Steve Burns
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) News that a member of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s cabinet received special treatment from former D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of District parents, many of whom must endure the annual nightmare of entering lotteries for prestigious schools and hoping for the best for their kids.

The ensuing report following an investigation from the Inspector General is still confidential, but the Washington Post has since reported a child of Bowser’s Deputy Mayor Courtney Snowden received special placement from Henderson, allowed to skip past the lottery system. While parents may have been angered by the initial news, they were sure to become angrier following Bowser’s response.

“The deputy mayor did what was available to her, and the chancellor made the decision,” Bowser told reporters last week. “The chancellor is the educator in this equation and in the best position to make that decision.”

Every parent has the option to petition DCPS to skip the line for any number of special needs. However, when those perks go to kids connected to government officials, it starts to look bad, Washingtonian Magazine Editor-at-Large and noted District politics observer Harry Jaffe told WMAL.

“It’s the kind of bread-and-butter issue that really gets to voters,” Jaffe said. “People have long memories when it comes to favoritism and their children.”

Bowser has a tendency to be tone-deaf in these situations, Jaffe said, and her response only served to add fuel to the raging fire among District parents.

“Nobody wants to hear, in a situation like that, ‘hey, it’s not my fault,'” Jaffe said. “That doesn’t help anybody out. It doesn’t really assuage anybody’s anger.”

Bowser could face a bruising re-election campaign from multiple angles, Jaffe said, and this is the kind of personal issue, concerning children and favoritism, that sticks in voters’ minds.

D.C. Councilmember David Grosso, who said he had seen the Inspector General’s report, told the Post others who received preferential treatment include a former elected official in the District, an Obama-era White House staffer, the director of a nonprofit that works with DCPS, a school principal, and a friend of Henderson. Bowser disputed the naming of another person, City Administrator Rashad Young, whose child, she said, participated and was selected in the standard lottery system.

A spokesman for Bowser told the Post the administration has placed a temporary moratorium on special school placements while Henderson’s replacement, current chancellor Antwan Wilson, is given time to put together new rules around the policy. Bowser will also require government officials to go through the District’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability before requesting special placement.

Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: DC Mayor’s Office/Twitter)