Nicole Pathak ‘26
Before he became a teacher, Mr. James worked for Samaritan Ministry as the Director of Communications and Volunteers. Samaritan Ministry is a nonprofit organization operating in the Washington, DC area that brings together “our neighbors who face poverty, homelessness or other debilitating challenges” and seeks to help them through partnerships, training sessions, and donations from staff, volunteers, and donors.
Eighteen years ago, Mr. James introduced St. Andrew’s to the organization and the school raised funds by hosting the Walk for the Homeless, which then evolved into the homecoming event of the Walkathon. Since then, the relationship between the school and Samaritan Ministry had grown into a fully-fledged partnership.
Nevertheless, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School’s nearly 20-year-long partnership with Samaritan Ministry has ended. During the Samaritan Ministry chapel earlier this year, Samaritan Ministry selected Tyrone King Jr. to speak at the chapel service; however, the contents of his criminal record led the school to end its relationship with Samaritan Ministry.
Chapel speakers are selected based on the chapel theme, which is decided in the spring of the previous year. Usually, the speakers are people Chaplain Isaacs personally knows or people the school partners select. However, each year the school has a chapel where Samaritan Ministry traditionally brings in a client who has struggled in the past and whom Samaritan Ministry has helped greatly to build up their life again. For these annual chapels, Samaritan Ministry was trusted to provide an appropriate speaker.
King was convicted of first degree sexual abuse thirty years ago. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison and released in 2021. Headmaster Kosasky confirmed that no faculty members or administrators had any prior knowledge of King’s criminal record.
As the former Director of Communications and Volunteers, Mr. James was disappointed in Samaritan Ministry’s decisions.
“When I was Director of Communications and Volunteers, we had a very strict vetting process for people to go out and speak on behalf of Samaritan Ministry,” he said. “Clearly, that has changed.”
Mr. James, however, wanted to clarify that “it is not to say individuals don’t deserve […] redemption for the things that they’ve done” but people with such a criminal history “don’t belong in a high school with young people. That was a clear crossing of a line.”
Mr. Kosasky expressed a similar sentiment. Although the termination of the partnership saddened him, Mr. Kosasky said that it “was a necessary decision.”
As soon as the school learned of Mr. King’s past, which was shortly after Chapel that day, Mr. Kosasky sent a letter to families and delivered an apology at morning meeting the next day.
He felt that it was necessary because “that speaker should not have been on campus in front of students” and because “Samaritan Ministry was not there to give the apology […] it was important that I, as head of school, apologize for that.”
He understands why students would be upset at this revelation because he too “was shocked and upset,” especially when the information “seemed very discoverable.”
Samaritan Ministry’s decision led the school to end its partnership with them. Mr. Kosasky said that, from the school’s perspective, it does not ultimately matter whether “Samaritan Ministry didn’t know something that they should have known or they knew something and made a decision they shouldn’t have.”
He said that “either of those situations don’t meet our standards” and that both “break the understanding of our partnership, and so our decision would be the same.”
Nonetheless, the end to the school’s partnership with Samaritan Ministry has left one important question. What will happen to all of the events that the school holds for Samaritan Ministry?
Mr. James said that the school is looking to expand their relationship with other local organizations like Interfaith Works or Bethesda Cares, the latter of which the school has worked with doing Campus Kitchen for 12 years. This process has already begun, as the Thanksgiving gift card fundraiser this year went to Bethesda Cares rather than Samaritan Ministry.
For the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service, Mr. James said that these two organizations will be the recipients of “our community’s generosity.” In addition, 25,000 packaged meals will go to Rise Against Hunger, who will then distribute the meals to people in war-torn countries.
Although the Walkathon was created to raise money for Samaritan Ministry, Mr. James expects that it will still continue, but the proceeds will be split between “one or more organizations like Bethesda Cares and [Interfaith Works].”
Regardless, St. Andrew’s does not plan on making any of those relationships partnerships. Mr. James said, “At any given time, a situation may arise where there is a real need for us to put our resources toward a cause or a need that we can’t anticipate, so we probably won’t go that route of official partnership […] because it gives us more flexibility and it also avoids that situation that we saw arise this fall.”
Mr. Kosasky said that if the school did end up partnering with another organization “there would have to be levels of trust around decision-making that were very deep.” He added that trusting any new organization would require full clarity and assurance that they meet our protocols for on-campus speakers.
Mr. James emphasized that Samaritan’s Ministry’s mistake in sending an inappropriate speaker does not “diminish the good work that they do, [but] it diminishes the partnership that we once had. Absent that, we will go on, doing the very generous and fine work we’ve always done.”