Federal investigators are taking over a probe into a District high school that received a $100,000 award to help senior citizens because “the funds may have been mishandled,” the D.C. attorney general said.
D.C. Public Schools has been internally investigating McKinley Technology High School’s use of the grant, which it received in 2008, for at least three months. Students at the Northeast D.C. Public Schools magnet were supposed to use the money from the AARP Ethel Percy Andrus Award to help senior citizens use the Internet, but the Senior2Senior program never got off the ground.
“Information developed during this investigation suggests that these funds may have been mishandled,” acting D.C. Attorney General Irv Nathan said in a letter to Ronald Machen, U.S. attorney for the District.
“The District of Columbia Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has reviewed the matter, and is now referring the matter to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for further investigation and appropriate action,” Nathan wrote.
Sources close to the investigation say $35,000 was spent on a bus that was used five times. An additional $10,000 went to new furniture for the school’s administrative offices. Thousands of more dollars were spent on invitation-only, three-course buffet dinners held in the gymnasium. Still more money could not be accounted for at all.
An official in D.C. government with knowledge of the attorney general’s review said, “There was enough concern about a potential criminal act so we turned it over to the entity that has traditional criminal jurisdiction.”
Bill Miller, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said his office received Nathan’s letter and is “conducting the appropriate review.”
Former McKinley teacher Patrick Kelsey pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree theft for taking 10 Dell laptops from McKinley. He entered into the First Time Offender diversion program and must pay restitution of about $13,000.
Although DCPS has said Kelsey’s crime was unrelated to the AARP prize, sources close to the investigation say the $13,000 in laptops was part of the $100,000 award money.
Kelsey’s wife said that he was in charge of about $60,000 of the money as McKinley’s director of science, technology, engineering and math.
Thomas Ammazzalorso, who authored McKinley’s grant application, said the prize was never openly discussed after the summer of 2008. He resigned from McKinley in June and now teaches at Coolidge Senior High School.
“I guess we all stopped asking questions, once we saw the dinners, and the furniture, and a bus that we never actually saw,” he said.
