant to be a surprise.
“Williams, who also served on Options’s board of trustees, also allegedly maneuvered to ensure that EEMC’s largest contract, for $2.8 million, would not be reviewed by PCSB staff. He is now the company’s chief financial officer.”
This is a sickening story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Isn’t just great that Arne isn’t enforcing SPED compliance & monitoring any longer? Deregulation worked so well for the banks to avoid accountability, why not use the same model for SPED? I’m going to be sick…
“The senior managers who allegedly co-founded the two companies are the former executive director, Donna Montgomery, who was paid an annual salary of $254,679, according to the school’s 2011 tax return; former clinical director David Cranford, who made $202,443; and former general counsel Paul S. Dalton, who was paid $146,372.” AND THESE ANNUAL PAYCHECKS WERE NOT ENOUGH FOR THESE SCUM????? FOR A SCHOOL THAT ONLY SERVES 400 KIDS????? Sorry for the all caps but this is a GIANORMOUS PANTSLOAD!!
I’d like to know more about other charter schools that David Cranford’s special education company Acumen works with. What arrangements for “services” do they have in place for our most vulnerable children?
This is bad. It is not surprising, considering the ability of some to be unconcerned about the health of many, to observe that some would be unconcerned about the educational needs of those with the most difficulties. Today, Oct 1, is an appropriate day for this news to come out.
But I thought the free and open market place was always better than a government agency in running something…I think that is just what these guys were trying to prove! NOT!!!!
“The city’s charter board launched an investigation of Options on Aug. 19, days after The Washington Post submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking contracts between the school and two for-profit companies founded and controlled by its senior managers: Exceptional Education Management Corp. (EEMC) and Exceptional Education Services (EES).”
This is the most damning part. The regulator apparently wasn’t regulating.
Also, they’ve known about these obvious conflicts for years. Why did they allow that to go on? Since when can “senior managers” at a public entity like a school contract with companies they founded and control?
I’m curious which DC governing entity filed the complaint. On whose behalf was the complaint filed? Is the public school system the complaining party in a civil suit or is it a criminal action?
Arne ended regular, in-person compliance visits & monitoring in SPED about 2 yrs ago and replaced it with electronic monitoring. Meaning states could cut their SPED compliance personnel who were charged with making regular visits to every school in the state. Arne & his SPED director, Melody Hargrove’s idea of assuring schools are delivering appropriate services consists of collecting tests scores, disability numbers, & other demographic data into spreadsheets in DC.
You know that districts receive federal tax dollars for SPED kids that supplements state & local dollars so services mandated on the IEP can be funded. The fact that these kids were in a separate3 school means they had more intense needs & thus the school gets a higher per/pupil dollar amount for their educational needs.
I hope someone or a group of parents file a lawsuit and name Duncan & Hargrove in it. They are responsible for codifying the conditions for this fraud & abuse.
Thank you. I didn’t know any of that.
We had charter parents file a lawsuit in Ohio. They were the parents on a governing board, so that’s why they had standing to sue. I don’t know if it would be that easy for parents in this school, but hopefully there’s a way.
jcgrim: if the so-called National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) could determine the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs just by reviewing websites and printed materials [forget about in-person visits and evaluations, tracking teachers-in-training as they go in to the classroom, etc.), then what you describe re SpecEd monitoring makes perfect sense.
After all, isn’t it all about learning from and copying the worst, er, best practices of the private sector—and entities emulating it?
Of course, the NCTQ had a few teensy weensy little problems with evaluating the quality of teacher preparation programs and finding practically all of them severely wanting…
Among other sticky wickets, Aaron Pallas mentioned that “My own institution—Teachers College, Columbia University—had its undergraduate programs rated for student selectivity, which was quite a trick, as Teachers College is a graduate school with no undergraduate programs.”
Link: http://eyeoned.org/content/why-the-nctq-ratings-wont-have-much-influence-now-or-later_496/
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” [Mark Twain]
🙂
I lay awake at night worried about getting all my work finished to maintain compliance with my 85 IEP’s and these jokers are allegedly scamming like this?
Okay, civil action and DC is the plaintiff:
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/options-public-charter-school-complaint/609/
Also, can we all stop pretending “non profit” means anything with charter schools? If they’re contracting EVERYTHING out to for-profits, as here, it’s both silly and misleading to continue to insist they’re “non profits.” These terms have become meaningless, except as to tax-exempt status.
Interesting to note that this horror story finally came to light in the Washington Post under the new ownership of Jeff Bezos.
That is a bit ironic; it’s obviously great to see scam exposed. Growing up, most big cities had two major newspapers that competed against each other for stories like this. Today, the same people who control the media promote competition in education. However, they are unwilling to compete with other media outlets so they use their vast wealth to buy out and acquire the rival newspaper.
This is just the beginning. We can expect to see many lawsuits such as this and that will likely be followed by close financial scrutiny of every tax-supported school. Helloooooooo!
RICO prosecution, anyone?
Duane…that would be too much like right. I’m thinking perp walk and incarceration with many of those students and their sibs that they failed to properly educate. Now that would be justice.
Mark,
Unfortunately, you and I both know that even were there to be prosecutions and convictions (highly doubted) that they wouldn’t be in the same high security prisons as the ones whom they failed.
I know but I can still dream. BTW- the gossip down here is that they are intent on nailing and sending a message. DC and the schools have been getting rolled in the press of late. Now, the word is that they are going to get tough on this type of behavior, especially with the millions involved and possible Federal involvement in the case. I can only hope.
Does no one see that many of our problems in both traditional public schools and the new charter schools are problems of character?
What can one expect when money supplants children in importance. Progress?
When do the prison terms start?? This stuff is going on all over the place. The charters have been allowed to get away with this nonsense. They are nothing but frauds and thieves
This type acts really need to be punished with jail time. I have a kid with disability and the system put me thru hell just because I asked for special help with his classes. I hired an advocate to fight their lawyer. And still we could not win the case. So when I hear this kind of shit. Make me mad.