Sure, Harriette Walters might have stolen upwards of $44 million from the District’s coffers, but at least she wasn’t stealing directly from low-income school children. According to a WTOP report this morning, District officials have arrested and charged a city official with submitting false expense reports totaling $11,385 for big bills at local restaurants and strip clubs. Emerson Crawley, a program manager at After School for All at Shaw Junior High School, allegedly spent the…

Good morning, Washington. Getting going on a Monday is normally difficult enough, but we were having a few technological difficulties this morning as well, so thanks for your patience and bear with this truncated Morning Roundup while we get up to speed. Tax Scandal Triggers Reviews in Counties: Neighboring jurisdictions are apparently taking D.C.’s tax office scandal to heart and initiating big reviews of their agencies. Property tax revenues are slated to be scrutinized in…

Mayor Adrian Fenty, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso announced their plans to “right-size” D.C. public school system today that will include the simultaneous closure of 24 schools. School closures have been high on the to-do list for several years now as student enrollment has dropped from 55,000 to an estimated 49,600 students this school year. The new school closure plan differs from a previous one offered by former Superintendent…

Via the Examiner, someone has posted a video of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to YouTube where she openly discusses the obstacles she’s come across in trying to overhaul our troubled public school system. The 12-minute clip shows Rhee speaking to the Democrats for Education Reform about a week ago. She describes the school system as running “counter to the way any good organization operates,” and insists that “the only way” to get to…

Jonetta Rose Barras: “The District government is spending millions to send children to a controversial special education residential facility in Massachusetts that uses electric shock to discipline students.” Wow. Talk about an opening sentence. Rose Barras dedicated her column this week to the 10 District students who have been sent to the facility — the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Ma. — arguing that its unorthodox methods of treatment are reason enough to bring…

Mayor Adrian Fenty will continue to send his children to a private school in the District this year, reports the Examiner. Unlike Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso, who have both enrolled their children at one of the District’s best public elementary schools, the Mayor and his wife have chosen to send their seven year-old twins to another year at the private school they have attended since preschool. The mayor…

Registered voters in Wards 1 and 2 received a postcard in the mail a few weeks back announcing the special election scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 21 — but in the off chance you quickly tossed in the garbage, allow us to fill you in: In April, D.C. Board of Education member Jeff Smith resigned his seat in protest immediately after the D.C. Council gave preliminary approval to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s school takeover plan, so now…

Yesterday we threw together a list of the people in the District we considered influential, taking after a similar annual list put together by GQ that compiles the movers and shakers on the federal side of the city. One of our nominees was Dorothy Brizill, a well-known civic activist and political gadfly who runs DC Watch, the closest thing we have to a citizens’ inspector general. And as we expected, last night she offered us…

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy…

>> “District of Columbia Public School students already had been warned that they might not have air conditioning when they return to class Aug. 27. Now school leaders say there might not be enough textbooks to go around immediately, either.” [Examiner] >> The Ballston and Virginia Square Metro stations have reopened after an Orange Line train struck and killed a woman earlier this morning. Police are still investigating what happened. [WTOP] >> Can you…