Valerie Jablow, parent advocate in the District of Columbia, has untangled a tangled knot of obscure real estate deals, all derived from what is supposedly public property.
It begins with a large D.C. public school building formerly known as Taft junior high school.
At 201,000 square feet, Taft is a very large, DC-owned former DCPS junior high school adjacent to a public recreation area. It was closed in 2008 and since leased to charters–first Hyde, then its successor, Perry Street Prep, which holds a lease for the entire space.
But Perry Street Prep is hardly the only school located at Taft.
Perry Street sublets a portion of the building to LAMB. Perry Street also sublets another portion of the building to the private (and wealthy) nonprofit Charter School Incubator Initiative (CSII), which was founded (per its tax return) to provide new charter schools with facilities at below market rates. And Perry Street sublets yet another portion of the building to a small private school, St. Jerome.
In turn, CSII sublets its rented portion of Taft to LAMB.
And now, LAMB is proposing to rent a portion of its subleased space to Sojourner Truth (presumably in anticipation of moving its entire school out of Taft in the next few years to a new facility in Ward 4).
That lease between LAMB and Sojourner is in the materials on the charter board website for the charter board’s February 2020 meeting.
But the posted lease is missing exhibits A, B, and C. In their place are blank pages.
Jablow works on the old-fashioned assumption that the public has a right to know what is being done with its money and its public facilities.
The D.C. officials have different ideas. To whom are they accountable as they ransack and dispose of the public trust?
Jablow asks the money question:
Why is our city seemingly not ensuring that the greatest monetary benefit from subletting and leasing a publicly owned building goes directly to the public?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If Willie Sutton were alive today, he wouldn’t be robbing banks, he’d run a charter school, “Because that’s where the money is.”
YEP! And where the money is is all that matters to the privateers and profiteers.
The rules regarding leasing and subleasing of charter school buildings are far too lax. Charter schools should not be acting as landlords when they obtained public money to operate their building. The government should prohibit this profiteering loophole, or the charter school should have to give the monthly rents of tenets back to the taxpayers.
cx: tenants
Deborah Gist is doing the same in Tulsa.
She closed schools earlier this year to make way for charter schools then had the audacity to say the process for leasing these buildings out was very transparent.
They listed them in an RFP hidden far away in the finance section of their website and gave everyone 2 weeks to bring proposals. As if anyone could really get a proposal together in 2 weeks.
Now they are giving them to a 2 charter school favored by Kaiser and Schusterman, one of which is a KIPP School
But hey, it was transparent. They screwed everyone right in front of us. All we could do was watch because the billionaires have their foundation employees on the board who have never met a conflict of interest.
I fully expect the Black Wall Street Times to cheer the idea. The same Black Wall Street Times funded by Kaiser. The treasurer of the Black Wall Street Times is also the same foundation employee on the TPS School Board who again doesn’t know what having a conflict of interest means.
Click to access 51820FinalAgenda.pdf
OPERATIONS
G.5. RECOMMENDATION:
Approve KIPP Tulsa to lease Mark Twain Elementary School facility for the
FY21, subject to a mutually agreeable and fully executed lease agreement
to be considered at a future meeting.
FURTHER RECOMMEND: The attorneys for the school district
prepare/approve the appropriate contract document(s) and the proper
officers of the Board of Education be authorized to execute the document(s)
on behalf of the district.
COST: This item presents no cost to the district.
RATIONALE: In the spring of 2020, Tulsa Public Schools began using an
open solicitation and application process to identify potential tenants and
make recommendations to the Board. As a result of this process 1 applicant
submitted applications to lease Mark Twain Elementary School. A four person committee reviewed applications and recommended KIPP Tulsa.
COVID-19-related delays may result in a delayed lease start date.
G.6. RECOMMENDATION:
Approve Collegiate Hall to lease Wright Elementary School facility for the
FY21, subject to a mutually agreeable and fully executed lease agreement to
be considered at a future meeting.
FURTHER RECOMMEND: The attorneys for the school district
prepare/approve the appropriate contract document(s) and the proper
officers of the Board of Education be authorized to execute the document(s)
on behalf of the district.
COST: This item presents no cost to the district.
RATIONALE: In the spring of 2020, Tulsa Public Schools began using an
open solicitation and application process to identify potential tenants and
make recommendations to the Board. As a result of this process 1 applicant
submitted applications to lease Wright Elementary School. A four-person
committee reviewed applications and recommended Collegiate Hall.
COVID-19-related delays may result in a delayed lease start date.