A stockpile of aging textbooks, desks, computers and other equipment found in Shepherd Elementary school’s basement earlier this week is more evidence of the bureaucratic mess that needs to be cleaned up in the city, Chancellor Michelle Rhee said.

Mayor Adrian Fenty, Rhee, parents and D.C. Council Member Muriel Bowser, D-Ward 4, toured Shepherd’s dank basement and found it filled with old equipment, including books that were stacked “floor to ceiling.”

“It was gross down there,” Rhee said of the basement.

Rhee did not have an exact tally of the items Thursday. She did not know what was salvageable but said parents had told her about the books. Those parents, Rhee said, had been trying to get the word out about the texts at the same time that other schools complained of shortages.

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“I think it just showed that there’s a lack of coordination in terms of making sure we set all of our schools up for success,” Rhee said.

The items were removed Wednesday, Shepherd Principal Dan Robinson said. But that removal came after numerous requests he’d made in the three years he’s worked at the school. Some of the items, which predated his tenure, “were actually in decent shape,” Robinson said.

That Robinson’s requests were ignored for so long gave Rhee even more ammunition in her call for a more streamlined bureaucracy.

Rhee said a “level of customer service” must be instituted so principals can get their concerns addressed “immediately.”

This is not the first time that city officials have discovered forgotten supplies in a school, however. Last month, a team from Alvarez & Marsal LLC, a consulting firm hired by Fenty to review D.C. Public Schools’ budget, discovered athletic equipment and computers locked away in the shuttered Terrell Junior High. Around the corner, Walker-Jones Elementary had been forced to scrap its football team because it didn’t have enough equipment.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com