The Washington Post - 20.08.2019

staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

(D-N.Y.) said their vote would “enable a

racist system.” On Facebook, Spanberger

was labeled “too late” and “clueless.”

She was stunned. It was the first time

the freshman congresswoman could not

make sense of what was happening.

Reflecting on the late June episode,

Spanberger said she learned a hard

lesson she did not anticipate in 2018,

when she unseated Republican Dave

Brat and helped Democrats win the

House majority: Sometimes your biggest

foes will be in your own party.

“That week showed me that for some

people, ideology matters more than

putting food in the mouth of a child,” she

said. “And that was stunning to me.”

In the eight months that Spanberger

SEE SPANBERGER ON B2

BY JENNA PORTNOY

At the end of another long week in

Congress, Rep. Abigail Spanberger

poured herself a cup of coffee and waited

in her D.C. apartment for her family to

arrive from their home outside Rich-

mond.

She felt satisfied with a job well done.

Then she looked at Twitter.

The Democrat saw liberals lashing

out at moderates like herself for approv-

ing $4.6 billion in emergency aid for

migrants at the Southern border — a

deal they said did little to rein in the

Trump administration’s immigration

policies.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) accused

lawmakers like Spanberger of being part

of a “Child Abuse Caucus.” The chief of

KLMNO

METRO

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ SU B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Fifty years ago, American

soldiers in Vietnam could

order the cars of their

dreams by mail. B3

THE DISTRICT

The death of a woman

found submerged in her

SUV in the Potomac River

was ruled accidental. B4

OBITUARIES

Richard Williams, 86, was

the Oscar-winning

animator behind “Who

81 ° 90 ° 92 ° 85 ° Framed Roger Rabbit.” B6

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 2 p.m.

94

°

Precip: 40%

Wind: ESE

4-8 mph

Petula

Dvorak

She is away. Her column will resume

when she returns.

BY DEBBIE TRUONG

The family of a third student

has filed a $30 million lawsuit

against a respected D.C. charter

school in federal court, alleging

that school employees failed to

protect the child from a teacher

who sexually abused students.

Manuel Garcia Fernandez is ac-

cused in the lawsuit of sexually

abusing the student while the

child was in fourth and fifth

grades at Latin American Montes-

sori Bilingual Public Charter

School, from 2013 until 2015. Two

other families earlier sued the

school — widely known by the

acronym LAMB — alleging that

not enough was done to protect

their children from Fernandez;

they reached a settlement out of

court, legal records show.

Fernandez was criminally

charged, convicted and sentenced

to eight years in prison for sexually

assaulting six of his students on

campus from 2015 to 2017. The

civil lawsuit, filed last week in the

District, does not say whether the

student involved with the suit was

among those Fernandez was con-

victed of sexually assaulting.

Steven J. McCool, an attorney

for the family, declined to com-

ment on the lawsuit. The school’s

attorney, John McGavin, said Fri-

day that the case had been “re-

solved” but declined to comment

further.

Messages to school officials, in-

cluding spokeswoman Maria Jose

Carrasco, were not returned.

School employees had “the au-

thority and ability to investigate

and take meaningful corrective

action to end or prevent the sexual

assaults, exploitation, discrimina-

tion and harassment, but failed to

do so,” according to the lawsuit.

In the suit, the student and the

student’s mother said Fernandez

put his hands down the child’s

pants and also touched the stu-

SEE LAMB ON B5

3rd student sues D.C. charter school over teacher’s sexual abuse

BY HANNAH NATANSON

The movie spoke to each of

them in different ways.

“Already Gone” — a new film

that tells the story of two teen-

agers who hit the road to escape a

bad situation in New York City —

reminded Vernon Green Jr., a

Virginia man who runs a charity

mentoring at-risk kids, of his own

childhood growing up in foster

care with an abusive father. For

Jim Klock, a former Virginia

police officer who made it big as

an actor and served as one of the

film’s executive producers, it re-

called interactions he had as a

cop with children in the “project

section of the D.C. area.”

And for Keanu Reeves, the

other executive producer, it felt

like “a story that’s true.”

“It’s children, in a hard envi-

ronment, going out into the

world and seeking themselves

and escape,” Reeves told The

Washington Post. “We can watch

this movie, relate to it, hopefully

learn from it and be entertained

by it.”

After this past weekend, the

movie may do more than teach

and amuse. Because of a whirl-

wind partnership among Green,

Klock, Reeves and Christopher

Kenneally, the film’s writer and

director, it will help children in

the D.C. area navigate, and per-

haps escape, difficult home situa-

tions.

The four men partnered to put

on a special advance screening of

“Already Gone” in New York on

Friday — and named Green’s

charity, G3 Community Services,

the event’s sponsor. That gave

Green a boost in “exposure,” he

said, just when he was fundrais-

ing to expand G3CS to the Dis-

trict and Maryland. “G3” stands

for “Giving God Glory.”

Green drove up to New York on

Friday and spent the evening

SEE CHARITY ON B3

Charity gets a hand from Hollywood

BY JUSTIN JOUVENAL

The two friends and firefighters

launched their boat off the Florida

coast Friday, headed out for an

afternoon of fishing to honor one

of the men’s recently deceased

father, family members said.

But Fairfax County firefighter

Justin Walker and Jacksonville,

Fla., firefighter Brian McCluney

never returned, sparking a des-

perate search by local, state and

federal agencies and a flotilla of

volunteers that entered its fourth

day Monday. As of the evening, the

search continued, and authorities

announced the discovery of a

tackle gear bag belonging to Mc-

Cluney.

Nearly 40 boats and some air-

SEE FIREFIGHTER ON B4

Vast air,

sea search

for missing

firefighters

A moderate’s wake-up call

After liberal backlash over aid bill for children at border, Rep. Spanberger commits to bridging her own party’s divide

TOP: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, right, last month greets Rep. Abigail Spanberger and one of the Virginia Democrat’s young

constituents, who told Pelosi she’s going to be a member of Congress, too. ABOVE: Spanberger leaves her home in Glen Allen in 2018.

ERIK S. LESSER/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

BY PERRY STEIN

The percentage of public

school students passing a critical

standardized exam in the District

is gradually growing, according

to results released Monday show-

ing that students across all dem-

ographic groups improved on the

English portion of the test. Prog-

ress in math proved more mod-

est.

The results for the 2018-2019

academic year also underscore

the considerable challenges ad-

ministrators and teachers con-

front in their efforts to bridge the

city’s achievement gap between

white students and students of

color.

Although black and Hispanic

students’ results improved at a

moderately faster rate than those

of their white peers citywide, that

improvement did not significant-

ly bridge the achievement chasm.

In announcing the results, city

leaders celebrated the progress

while acknowledging that more

improvements are needed, par-

ticularly in the way the District

approaches math. They stressed

that achievement gaps are not

closed overnight and that the

goal is steady growth each year.

“For the fourth year, we are

seeing continued, steady im-

provements, which means more

students are performing at high-

er levels,” Mayor Muriel E. Bows-

er (D) said at a news conference

at Whittier Education Campus,

which registered double-digit

gains in the English and math

portions of the exam.

“The achievement gap is still

too wide,” Bowser said. “We can

SEE PARCC ON B2

District

students

improve

on exam

PARCC SCORES SHOW

GRADUAL GROWTH

Hurdles remain in efforts

to close achievement gap

Keanu Reeves joins

fundraiser for group

that helps at-risk youths

Fairfax man and friend

never returned from

Florida fishing trip

JULIA RENDLEMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

GRAVITAS VENTURES

Tyler Dean Flores, left, and Justine Skye appear in “Already Gone.”

An advance screening last week in New York for potential donors

to G3 Community Services came about by whirlwind happenstance.