Dena Levitz, The Examiner
2008-01-16 08:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

The executive director of D.C.’s Public Charter School Board on Tuesday defended the school accused by some city leaders of doing too little to check on the welfare of Banita Jacks’ daughters when they dropped out.

“They showed concern and followed up as they should have,” said Josephine Baker, backing Meridian Public Charter School during a tense segment of a D.C. Council hearing on the case of Banita Jacks, who police say killed her four daughters. Three of them attended Meridian.

Meridian Vice Principal Victor Blount explained that after the girls stopped showing up to school, his staff tried to contact their mother. When she couldn’t be reached, they unenrolled the girls, relying on the word of the children’s godmother that they would be homeschooled.

Meridian’s approach contrasted with the efforts made by a social worker at Booker T. Washington, where Jacks’ eldest daughter attended. She went to Jacks’ residence more than once, and urged authorities to check into the children’s welfare.

“It’s chilling,” said Tommy Wells, Ward 6 councilman. “You really are part of our city’s safety net for children ... what you are now describing is a major chasm in our safety net, that we don’t know if our children are in your school.”

Among reforms Mayor Adrian Fenty promised in response to the Jacks case is an agreement between the city’s Children and Family Services Agency and charter schools to better track truancy.

Baker, though, said charter schools contact Children and Family Services if their students miss 10 school days, and the agency’s been dropping the ball.

“It’s why the schools with the financial means have their own social workers and in many cases conduct their own investigations,” Baker said.

Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso said he also was “disgusted” with the severity of the truancy problem in D.C. Public Schools, where almost 9,000 students missed 15 days or more in 2007.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com