The school’s Parent Teacher Association has invited members of the Richmond School Board, as well as Superintendent Yvonne Brandon, to attend its regular PTA meeting tonight. The intent of the gathering is to foster dialogue between parents and their elected representatives that might help normalize relations, says PHSSA PTA President Joy Simpson.

The PTA extended its invitation through a letter sent to Brandon and the School Board on Jan. 27. The letter was a follow-up to an in-person invite extended during the RPS board’s regular meeting on Jan. 17.

The only response from Brandon so far has been an indirect message sent through the Patrick Henry board that sought to have the PTA postpone or cancel its meeting, says Simpson, who notes that they have heard nothing from School Board Chairwoman Dawn Page.

A call to School Board Chairwoman Dawn Page was not returned. Richmond Public Schools spokeswoman Felicia Cosby was asked whether Brandon would attend the meeting, but the superintendent was unavailable to answer, and no response was received by press time.

Simpson says the PTA chose to disregard Brandon's requests: “We felt like our momentum, our energy and our position of what we feel like right now is a position of strength.”

She says the PTA plans to have nine chairs reserved at the meeting to accommodate the Richmond School Board. And while it appears that the PTA’s invitation will not be acted on officially, she says it may be accepted by individual members of the School Board.

“We heard through our [Patrick Henry] board that Mr. Donald Coleman would be there and that there may be one or two others,” says Simpson. She says that message was conveyed to Patrick Henry's board after a recent mediated meeting between PHSSA and the Richmond School Board called for by the Virginia Department of Education. “I’m very proud of him because he was probably told not to come. I guess he’s the only one who fully supports us.”

Coleman says his decision to attend is in the hopes that the RPS board and the families at Patrick Henry can start to overcome some of the missteps, miscommunications and mistrust that strain their relationship. "Hopefully I can help keep moving us in the right direction — that it doesn’t have to be us against them," he says. "I appreciate the invitation, so I’ll be there."

And he suggests that some of his fellow board members may attend as well, indicating that they are "in the valley of indecision" in part because of a prior commitment, the annual legislative reception at City Hall.

"This is why I believe it was asked that it could be postponed," Coleman says, defending his fellow board members. "I feel like my colleagues are doing the best that they can to professionally serve the charter school, but the reality is, it’s something being developed."

And he notes that the fact that he, a very public supporter of school choice, remains in good standing with the rest of the RPS board is proof that there's not so much distance to cover to arrive at understanding.

"I’m on the board and I’m coming tonight — at some point, you have to say, ‘They haven’t killed him, and obviously he’s an ally,' " he says. "I love to say it all the time: Patrick Henry is a public charter school. It's our hope that this will be a beginning."

The decision to invite RPS leaders to the PTA meeting is in part a response to a strongly worded letter sent on Dec. 14 by then-RPS Board Chairwoman Kimberly Bridges that implied the school was on shaky ground and possibly in violation of its charter agreement. But the invite also is intended to ease escalating tensions that resulted after January allegations that Brandon had participated in an ongoing, clandestine exchange of information with former Patrick Henry board member Reggie Malone.

The Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts PTA will meet tonight at 7 p.m. at the school's building on Semmes Avenue.

Making use of citations referencing various news articles and public documents, an unknown wiki-editor or group of editors has outlined some of Jones’ political and corporate relationships.

“In 2011, Jones re-election committee received 96 donations, 46 of the donations (45 percent of the total cash value) from [Altria Group Inc and Dominion Resources], their executives, and employees,” the page now reads. The information follows a brief rundown of Jones’ past life as a General Assembly delegate and Baptist minister.

“Complaints of corporate influence and favoritism arose after Jones' 2008 election when the Mayor supported construction of a new city jail by City Central LLC,” the Wiki post goes on to read. “City Central LLC was a consortium of individuals and corporations which were major contributors to Jones 2008 election campaign.”

When asked about the recent additions, mayoral spokesman Mike Wallace had this to say: "The Office of the Press Secretary does not actively monitor the page, as it is editable by the public and therefore can be changed at any time. The office encourages anyone seeking factual detailed information on city services, government procedures or information on the city’s elected officials to visit www.Richmondgov.com."

The revised entry provides a narrative timeline beginning with City Central’s unsolicited proposal to the city in 2010 to build a jail when expansion was on the table, Jones’ initial acceptance of the bid, and then award of the contract to yet another firm, all of which helped open a rift between Jones and an until-then-supportive Richmond City Council.

The added information also includes a possible hint as to what group may be responsible for alterations to the Wiki page.

“Jones was accused of unequal treatment of Richmond Tea Party compared to Occupy Richmond protesters,” the page reads, detailing the right-wing grass-roots group’s rally held in Kanawha Plaza at a cost of $10,000 for city permits, and the Jones administration’s later decision to press forward with an audit of the Richmond Tea Party. The audit, according to Jones’ press secretary, Tammy Hawley, was initiated because the group had not filed monthly returns for admissions, meals and lodging taxes in 2010 and had filed returns only for January and February in 2011.

The entry goes on to contrast that treatment with Jones’ failure to pursue the Occupy Richmond movement to recover “more than $17,000” in costs to clean up Kanawha Plaza after the group’s prolonged encampment there.

In November, Richmond magazine requested a list of 700 businesses that Hawley said had, along with the Tea Party, been automatically flagged for audit. The city has since indicated that the list is not subject to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act because it involves business-license tax information that's exempted. Wallace said that this was not the list of businesses that were audited along with the Tea Party, but rather was a list of businesses that “pop up” to be considered for audit. Wallace said a much smaller list of 300 or so businesses actually were audited.

The city has not yet responded to Richmond magazine’s request to see a list of the names of the 300 businesses that were subject to the city audit.

Richmond magazine reported on a previous hack of Jones’ Wikipedia entry in May. Another prankster, one with more sense of humor than political activisim, had altered the page to include a tribute in verse to Jones by setting the basic framework of his life’s story to the lyrics of the theme to 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Someone removed the lyrical bio shortly after the Richmond magazine report. 

Henderson, with fellow School Board member Adria Graham Scott and Richmond Public Schools spokeswoman Felicia Cosby in tow, came to the meeting to personally inform parents of the contents of a letter sent on Dec. 14 by School Board Chairwoman Kimberly Bridges. That letter cited “deficiencies” of a “significant magnitude” at Patrick Henry, and it implied strongly that the RPS board plans to intervene.

Henderson announced himself to parents by, according to various witnesses, muscling aside the school’s PTA President Joy Simpson as she was reading holiday wishes to parents on ornaments their children had decorated for the school’s Christmas tree. He proceeded, according to those witnesses, to reiterate many of the same concerns that were stated in the letter and that had been widely reported in the media earlier that day.

“He came up and interrupted me while I was reading letters to the parents from some of our children,” said Simpson, who described Henderson as having "hijacked" the meeting. “I was on probably the second letter, and he came across the cafeteria and interrupted me and said that he needed to speak some business.”

Page Hayes, another parent who was among the 70 to 80 adults at the meeting, says she’s still “just livid” days after the fact.

“I’ve been mad ever since,” Hayes said. “They can’t be so clueless as not to see the timing — the parents are all excited to be in the school building ... this was a really great beginning for us, getting into that school building. They threw cold water on it.”

The school is set to reopen after winter break in its permanent digs at the old Patrick Henry Elementary School building on Semmes Avenue, after operating since it opened in a nearby church. The Patrick Henry building has undergone extensive renovations to bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and to satisfy other usability requirements.

Hayes, Simpson and a number of other parents who were at the meeting all say Henderson stayed through the entire evening, engaging in heated interactions with parents. He did not stop to watch the kindergarten musical presentation in a nearby room. Nearly all of the parents related Henderson’s response to a question posed by one parent as to whether anything could be done to help the school: “Absolutely nothing.”

Henderson declined to tell his side of what happened, other than to say he was “asked by our chairman to bring the letter and make sure our parents are aware of the letter and that we are very concerned.”

He brushed off criticism of his allegedly abrupt entry. “This is the way I generally do things,” Henderson said. “I tell the truth first of all, and when it’s clear that the truth is not being told, I go on and do something more important.”

But responding to whether the charter school could be preserved and whether relations between the School Board and Patrick Henry could be fixed, he told Richmond magazine, “Sure.”

Still, Henderson said that Bridges’ letter was written only as a last resort.

“If you understand how much effort this board has invested in this school and how many times they have been promised something, they have simply expressed their disappointment,” he said.

Responding to public criticism from parents and at least one former Patrick Henry board member that there were factual inaccuracies in Bridges’ letter, Henderson indicated that there was information forthcoming that would show otherwise.

“I’ll wait until the new year to get this new clarification,” he said. “I think the letter is accurate. That’s why we wrote the letter — why we spent so much time getting it right.”

Henderson said the School Board approved of the letter before it was sent, but he then acknowledged that the letter was not written jointly by the board and said he was unaware of whether it was approved by the full School Board during a meeting. He also acknowledged that he did not see the letter before it was sent, but that he remained confident of its contents.

“The letter is accurate,” he insists. “I agree with what’s in the letter, and I understand what the letter enumerates.”

He said he stood by the letter's claims that Patrick Henry teachers had failed to develop a promised integrated curriculum, instead relying on the Richmond Public Schools curriculum. He invited this reporter to compare the RPS curriculum with Patrick Henry's, but he acknowledged that his own review of RPS' curriculum was "at a very cursory level." He would not respond when asked whether he had reviewed Patrick Henry's curriculum.

All state public schools adhere to basic core-curriculum standards developed and approved by the Virginia Department of Education and the state Board of Education. Curriculum is then developed more fully at the local school-board level and then, typically, even more fully at the classroom level by teachers who develop lesson plans. In the case of Patrick Henry, the school's charter requires that it develop integrated lessons that focus on science and the arts and blend that with other areas of curriculum content. 

Among the other points enumerated in the letter are some relating to matters of fiscal responsibility and reporting, with Bridges writing that “PHSSA’s Board of Directors has not met this expectation.”

In a letter sent last Friday in response to Bridges' letter, former Patrick Henry treasurer Susan Martin strongly disputed this and other allegations, writing that accounting had been sound, and that a promised audit had been delayed not by Patrick Henry inaction but by RPS' unwillingness to cooperate with an auditing company by providing necessary data on per-pupil funding. 

Anita Zimmerman, an accountant hired by Richmond Public Schools to work with Patrick Henry’s board, agreed, saying the nonprofit board’s books were in good order. She only served at the school between early March 2011 and June 30, 2011, indicating that she left frustrated that the School Board’s central office staff would not cooperate — or even to establish communication — with her.  

Zimmerman said that at one point there was communication with central office staff, in the form of an apology. She says that she was told by staff there that they had been directed by Superintendent Yvonne Brandon to cease communication with the Patrick Henry board.

“When I came in, I did a review and an informal audit,” said Zimmerman, whose purview was only over the school’s 501(c)3, and not over a student-activities account under RPS control that later became the impetus for Virginia State Police to launch an investigation. “I revisited everything so the books were in excellent order.”

Of Bridges’ letter, Zimmerman agreed with PHSSA parents' claims that “there were so many inaccuracies.”

“The amount of grants and things they brought in exceeded what they had expected," she said. "The comment that the turnover of accountants and treasurers had hurt the books? It just meant that sometimes the wrong things were printed out [for School Board meetings]. It didn’t mean the books themselves were not in order.”

Zimmerman says her interactions with the RPS board and central office staff were best typified by one meeting toward the end of her tenure. Arriving for the meeting with the RPS board, she says Bridges approached her “minutes” beforehand and gave her a list of discussion items and then announced that Zimmerman had been “asked beforehand to give a presentation” on the information requested.

“You often felt like you were being set up,” she said. “It was … you against us.”

Henderson denied that there had been any end to communication between Patrick Henry and the central office, but he acknowledged that communication between the 501(c)3 board and the School Board had been restricted, allowing only communication between Patrick Henry President Sharon Burton and the RPS Board’s clerk.

“There are clearly policy matters that should be communicated through the clerk of the School Board because we have had a great deal of difficulty with not being on the record,” Henderson said. “The administration and the principal of the charter school certainly are communicating, and I don’t get any impression that there are any critical issues that are not being communicated between the two boards that are not being passed. They may take more time to be communicated, but they are being passed.”

City Councilman Marty Jewell was with Henderson at a meeting on Thursday from which the School Board member excused himself in order to attend the Patrick Henry PTA meeting. Jewell says Henderson gave him a copy of Bridges' letter before leaving. Coincidentally, later that same night, Jewell ran into Simpson, PHSSA's PTA president, at a nearby restaurant after the PTA meeting.

“She was venting like hell, and I don’t know that I blame her,” said Jewell, who once opposed the school but has since changed his position, now saying he wonders if there’s not reason for the public to question the RPS board’s motives and intentions in its dealings with Patrick Henry. “I think a case could be pulled together that there has been intentional undermining going on.”

And Jewell speculates as to motive.

“The most obvious reason for me is the record already in the first year: They’re accredited in their first year, and they’ve got the renovations going on for the building — not as scheduled, but as planned — and that’s success you’re going to [dispute]?” Jewell said. “I think they’re fearful they’re going to get shown up by this charter school. That’s motivation enough for me.”

In fact, he said, Patrick Henry’s success at pulling together parents from diverse backgrounds and incomes to work toward a mutual goal of improving student outcomes was why he reversed his own position on the charter school.

“Part of my motivation for supporting it was that hopefully RPS would get the message that this alternative school is a challenge to the larger system, that it must change, and it can’t keep cheating our children.”

Jewell said he wasn’t certain what RPS’ next move on the charter school might be, but he said he’s observed an effort by RPS to bring about a “death by a thousand cuts.” Doing so, he said, should cause the community to ask a much bigger question about responsibility for Richmond’s children.

“If you’re going to pull the plug on Patrick Henry, why don’t we pull the plug on RPS for all the mistakes it’s made?”

Meanwhile, Simpson says she believes Henderson’s appearance at the school may well have backfired.

“I think in the scope of things as we look back on last Thursday, it could have been the best thing that could have happened in a way — if we get the School Board to pay attention to our children’s needs,” she said. “We plan on rallying at the School Board meeting. We plan to hire [a] bus — it’s that many parents that are coming to City Hall for that [January] School Board meeting.”