Baltimore County Public Schools approved Puzzle Pieces Learning Academy Public Charter School without verifying that its founding executive director had a prior fraud finding on her professional record, according to WBFF. The gap in vetting has become part of a broader set of problems that pushed the district to delay the school's opening from this fall to Fall 2027.
In November 2015, the District of Columbia Board of Occupational Therapy formally denied an occupational therapy license application from Chizarra Dashiell and fined her $5,000 after finding she fraudulently attempted to obtain a license and had practiced without one in D.C. public schools, according to the WBFF report. Dashiell is the founding CEO and executive director of Puzzle Pieces, a tuition-free public charter designed to blend Montessori, Creative Curriculum and Bank Street educational approaches for Pre-K through 5th-grade students, per the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools.
Maryland charter school application procedures require applicants to submit sworn background affirmations disclosing past criminal convictions and personal or corporate bankruptcies, under penalty of application denial or charter revocation, according to Baltimore City Public Schools guidelines. Baltimore County Public Schools also operates an Office of Investigations and Records Management tasked with conducting background checks and monitoring record discrepancies for school personnel and applicants under Board Policy 4100 and Superintendent Rule 4100, per the district's own compliance rules. The station's report indicates those checks did not catch Dashiell's history before the county authorized the school.
Board Votes to Delay Opening a Full Year
The Baltimore County Board of Education voted in June to delay Puzzle Pieces' opening from this fall to Fall 2027, citing rising concerns over school readiness and administrative compliance, as reported by The Baltimore Banner. The school had originally planned to open for Pre-K through 1st-grade students during the 2026-2027 academic year. Public testimony at the June 9 board meeting revealed that Puzzle Pieces lost its initial facility funding partner after discussions involving district personnel, forcing the charter to switch to a standard lease under tighter financial constraints, according to Baltimore County Public Schools.
Charter operators in Maryland must independently secure facilities that meet district standards, a requirement that has tripped up more than one new school in the county recently. Puzzle Pieces built its model around expanded state Pre-K mandates under the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, which incentivizes early childhood education expansion and community school frameworks, according to the school's own materials. The program had emphasized project-based learning and school-based mental health services for its youngest students.
Part of a Wider Pattern in Baltimore County
This is not the first time a newly approved Baltimore County charter has hit administrative turbulence. In March, the district put the authorization and $2 million in federal grant funding for Bilingual Global Citizens Public Charter School on hold over facility agreement deadlines, as Hoodline previously reported. BCPS requires strict adherence to contractual facility deadlines before allowing new charters to open, and that requirement has now snagged two separate schools within months of each other.
The friction comes as Maryland's charter sector has expanded rapidly. Statewide charter enrollment doubled from roughly 12,000 students in 2010 to nearly 25,000 across about 50 campuses by 2026, heightening scrutiny from local school boards over authorization and funding allocations, according to Hoodline's earlier reporting on the trend. Local school boards remain the sole charter authorizers in their jurisdictions under Maryland law, putting the full weight of vetting decisions on district offices like BCPS.
WBFF has also previously highlighted document retention and administrative transparency issues at Baltimore County Public Schools, referencing a lawsuit alleging district non-compliance with financial disclosure requests. That earlier scrutiny adds context to the current questions about how the district vetted Puzzle Pieces' leadership before signing off on the charter. Whether the county will revisit its authorization process for Dashiell or the school more broadly remains unclear, and BCPS has not detailed what additional steps it will take before the delayed Fall 2027 opening.
