D.C. Public Schools officials are investigating accusations that the principal at McKinley Technology High School assigned phony grades to seniors, according to school officials. “We are aware of allegations regarding Principal [David] Pinder. The allegations are part of an ongoing investigation,” DCPS spokesman Fred Lewis said.
Current and former McKinley employees told The Washington Examiner that Pinder instructed data clerks to doctor transcripts for several years at the Northeast magnet school.
Transcripts obtained by The Examiner of 13 12th-grade students in the 2008-2009 school year show “David Pinder” listed as the teacher of courses such as Programming for Multimedia, Intro to Digital Media, Interactive Media, and Principles of U.S. Government. In some cases, students received grades for the classes — never below a “C.” Most were given a “P” for passing.
Pinder declined to comment on the charges.
Lewis said it would be “rare” for a principal to be listed as a course instructor. “However, if a principal is licensed in a specific subject area, they could in fact teach the class,” he said.
Multiple McKinley employees said Pinder does not teach classes.
A current staffer said Pinder directed the school’s data clerks to assign students credits that they did not earn. “He did it kind of quite often, and my reaction was pretty contained, but I thought it was ridiculous,” the staffer said.
The employee said he had been questioned by another DCPS investigator last summer about the grade-tampering.
Rhonda Robinson, a former McKinley counselor, testified before then-Council Chairman Vincent Gray about the grades at a hearing in October 2009. She accused Pinder of “mismanagement, unethical behavior and illegal activity.” Robinson was laid off in 2009 during a reduction-in-force.
“Mr. Pinder disregarded central office directives that every student must satisfy all McKinley graduation requirements,” she testified. “… Mr. Pinder instructed the data entry clerk to indicate that classes that were never taken had been passed and this information is on their transcripts.”
Investigator Eastern Stewart, a 27-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, declined to comment because of his position with DCPS.
McKinley has the second-highest graduation rate of D.C. public high schools: 96.5 percent in 2009, the most recent data school officials made available. The average graduation rate of DCPS high schools was 72.3 percent. Magnet schools posted the highest rates, including Ellington School of the Arts with 98.15 percent of seniors graduating and Benjamin Banneker Academic High School with 95.65 percent.
Lewis said DCPS expects the investigation to wrap up “soon.”
Sources close to the investigation say it developed from Stewart’s probe into a $100,000 award given to McKinley. The D.C. attorney general handed that case over to federal investigators last week, saying “the funds may have been mishandled.”
