A communications breakdown caused boxes of sporting goods, computers and other essential equipment to be left padlocked in a shuttered District of Columbia junior high school for almost an entire year while a neighboring school was starved for supplies, a city consultant told The Examiner.
A team from Alvarez & Marsal LLC discovered the equipment, much of it still in boxes, in Terrell Junior High School following a search for missing supplies that was initiated last month.
“We were a bit surprised by the amount of equipment in the building,” said Scott Milam, director of Alvarez, a consulting firm that is analyzing the school’s budget to help Mayor Adrian Fenty as he takes over the $1 billion-plus school system. “There were pads and jerseys and helmets and just about anything you’d need to play football.”
While the athletic equipment moldered in Terrell’s gymnasium, Walker-Jones Elementary School — just around the corner from Terrell — had to scuttle its football team because it didn’t have enough equipment for the students. The D.C.Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Fenty’s nomination of Michelle Rhee for schools chancellor. If confirmed, Rhee will take over a massive bureaucracy that has failed D.C.’s students for decades.
“It’s a shame,” said Theresa Bollech, a part-time parents’ advocate whose daughter, Ashley, attends a D.C. school. “How many other schools are hiding equipment from children?”
Bollech said she hoped that Rhee would make a positive difference for the city’s children but was skeptical that anyone could tame the bureaucracy.
“We need some accountability over there,” Bollech said of the schools. “We’ve been promised it before.”
Milam said he and his staff learned about the Terrell equipment during a routine review of D.C. Public Schools System athletic director Allen Chin’s $3 million budget. During the meeting, Chin said the equipment had been sent to Terrell because no one told him the school was going to close.
Neither Chin nor school spokesman John White responded to requests for comment. Terrell was shuttered in August 2006. The boxes of sports equipment arrived July 27, 2006, Milam said.
Alvarez staffers found televisions still mounted on classroom walls, computers still plugged in and food in the refrigerator, Milam said. Vandals had repeatedly broken into the school, strewing glass and fire extinguisher fluid all over the building and “possibly” helping themselves to equipment, Milam said.
“We don’t know how much was taken,” Milam said. “It was tough to know what was there before.”
While the Alvarez team was going through Terrell, an employee from another school came in and salvaged computer software, saying that he had been trying to get a hold of the software for nearly a year, Milam said.
D.C. Public Schools
» About 11,600 employees
» More than $1 billion budget
» Nearly 13,000 back orders for repairs in 142 buildings
