Wauwatosa School District Pauses AVID Program Amid Allegations

WAUWATOSA, WI—The Wauwatosa School District's Board of Education paused a college and career readiness program and announced an investigation into its contracting practices in response to allegations of a conflict of interest involving a a school administrator and her spouse.

Earlier this year, the school board approved a three-year, $170,539 contract with AVID, or Advancement Via Individual Determination, a nonprofit that described itself as a group that "changes lives by helping schools shift to a more equitable, student-centered approach."

The apparent conflict of interest involved Kristin Bowers, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for the district, and her husband, Brett Bowers, who is a regional associate senior director with AVID, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report reported.

The district paused AVID programing in elementary and middle schools and will phase out the AVID courses for current high school students while allowing them to finish the courses. The district said it would decide later if it should resume AVID programing.

The district also placed Bowers on administrative leave. Patch reached out to Bowers and her husband Tuesday for comment.

In October the district sent out a letter regarding AVID and apologized to the school community.

"We have fallen short of our professional standard and that to which the community should hold us. For that, we are deeply sorry," the district said.

It added: "Specifically, there are questions regarding whether the district’s procurement process was properly followed in adopting and approving AVID contracts. Our preliminary internal review indicates that district officials failed to adhere to district policy in the procurement and initial adoption of AVID," the district said.

Superintendent Demond Means launched a review of the AVID procurement with education experts and a financial auditing firm, the district said.

The district failed to develop internal benchmarks to measure the program's efficacy, the district said.

On Saturday, the district published a webpage with a link to the letter from the district's legal counsel, Buelow Vetter Buikema Olson & Vliet, dated Aug. 16, 2019. The letter was addressed to then-superintendent Phil Ertl.

Bowers spent many years promoting AVID even after district lawyers called the situation a "potential conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety," according to a Fox 6 story based on a review of internal district emails.

Patch filed an open records request for the emails.

The district's lawyers advised it to provide findings to the Wauwatosa Police Department for an investigation, according to the district's webpage.

Patch reached out to the police on Tuesday for confirmation.

The district also hired a professional service firm to conduct an internal investigation, the webpage said.