UPDATE ON Rock Terrace: Still No Justice for Students Who Were Ripped Off

The letter below was published on September 10, 2013.
In the meantime, the Montgomery County Board of Education has failed to specify a SINGLE ACTION that it will take to remedy what happened to the students and families at Rock Terrace.
Chris Barclay and Phil Kauffman have paid "lip service" to the idea that MCPS needs to earn back the families' trust.

******************
Open Letter to the Board of Education:

Although I could not attend the committee meeting yesterday where Rock Terrace was discussed, I have watched portions of the video.

http://www.parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2013/09/rock-terrace-school-audit-no-credit.html

I am EXTREMELY distressed by Larry Bowers' failure to be forthright with the Board of Education about the extent of the theft of money from Rock Terrace students.

Bowers kept saying over and over that they need to "piece together" where the money went when it was withdrawn, and that maybe it went for "programmatic purposes", as if that were somehow an acceptable use of the stolen money.

The bottom line is that MCPS has a way to calculate how much money was deposited over the years into different student accounts. And with the subpoena power of the State's attorney, eventually families will be able to ascertain how much money went into these accounts.

Whether the money was used for Rock Terrace School programmatic purposes, to pay the American Express Purchasing Card Bills (for which, by the way, there are apparently no transaction logs), to subsidize staff and staff's children's trips to London, England...it just doesn't matter. The money belonged to the students and should not have been withdrawn from their accounts.

I do not have confidence that the Chief Operating Officer, who let this situation go on for almost 10 years, is the person who should have ANY say-so whatsoever in determining whether and how much to reimburse these students. I renew my call for an outside, independent forensic accountant who will fairly determine what the students are owed.

While the state's attorney is investigating any criminal elements of this whole sorry scheme, you must realize that MCPS continues to face substantial civil liability as well. As a taxpayer, and as an advocate for children with disabilities, I had hoped that MCPS would see the immediate benefit in acknowledging fault, working promptly to ascertain damages, and take steps to make the students whole. Instead, what I saw on the video was evasiveness, obfuscation, and flat-out untruths.

For example: we know for a fact, and I have provided copies of documents to MCPS's internal auditors, that before one student graduated from Rock Terrace, $340 dollars in cash was withdrawn from his bank account around spring break. Then, after he graduated, the rest of the money dribbled away in "inactivity fees" over several years. So not only was this student's money stolen from him, the rest of it was wasted specifically because MCPS let it be wasted. When Christopher Barclay specifically asked about this exact type of scenario, he was given an evasive answer.

These students did not withdraw cash on their own initiative and use it for their own purposes. To assert that as a possibility is an OUTRAGE and an insult to the students and families who trusted the school system. I'm glad that "going forward," robust training is in place to make sure that all IAF accounts will be handled properly, but that doesn't repair the damage that was done.

Lastly, Mr. Bowers keeps saying "there was no evidence of fraud." NOT EXACTLY, Mr. Bowers. Just the fact that you don't know where the money went after it was withdrawn is evidence of fraud. Accounts without parental permission or knowledge is evidence of fraud. How about you stop asserting legal conclusions and leave that to your lawyers, whom you are apparently already paying to come up with an opinion as to whether the money the students were paid constitutes "wages."

Here's the simple solution: hire an accountant. Make it right.

Lyda Astrove