The District’s interim schools chief said she did not know why the private school operator she ousted from Dunbar Senior High School was successful in bringing control to another D.C. public school.
“I don’t know why they were able to accomplish it at one rather than the other,” Kaya Henderson told the Kojo Nnamdi Show on Monday afternoon.
Henderson removed New York-based Friends of Bedford from Dunbar after observing lax security at the high school: students roaming the halls, hanging out in unsecured areas, and charges — that were later dropped — against five students for sexually assaulting another.
But Friends of Bedford remains at Coolidge High School in Northwest.
Last year, “a combination of strong school culture and great learning and teaching” held Dunbar together, Henderson said. “Over the course of this school year … the culture deteriorated.”
To revitalize Dunbar, Henderson reinstated former Principal Stephen Jackson, shut down unused parts of the building, and double-checked security cameras.
