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BALLOU PROBE
Officials find no financial records, $12G in cash inside school safe
(Published March 22, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

Serious financial irregularities discovered at Ballou Senior High School have prompted D.C. Public Schools officials to launch a wide-ranging investigation into activities at the long-troubled facility with the assistance of the District’s inspector general.

"There are no [financial] records. Just the fact that there are no records tells you something is wrong," said one of several sources close to the investigation who were consulted for this story but spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

What began several weeks ago as an audit of instructional programs at the District’s second-largest public high school took a financial turn last week when an evaluation team sent into the school by Interim Superintendent Elfreda W. Massie discovered the lack of financial records. Investigators also found a safe containing more than $12,000 in cash and numerous undeposited checks and money orders, which the school apparently received last year from students or their parents in payment of fees.

Principal Art Bridges has been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the investigation, but school officials said the popular administrator is not the target of their investigation. A group of about 20 students staged a brief demonstration to show support for Bridges on March 16 after they learned about his removal from the school.

Bridges could not be reached for comment.

School officials said Bridges, who has been principal of the Congress Heights school since 1997, was on medical leave for approximately two weeks before being placed on administrative leave March 5. They declined to provide further details about what they described as "a personnel matter."

However, The Common Denominator has learned that Bridges’ suspension is related to his frequent, unreported and unexplained absences and late arrivals at the school he heads. One school official described Bridges as "basically AWOL" from his job.

Bridges’ removal from his post came a day after a critical cover story in the weekly Washington City Paper hit the streets, describing numerous assaults, threats, security lapses and illegal activities that have allegedly occurred inside the school during the past two school years. The story also alleged that several students waited more than a month to get a class schedule at the start of the current school year and noted that Assistant Principal Richard Gross, rather than Bridges, was in charge of the school on Feb. 2, the day student James Richardson was shot and killed in a school hallway.

Associate Superintendent Vera White, who heads a monitoring and evaluation team that school officials said recommended that Bridges be placed on leave, has been put in charge of day-to-day activities at the school. White previously served as principal at Jefferson Junior High School.

Despite rumors, school officials said the Ballou investigation so far has turned up no evidence of illicit activities being operated inside the school that would require referral to the Metropolitan Police Department.

This is not the first time that financial irregularities have been discovered at Ballou. Some community members told The Common Denominator that financial problems also were uncovered before Bridges’ tenure as principal.

Violence also has been a recurrent problem at Ballou, where former principal Kenneth Jones was removed in October 1997 under similarly chaotic circumstances. Students at that time staged a demonstration against Jones’ removal, according to a story published Oct. 23, 1997, in The Washington Post.

The current academic year at Ballou has been wracked with disruptions – including the fatal shooting of student athlete Richardson in February, a melee in the school cafeteria in November that resulted in about a dozen suspensions, and a month-long closure in early fall due to the school’s contamination with toxic mercury that had been stolen from an unlocked science lab.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the death of another Ballou student. Sgt. Joe Gentile, a police spokesman, said Sherrod Miller, 15, of the 1300 block of Congress Street SE, was taken by ambulance from his home to Greater Southeast Community Hospital after midnight March 19 and died from what appeared to have been a beating. Gentile said police are awaiting autopsy results from the D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office but are investigating the death as a possible homicide.

Miller, like Richardson, was a member of the Ballou Knights’ varsity football team. The 6-foot-4, 275-pound sophomore played defensive tackle and offensive guard. Head Coach and Athletic Director Noel Cyrus said Miller "was projected to be a starter at offensive guard" next fall.

"He was a nice kid," Cyrus said. "There was no question surrounding him that he was genuinely a good kid."