A special grand jury investigating the District’s education and social service programs has formally requested that municipal officials attempt to locate at least one legally mandated child by the end of the fiscal quarter.
The wide-ranging probe has issued dozens of subpoenas to the Child and Family Services Agency and D.C. Public Schools, seeking internal communications, truancy metrics, and any documentary evidence suggesting a government social worker has successfully made eye contact with a minor since early October.
According to transcripts of closed-door testimony unsealed Tuesday, agency directors defended their oversight protocols to the grand jury, arguing that while physical verification of a child's existence is an aspirational best practice, the District has achieved unprecedented success in standardizing the margins on its blank visitation logs.
"Our current framework requires multiple layers of administrative review before we officially categorize a student as having evaporated," a senior aide familiar with the probe told reporters, confirming that the agencies have largely transitioned to an honor system where absent seventh-graders are legally presumed to be conducting independent study.
We are fully cooperating with the special counsel, but we fundamentally reject the premise that we have lost track of the District's youth," said Julian Caldwell, Deputy Director of Hypothetical Attendance for D.C. Public Schools. "Statistically speaking, the vast majority of them are almost certainly inside a building.
The grand jury is scheduled to reconvene next week to review a newly subpoenaed tranche of interagency tracking data, which court filings indicate consists of a single municipal spreadsheet containing a question mark.