A few days ago a well-written Washington Post article by Lauren Lumpkin regarding Seed PCS and its failure to obey the law in caring for special education children caught my eye, so I decided to watch on video the May meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board. What I witnessed shocked me.

An audit of the charter’s special education program demonstrated violations of both the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act and D.C. Municipals Regulations Chapter 30, according to PCSB staff. The audit was completed due to complaints made to the board by at least three Seed staff members. Seed did receive a Notice of Concern, and several board members expressed their consternation about the school’s inability to properly care for their students. But here’s the part that really disturbed me as a supporter of our local charter school movement. From the charter board’s staff findings:

“DC PCSB staff identified similar instances of noncompliance in SY 2022 – 23 through Effective Organization Meetings (EOM) in November 2022 (Attachment A) and February 2023 (Attachment B), and a special education audit in March 2023 (Attachment D and F). Despite these interventions, SEED PCS remains out of compliance, indicating a patten of repeated violations” (page 2).

If a charter is notified that it is not following the law, and then fails to immediately correct the situation, then a Notice of Concern is inappropriate. This school should have its charter revoked. It appears that the board had information that it failed to act upon.

The situation with Seed echoes the board’s action regarding the closing of Eagle Academy PCS six days before the start of the school year. Clearly, there were signs much earlier that the charter was in financial difficulty. In fact, the sudden shuttering, and failure to allow Friendship PCS to takeover the school, generated a list of 21 questions from D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson to Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis, executive director of the PCSB, most of them revolving around when the charter board realized that the school was short of cash. You can read the inquiries and responses here.

Why is the PCSB failing to act in an expeditious manner when issues with schools arise, and why did the board fail to allow Eagle to continue to operate as a part of Friendship’s network” One education reformer I spoke to about these matters attributed the board’s dysfunction to the fact that Mayor Muriel Bowser no longer consults with the charter community before nominating trustees to serve on the board. The individual stated that the consequence of this process is that board members join who have no knowledge of the sector or the PCSB’s role.

My own take on the situation is that we have a lack of leadership at the PCSB. Early in the sector’s history it had the team of Tom Nida as chair and Josephine Baker as executive director. The pair seemed in perfect harmony regarding their emphasis on quality and growth. The same strategic direction characterized a succession of strong chairs working with executive director Scott Pearson. Now we have a chair who apparently changed her vote to “no” shortly before the board was to decide whether Friendship would get the green light to run Eagle. There is speculation that pressure by Ms. Bowser to reduce the number of elementary school seats in Ward 8 was the reason behind Ms. Lea Crusey’s reversal.

As is said in education, it is time to get back to fundamentals. The same goes for DC Public Charter School Boards mission of quality and growth.