Months After Eagle Academy’s Closure, D.C. Council Explores Charter Accountability

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Five months after its closure, Sharnetta Boone-Ruffin says her daughter continues to ask about her old school — Eagle Academy Public Charter School (PCS). 

“[She’s] still asking for their teachers. Still asking for their principals,” Boone-Ruffin recently told members of a D.C. Council committee. “Still asking for their staff members and their loving, nurturing environment that they loved and [where] they created these core moments together.” 

Boone-Ruffin, an Eagle Academy PCS parent and former board member, recently testified before the council’s Committee of the Whole about the months leading up to the public charter school’s abrupt closure. 

On Aug. 20, Eagle Academy PCS’ board voted to revoke its charter, just one day after the D.C. Public Charter School Board (DCPCSB) struck down an asset acquisition proposal through which Friendship Academy PCS would absorb the financially insolvent public charter school. 

Boone-Ruffin, a parent of a student with special needs, counted among the three board members who unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the board decision. In her testimony, she said the closure threatened the child’s progress at Eagle Academy PCS’ Capitol Riverfront campus in Ward 6. 

For Boone, the situation became a question of how much sooner DCPCSB could’ve intervened in Eagle Academy’s financial decline. 

“It’s frustrating to know that it couldn’t have been this way. It should not have been this way,” Boone-Ruffin said. “I wish there was stronger oversight and communication from DCPCSB who is responsible for determining whether a school is financially sound.” 

Boone-Ruffin, who served as a board member for nearly 11 months, said she didn’t receive training until well into her tenure. Those sessions, she explained, were conducted by a DCPCSB-contracted trainer who she said was surprised about Eagle Academy PCS’ slow onboarding process. 

She later told council members that, over time, she learned about the board’s lack of visibility among parents and community members, as well as what the parent described as board members’ poor access to financial documents. 

As board members and DCPCSB would come to find out, Joe Smith, successor to late Eagle Academy PCS founder Cassandra S. Pinckney, acted as the school’s CEO and CFO from 2016 until he stepped down in April. 

Boone-Ruffin said that the lack of transparency, as a result, necessitated what she called more of a timely response from DCPCSB. 

“While I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished trying to save Ms. [Cassandra] Pinckney’s legacy … this experience taught me that schools, parents and agencies must work collaboratively,” Boone said. 

Examining Public Charter School Accountability

By the time the council’s Committee of the Whole conducted the roundtable on Dec. 5, 19 out of more than 360 former Eagle Academy PCS students still hadn’t been settled into an alternative placement — whether in D.C. Public Schools, a public charter school, or homeschool.  

Additionally, $4 million in taxpayer funds that had been allocated to Eagle Academy PCS before its closure hadn’t been accounted for just yet, according to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). 

Days after Eagle Academy PCS’ closure, on Aug. 23, Mendelon wrote a letter to DCPCSB Executive Director Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis asking why the public charter school board didn’t take corrective action earlier, despite telltale signs about the financial insolvency. 

Months later, at the Dec. 5 roundtable, themed “The Closure of Eagle Academy Public Charter School,” Mendelson expressed a desire to further examine the circumstances surrounding the school’s closure. 

“We know Eagle Academy PCS was struggling with cash on hand,” Mendelson said. “The CEO was serving as the CFO during the financial and enrollment decline that was taking place.”

The council chair later pivoted his attention to DCPCSB’s strikedown of the merger proposal. 

“It’s likely Eagle Academy PCS wouldn’t have closed had the charter school board voted to accept the takeover or merger with Friendship PCS,” Mendelson said. “It raises the question of what the board was thinking to vote down that solution.” 

DCPCSB, governed by the D.C. School Reform Act, conducts oversight of public charter schools in the areas of: academics, finances and organization. School leadership and board members also have the responsibility of ensuring their school’s financial responsibility, developing internal accounting controls, and establishing fiscally responsible financial goals. 

On Dec. 5, Walker-Davis, along with DCPCSB Chief FInancial Officer Will Henderson and Board Chair Shantelle Wright testified before the council’s Committee of the Whole. 

In terms of financial oversight, Henderson identified fiscally solvent public charter schools as having anywhere between 30 and 45 days of cash on hand.  He told the council’s Committee of the Whole that schools reaching a threshold of below 30 days of cash on hand often spark concerns, if not action by the public charter school board.  

Walker-Davis said DCPCSB carries out financial oversight in accordance with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, the D.C. School Reform Act, School Financial Transparency Amendment Act, and Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Support Act of 2020. 

In its role, DCPCSB collects, examines and, as needed, requests revisions of public charter schools’ annual budgets. It also collects unaudited quarterly financial statements and annual financial statements audited by a DCPCSB-approved entity; annual enrollment projections; and five-year budgets for new charter applicants and those seeking charter amendments. 

That information, Henderson said, goes into DCPCSB’s Financial Analysis Report, which shows, for each D.C. public charter school, total days of cash on hand, their prospects for future financial stability, and other metrics concerning operating revenues and expenses. 

“We don’t believe in plugging numbers into a spreadsheet to get a calculation that says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ a school is healthy,” Henderson said. “While we believe our review work must be consistent, we must also take into account the context of what’s happening in the school, public charter sector, public education and the city. We use a holistic evaluation to thoroughly understand a school’s financial health.”

As Walker-Davis explained to council members, PCSB first placed Eagle Academy PCS on its financial monitoring list in 2019. By 2021, Eagle Academy PCS was taken off the list after, at the time, meeting the public charter school board’s liquidity requirements. 

Much of the trouble, she said, started again in 2023 when DCPCSB, once again, placed Eagle Academy PCS on its monitoring list due to an enrollment drop and lack of grant funding. 

Along the road to Eagle Academy’s closure, DCPCSB conducted weekly reviews of the school’s finances, unsuccessfully encouraged the institution’s board members to reduce staff, requested budget revisions, and, upon learning about Smith’s lack of transparency, compelled changes in the board leadership. 

Another piece to the puzzle that DCPSCB executed, a financial corrective action plan, served as what charter officials called a step to avoid charter revocation.

In speaking about Eagle Academy PCS’ decision to close, Walker-Davis emphasized that it happened less than a day after Wright and the other board members said there would future be discussion, separate from Eagle Academy PCS and Friendship Academy PCS’ proposed merger, about charter revocation. 

“It resulted in a closure without advanced notice, and caused a great deal of pain and uncertainty,” Walker-Davis told council members. 

Since Eagle Academy PCS’ closure, DCPCSB, in collaboration with District agencies, D.C. Public Schools, and public charter school local education agencies, has conducted at least three enrollment fairs in the week leading up to the start of the 2024-2025 school year. 

As outlined in their report before the council’s Committee of the Whole, DCPCSB also dispatched four enrollment specialists to call Eagle Academy PCS families. Wright told council members that she and her fellow board members continue to explore lessons learned from Eagle Academy PCS’ closure. 

“We’ve reflected on … ways that our policies can be improved,” Wright said in her government witness testimony. “This is an ongoing conversation that will take place at future board meetings. And we encourage the public to engage with us.” 

At least one public charter school official had some thoughts about next steps. 

Though she didn’t take issue with DCPCSB’s accountability measures, Patricia Brantley, CEO of Friendship PCS, told council members that board members should react sooner in situations when public charter school local education agencies, especially those with mortgage obligations, are burning through cash on hand more quickly than they’re generating revenue. 

“Eagle didn’t just get into trouble at six days, they were in trouble at 92,” Brantley said on Dec. 5. “A school that falls to six days in cash is in danger of missing payroll, unless they defer mortgage or rent. Schools that [do that] and max out high lines of credit are in trouble and require higher scrutiny.” 

Brantley emphasized that she wasn’t endorsing increased school compliance. 

“This doesn’t solve the problem or address the issues that were inherent in the Eagle collapse,” Brantley said. “PCSB can make sure boards attest to their schools’ financial metrics and solvency by moving much more quickly [toward] corrective action plans [for] schools that miss three or more metrics.” 

Looking Back at Where Efforts to Preserve Eagle Academy PCS’ Legacy Fell Short 

In 2003, Pinckney, a preschool teacher and child advocate, launched Eagle Academy PCS, the District’s first exclusively early childhood public charter school, at the McGogney building, which eventually became the institution’s flagship location. 

This past summer, as Eagle Academy PCS and Friendship PCS continued to work out the specifics of their proposed merger, Brantley and Onari Jackson, the late Pinckney’s daughter, joined D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8) at an event commemorating the ceremonial renaming of 10th Place in Southeast, between Mississippi Avenue and Savannah Street, in honor of the school’s founder. 

In her testimony before the Committee of the Whole, Jackson, a former community engagement specialist at Eagle Academy PCS, questioned whether Smith, currently living in Delaware, would ever face accountability for his alleged mismanagement of funds.  

“Up until the time I was fired, I didn’t know Joe Smith was the CFO as well,” Jackson said. “He moved strategically to make sure we didn’t have the same amount of knowledge. He made sure I wasn’t part of any board meetings. Joe went as far as telling board members I wasn’t interested.” 

Valerie Jablow, a D.C. resident who follows publicly funded schools in the District, said that she and other community members raised concerns to DCPCSB, advisory neighborhood commissioners, the D.C. Council, and former Attorney General Karl Racine about Eagle Academy PCS’ financial problems as early as 2017.  

Those problems, Jablow said, include poorly publicized board meetings and violation of D.C. revenue bond agreements via liens, fines and nonpayment of property taxes. 

On Dec. 5, she told the council’s Committee of the Whole that financial analysis reports DCPCSB prepared for Eagle Academy PCS didn’t mention the school’s less than 15 days of cash on hand for for six out of the past eight years, or interest-bearing loans it took from staff members, and 2022 and 2023 grade expansion applications that alluded to Eagle Academy PCS’ financial woes. 

Jablow’s recommendations for increased oversight include limits on local education agency spending, including when it comes to CEO pay. 

Other recommendations center on fiscal analysis reports that flag consistent low cash on hand as a concern, quick and easy public access to charter board fiscal monitoring, and documentation of D.C. public charter school activity in other states — an allusion to similar financial problems that Eagle Academy PCS faces in Nevada. 

“The charter board’s fiscal oversight processes omit important data and are not publicly centered, essentially requiring D.C. citizens to act as forensic accountants to track problems while no one is conducting real oversight of our charter sector,” Jablow said. “And while having another [local education agency (LEA)] take over Eagle seems better than closure, that doesn’t address that what happened with Eagle is largely because many D.C. actors obfuscated and ignored serious problems — and continue to do so.”

The Big Picture About Enrollment

With Eagle Academy PCS’ closure, there are 68 public charter schools, also known as local education agencies, left operating in the District. Nearly a dozen of those public charter schools are within close distance of Eagle Academy PCS’ Ward 8 campus.  

In his testimony, D.C. State Board of Education Representative Dr. Jacque Patterson (At-Large) identified that cluster of public charter schools as a reason why, even with a merger, Eagle Academy PCS might not have been able to enroll a sufficient number of students. 

“[This is an] indication that more schools are facing the problem that the sector should get ahead,” Patterson said to the council’s Committee of the Whole in his capacity as a Ward 8 resident, not an elected official. “You will see more schools finding themselves unable to meet their financial obligations due to low enrollment.”