Ethics report: DCPS instructional superintendent received $169,464 from favored vendor

An ethics investigation has found that a D.C. Public Schools instructional superintendent accepted nearly $170,000 in undisclosed “consulting fees” from a vendor whom she favored in professional development contracts.

It’s the latest instance of D.C. government workers earning undisclosed income from second jobs, government watchdogs say.

The D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability published this month a notice saying an investigation found that Mary Ann Stinson received $169,464.82 from Relay Graduate School of Education while steering teachers and staff to take its continuing education courses between 2018 and 2023.

Ms. Stinson, whose DCPS salary was $195,219 in 2023, left the school system in June. She has until Sept. 29 to respond to 25 ethics charges, and faces fines of up to $5,000 per charge, totaling $125,000.

“BEGA has not received Ms. Stinson’s response to the Notice of Violation,” Ashley D. Cooks, director of the Office of Government Ethics, said in an email.

Ms. Cooks said the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, which enforces the city’s ethics rules as an independent agency, is set to schedule an “adversarial hearing process” in Ms. Stinson’s case.

An online search found that Ms. Stinson is listed as “MaryAnn Stinson” as an elementary school teacher at Lounsberry Hollow School in Vernon Township, New Jersey, about an hour’s drive from New York City.

Ms. Stinson did not respond to a request for comment on the ethics violation notice.

Neither Relay Graduate School of Education nor Lounsberry Hollow School responded to a request for comment.

A DCPS spokesperson confirmed that Ms. Stinson “is no longer employed with the District” but said confidentiality prevented sharing any details about her departure.

D.C. watchdogs say the practice of city employees taking unreported second jobs has become widespread under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration.

On March 10, the ethics board fined instructional superintendent Andria Caruthers $2,500 for “using government time or resources for other than official business” by working as a Relay Graduate School facilitator between 2022 and 2024.

The board reported that Ms. Caruthers used her DCPS email address to negotiate “for employment with an entity that does business with her agency for services closely related to her official government duties.”

Ms. Cooks said this week that she could not comment on why Ms. Caruthers remains employed by DCPS while Ms. Stinson has departed.

“Each ethics fine is different because it depends on the facts of the investigation and the egregiousness of the misconduct,” the ethics board director said.

The Times has reached out to Ms. Caruthers for comment.

D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson, a former Democratic member of the city council, said bureaucrats receiving unreported income from outside employers is “consistently the most frequent issue” handled by the ethics board.

Ms. Patterson’s office noted in an April alert that the District requires just 25% of its workforce to file annual financial disclosures and called on the mayor to implement a “District-wide requirement that employees report their outside employment” to managers.

“We focused not on individual cases but on the lack of clear policy and clear enforcement tools,” Ms. Patterson said in an email.

As of Tuesday, the city auditor said Mayor Bowser had not responded to the recommendation, which the ethics board has also endorsed.

Relay Graduate School launched a formal partnership with DCPS in 2017 to offer training programs for charter school teachers and district administrators, prompting complaints from some parents that the private graduate school promoted “militaristic” attitudes toward low-income Black students.

Marlon Ray, a former DCPS director of strategy and logistics at Boone Elementary School in Ward 8, demanded in a May 2020 whistleblower complaint that city leaders investigate “evidence of procurement fraud” in city contracts signed with Relay.

Mr. Ray lost his job in a 2021 downsizing, and is now suing the city for wrongful termination. He insists he was pushed out for implicating Ms. Stinson as a Relay “double agent” while she oversaw Boone as an instructional superintendent.

“The Bowser administration knowingly condoned this pervasive corruption and fostered a culture of fear and retaliation against those who opposed it,” Mr. Ray said in a phone interview. He blamed Ms. Bowser for the five-year delay in disciplining Ms. Stinson.

The office of Ms. Bowser, a third-term Democrat who took office in 2015, did not respond to emails seeking comment. Neither did most members of the Democrat-led D.C. Council.

Council member Trayon White, a Ward 8 Democrat who returned to office last month after being indicted on federal bribery charges, declined to comment.

According to the ethics board’s Sept. 11 notice, Ms. Stinson started working for DCPS in 2010 and became an “independent contractor” for Relay in 2017 while serving as principal of Truesdell Elementary in Northwest.

Her last job as instructional superintendent placed her in charge of principals and procurement requests at 12 schools, including several Ward 8 campuses such as Boone and Excel Academy.

The notice charges Ms. Stinson with working for Relay during school hours; using her DCPS email address to conduct Relay business; recording a February 2023 trip to a Relay conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, as “sick leave”; and requiring DCPS employees to attend Relay leadership courses.

In one case, the notice cites email records showing that she pressured a principal to sign a $30,000 contract with Relay after its officials “suggested” that it happen.

“On at least 20 occasions, [Ms. Stinson] used her District government email account to correspond regarding outside business matters, including sending and receiving consulting agreements, contracts and other documents to and from Relay that pertained to her outside employment with the entity and negotiating for employment with potential employers in North Carolina,” reads the notice, signed by Chairwoman Norma B. Hutcheson.

When DCPS began requiring Ms. Stinson to submit financial disclosures of outside income in 2017, the board discovered that she had lied about what Relay had paid her.

According to Relay records, the former superintendent received $59,824.95 in 2021 and $47,834.51 in 2022, despite her reporting to DCPS that she earned “between $1,001 and $15,000” as a consultant each year.

A DCPS spokesperson pointed to a recent policy change requiring all school system and campus leaders to “affirm their compliance” with D.C. ethics rules governing outside employment.

“It is the expectation of DC Public Schools that employees demonstrate full commitment and focus to their roles during their tour of duty,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Use of government time or resources for employment outside of the district does not align with DCPS values and responsibilities to the students and school communities we serve.”