Is the underlying report public?

Anonymous wrote:This is such a nonissue. The chancellor does have the authority to grant enrollment requests at schools due to special circumstances. She is correct in saying that if D.C. leaders don't want the chancellor to have that power, they should change the rules. Now, if it comes out she sold seats or whatever, then yes, that is a problem.

Agree. The argument of "if you don't like the loopholes then close them" is Trump-Ish but not incorrect.

It could also be a case of those with some "in" knew to ask; those without any "in" had no idea that they could ask for this sort of discretionary placement. In any case, I don't see why using discretion you are granted to place 7 (which is really not very many) students in schools outside of the lottery is necessarily "abuse." If DC wants more transparency, all they have to do is change the legislation so such discretionary placements have to be publicly reported or at least reported confidentially to the council.

TBH, I actually wouldn't even have a problem if Kaya recruited a deputy or other senior official by saying: "Come live in DC from wherever you live and I'll make sure your kids get to go to Deal/Wilson/whatever because the position pays crappily and you can't otherwise afford to live IB so you otherwise won't come." Like, it's her discretion.

Is the fact that someone was an Obama admin senior official enough to warrant an exception?

This is such a nonissue. The chancellor does have the authority to grant enrollment requests at schools due to special circumstances. She is correct in saying that if D.C. leaders don't want the chancellor to have that power, they should change the rules. Now, if it comes out she sold seats or whatever, then yes, that is a problem.

Meh.

Non-DC residents or her own kids or some overt quid pro quo would be a problem.

But discretionary power is pretty clear. That's part of why the OOB numbers stayed so high under Rhee.

The purpose of the lottery is to make it easier to apply to multiple schools, not handle exceptions. Waitlists are not a guarantee for DCPS enrollment. That hasn't officially changed, has it?

Anyway, even if they can prove favoritism beyond discretion, there's nothing that can be done about it now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:does "discretionary" include cases where a student is placed to remove from a harmful situtation (ie bullying)? I'd imagine such cases wouldn't fall within the 7 cases of abuse cited by IG

Even if that were the case it would still be awful. If her staffers are the only ones who get placed in a school of choice after a bullying situation, that's certainly unfair treatment. 100s or 1000s of kids face bullying yearly and aren't allowed to move.

Not really. I personally know several cases of safety placements and none were government officials or politically connected. Their kids were being bullied and they appealed to the chancellor who exercised that discretion. That doesn't justify using placements to score political points but it's totally unrelated.

There are safety transfers that are allowed, and there are Chancellor's discretionary placements that are allowed. The question is should the latter be allowed?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only 7? Not possible.

That's kind of my reaction. Or, if it's only seven, that's fewer than I would have thought.

+1 I've met 2 OOB people who said they had chancellor approved transfers. There can't be only 7-I don't know that many people!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:does "discretionary" include cases where a student is placed to remove from a harmful situtation (ie bullying)? I'd imagine such cases wouldn't fall within the 7 cases of abuse cited by IG

Even if that were the case it would still be awful. If her staffers are the only ones who get placed in a school of choice after a bullying situation, that's certainly unfair treatment. 100s or 1000s of kids face bullying yearly and aren't allowed to move.

Not really. I personally know several cases of safety placements and none were government officials or politically connected. Their kids were being bullied and they appealed to the chancellor who exercised that discretion. That doesn't justify using placements to score political points but it's totally unrelated.

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the State office run an audit every year? What are our tax dollars paying for in that audit if they can't find things like this?

The audit isn't going to surface this. The chancellor had the legal discretion to allow someone to enroll at a DCPS school. She used that discretion 7 times. The students' enrollment paperwork would not reflect any fraud, because there wasn't any.

Doesn't the State office run an audit every year? What are our tax dollars paying for in that audit if they can't find things like this?

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn't new. Didn't Fenty kids attend a school outside of their boundary?

Yes, but there was a reasonable explanation -- that twins should be in a school that had at least two classes for their grade. Whether that explanation is convincing is another question, but it is better than Henderson's argument that she did it simply because she could.

No Fenty fan, but that argument is defensible depending on the nature of the twins. Competitve twins (vs cooperative) could reasonably make a case for separation where possible.

It's only defensible if it's offered to other similarly situated families as well.

It sounds like a situation where the relevant legal provisions should be changed for transparency's sake. There is a need for discretion in systems like this. Though it fits with the "who you know gets you what you need" thing that just always, always seems to recur here in DC local politics.

Just a few ideas:
* Any exercise of discretion must be followed with a simultaneous letter to the Education Committee Chair and the Committee of the Whole Chair. No exercise of the discretion is legal without such a written letter.
* The letter is to include findings on points constituents care about: a rational basis for the exercise of discretion that lays out sufficient facts to support such a decision; that the exercise of discretion is not due to relationship to an elected official or donor (familial or not); the exercise of discretion is on a basis that could be available to any DC resident; and identify any person(s) who requested the discretion or offered support therefor, etc.
* each year as part of budget submission any such transfers are to be enumerated and dated by DCPS.

Obviously, you could ask for more, but there's a fair way to make sure that this is not just one more way the "haves" get one over on the "have nots."

"As the IG report notes, in my capacity as Chancellor, I made a very limited number of discretionary placements for students when extraordinary circumstances applied. I stand by those actions. The IG does not provide evidence that placements were made improperly, only that they were discretionary. If leaders in DC do not believe that there are situations when the chancellor should exercise discretion in determining student placements, they should eliminate that provision of the statute. If leaders believe that, on rare occasions, there are unusual circumstances that require the judgement of the district leader, they should accept that discretionary placements will depend on judgement.

"I am deeply disappointed by these continual attacks on my integrity in an attempt to besmirch my personal and professional reputation."

-- Kaya Henderson

Anonymous wrote:does "discretionary" include cases where a student is placed to remove from a harmful situtation (ie bullying)? I'd imagine such cases wouldn't fall within the 7 cases of abuse cited by IG

Even if that were the case it would still be awful. If her staffers are the only ones who get placed in a school of choice after a bullying situation, that's certainly unfair treatment. 100s or 1000s of kids face bullying yearly and aren't allowed to move.