Anonymous wrote:Let's not forget that the Maret new HOS was with Chris Whittle right from the beginning as part of the start up team. The WSS directory has gone, but his wife was special advisor to the head at WSS. Something doesn't smell right.

Maret made a questionable choice for new HOS but it doesn’t go further than that. There’s no conspiracy or collusion. Maret doesn’t need either of those to make poor decisions.

To elaborate on the signal messages, they were things like:

* We had a meeting with Chris today, who says he had a good meeting with the investors.

* We were able to meet with one of the investors, who says they are committed to the deal. We haven't been able to meet with the third investor.

* We understand from [Chris or someone else] that the investor's board is meeting this week. Fingers crossed!

* Do we need to send our kids with lunches this week?

* Here is the update we promised: The investment will not close Monday as we had hoped, but we are hopeful that [blah blah blah]

* I'm sure you saw the email from the school, which is a disappointment. We are meeting today to brainstorm more options.


* Thank you so much for doing all this hard work for the parents! This is such a wonderful community and we will get through this! [This, in variants, was an extremely common message]

Okay, on so your first two questions, I'm not sure what you mean by "links," or what "board/parents community" you're talking about. Who is the "they" that you're wondering about and what do you mean by "contribute to the selection"?

The insinuation seems to be that maybe the Maret board was some how paid off or had some other reason besides merit to select the HOS candidate. The only basis for that seems to be that, well, the guy worked at Whittle and had a kid there, and his wife was on the parent investor committee so obviously it's suspicious. That's not logic, and there's no real suggestion of why it should be suspicious.

As for the idea that the Maret HOS selection was a fait accompli, I wonder if you have ever been in an organization with a search committee for a leader? In my experience, the search committee always talks about the rigor of the search and makes a big deal of taking input from the community, and yet it always seems like the candidate was a foregone conclusion from the beginning. I've seen it multiple times, at church, at nonprofits, etc. So the idea that some people thought the selection was a fait accompli is probably the most predictable part of any leadership search and does not by itself signal anything nefarious.

On your third question, if by "inner circle parents" you mean the Whittle parent investment committee, the answer is no. All three the committee parents had seniors, all of whom have graduated.

On a few of your other questions:
* The investment committee did not get a stipend

* The signal group was for parents to coordinate because the school was having continual money problems. All parents were allowed in the signal group. The content of the signal messages was exactly what you would expect.

* NDAs were necessary because the parent committee was given access to nonpublic financial information so that they could evaluate it and then give their conclusions to the other parents. At the outset, they told parents they thought the financing deal had a 40-60% chance of closing. Maybe that was misleading, or maybe it was motivated thinking. I do think the fact that all of the committee had seniors is problematic.

I don't know about your other questions, except that it sounds like those are things you wish had interesting answers so you can read about them, not things you have any reason to think happened. But reality is usually more boring and annoying than it is juicy.

Salaries? Money flows? Benefits?

The kids and staff got the short end of the stick

Actually reminds me of Woodward and Bernstein on Corbet show talking about how they got a treasure trove of docs from the Nixon administration when the AG left his wife and she called them and said:

SOB walked out on me. Come and get his papers, have at it. or something to that effect

Just to say these kinds of DC scandals have a way of being cracked in the least expected ways, maybe Maret is to Whittle what Martha Mitchell was to Watergate. Truth will out

TBH, I don’t know, but would sure read all about it if someone tracked all the money and interests related to the Whittle community.

What the PP is referencing is trivializing the questions related to Maret a bit but it’s a very helpful account. WBJ reports Bisgaard was an employee rep though (a deleted comment on here said employees were reprimanded by the COO when they called out a conflict of interest, as I recall).

The questions asked were:
Are there links between the board/parents community and Maret?
Did they contribute to the selection (the Maret thread intimated the vote was a fair accomplii)?
Are there disproportionate admissions, including from the inner circle parents?

But, I don’t think Maret link is the most interesting part, which I think is:
Who knew what when? Especially DC people?
Were advisory committee paid a promised stipend (such as to Bisgaard) within the time of the financial trouble including when donations for boarders lunches were solicited from only some of the parents via Signal?
How and where did the 14 boarders live? How much did they pay? Who spent their lunch money?
Why were NDAs for the inner circle parents necessary? What did they know? Did they mislead other parents (obvious interest to graduate or land elsewhere etc)?
Who’s linked with whom?
What’s the content of these Signal messages?
How were the teachers treated? Why are they silenced?
How was the curriculum executed?
Power plays and power struggles? Origins of wealth?

Far more juicy than Chris didn’t pay vendor x?

This is a book!

Just came back to this thread and wow, I can't believe where it has wound up. I think the Maret Truthers must be trolls because there isn't even a plausible conspiracy theory. It's just silly. Here are a few facts:

The Maret HOS had a long career before becoming HOS for Whittle for a year, after which he left. But his kid remained at the school until graduating this year. That is why he and his wife were still Whittle parents in Dec. 2021, when the school's financial problems were shared with parents. She became one of the investment committee, which seemed like a natural choice given their involvement in the school. Of course, all of the committee parents had seniors at the school, so it's likely they had an extra incentive to make sure the school stayed open, but that has nothing to do with Maret.

I am a former Whittle parent who applied to Maret, and I know several others who also applied to Maret. Our application materials were due in January, just a couple weeks after the big announcement in Dec. 22. When we applied (a non expansion grade), we were told there would likely be very few spots. We didn't get in. None of the people I know got in.

Six months later the former HOS was named the new HOS for Maret, scheduled to start in 2023.

So. What exactly would the conspiracy be? That the HOS & his wife were making a secret deal (which whom? why?) to get kids into Maret while at the same time trying to convince people to stay at Whittle? Even if that made sense, and even if Maret had enough spots to bargain with, what would be in it for the HOS & his wife? What would be in it for Maret? What would be in it for Whittle (not sure if people think Whittle is part of it but just in case)?

Isn't it much more likely that Maret needed a HOS and Whittle's former HOS had lots of experience and was available?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I completely disagree. People are calling for transparency and accountability and that doesn’t stop with Chris Whittle at all.

Here’s a list of people — email to yourself for the pdf:
https://www.whittleschool.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Whittle-Book-2.2.d0cb1064-compressed.pdf

Scanning the bios of all these people in their cameo positions, I am astounded at the unparalleled glob of vanity.

Bandy X. Lee: "Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence—while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population.'

Just sayin.

Parents investors with the privileged access which may have helped them make decisions for themselves and disadvantaged other parents

That list doesn’t include the various committees formed this year and referenced in WBJ and prior dcum thread

Anonymous wrote:I completely disagree. People are calling for transparency and accountability and that doesn’t stop with Chris Whittle at all.

Here’s a list of people — email to yourself for the pdf:
https://www.whittleschool.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Whittle-Book-2.2.d0cb1064-compressed.pdf

Scanning the bios of all these people in their cameo positions, I am astounded at the unparalleled glob of vanity.

I completely disagree. People are calling for transparency and accountability and that doesn’t stop with Chris Whittle at all.

Here’s a list of people — email to yourself for the pdf:
https://www.whittleschool.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Whittle-Book-2.2.d0cb1064-compressed.pdf

Getting back to Whittle:

Search Results - District of Columbia Superior Court

2020 CA 003888 R(RP) Open Real Property 09/03/2020 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2020 CA 003888 R(RP) Open Real Property 09/03/2020 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant Cross Defendant
2020 CA 004735 B Closed Civil II 11/18/2020 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2021 CA 000849 B Closed Civil II 03/17/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL AND STUDIOS (WASHINGTON) LLC Defendant
2021 SC3 000444 Open Sml Clms >$2,500 <=$10,000 05/21/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS WASHINGTON, LLC Defendant
2021 CA 002011 B Reopen (RO) Civil II 06/11/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2021 SC3 000612 Open Sml Clms >$2,500 <=$10,000 07/12/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS WASHINGTON LLC Defendant
2021 CA 002481 R(RP) Open Real Property 07/20/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2021 CA 002481 R(RP) Open Real Property 07/20/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant Cross Defendant
2021 CA 003030 R(RP) Open Real Property 08/27/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL AND STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2021 CA 003577 R(RP) Closed Real Property 10/06/2021 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2022 CA 000483 F Closed For. Jdgmt/Libel of Info 02/03/2022 WHITTLE MANAGEMENT, INC. Defendant
2022 CA 000483 F Closed For. Jdgmt/Libel of Info 02/03/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS Defendant
2022 CA 000483 F Closed For. Jdgmt/Libel of Info 02/03/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2022 CA 000483 F Closed For. Jdgmt/Libel of Info 02/03/2022 WHITTLE NY CAMPUS, LLC Defendant
2022 CA 000810 B Open Civil II 02/22/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL AND STUDIOS WASHINGTON, LLC Defendant
2022 SC3 000308 Closed Sml Clms >$2,500 <=$10,000 03/18/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIO, LLC Defendant
2022 CA 001657 C Open Collections (Consent) 04/18/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant
2022 LTB 003029 Open Landlord & Tenant Branch 06/09/2022 WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS (WASHINGTON), LLC Defendant

The tail is wagging the dog!

This thread has gone off the rails.