FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

May 21, 2004

--Council Restores FY 2005 Charter School Funding
--Legislation Would Transfer Control of School Buildings to "School Facilities Management Office"
--Mayor's Staff Meet with Charter School Reps, Express Willingness to Consider Changes to School Takeover Bill


Council Restores FY 2005 Charter School Funding

The D.C. Council has voted to fully fund the FY 2005 charter school per-pupil facilities allowance. The Council also voted to reject proposed cuts to per-pupil pre-kindergarten funding.

The Council action overturned two funding proposals contained in the budget the mayor submitted to the Council in March. The first would have cut the charter school facilities allowance by $399 per student from its legally-mandated level; the second would have reduced pre-kindergarten funding for both charter school and DCPS students by $966 per student, the money saved to be used to provide a financial incentive for DCPS to enroll 1,000+ additional pre-k students next year.

In response to aggressive advocacy by the charter school community, in late April the mayor identified funds that could be used to restore the facilities allowance and asked the Council to do so. The Council itself came up with the money to restore
pre-kindergarten funding by reducing the number of "pre-kindergarten incentive" slots to be made available next year.

Legislation Would Transfer Control of School Buildings to School Facilities Management Office

The FY '05 Budget Support Act contains legislation that would transfer control of all D.C. public school buildings to a "District Public and Public Charter School Facilities Management Office" (PSFMO) headed by an Officer appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the Council.

Beginning October 1, 2004, the PSFMO would be responsible for all of the facilities functions now performed by DCPS, including long-range facilities master planning, the facilities revitalization program, and the "daily management, sale, purchase and leasing of DCPS owned or controlled properties." All DCPS personnel involved in facilities functions would be transferred to the
PSFMO, along with the funds that support them. Any mayoral powers and duties relating to school buildings also would be transferred to the PSFMO. The Office additionally would have the authority to issue bonds for the acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, or improvement of buildings used in whole or part as schools. Finally, the Facilities Management Officer
would have the power to close or consolidate existing pubic school facilities if "explicitly authorized" by the Council.

The Budget Support Act has not yet passed the Council and it is not known how much Council or administration support there is for the PSFMO Act. In the charter school community there is strong support for transferring control over school buildings to a neutral party as soon as humanly possible, but there has been no hearing on this bill nor time to study its provisions.

Whether or not this bill passes, it is clear that there is an urgent need to redistribute school buildings to accommodate public charter school students. Charter schools now enroll 14,000 students and are expected to gain as many as 3,200 students next year. DCPS, on the other hand, has lost 17% of its enrollment since the first charter schools opened seven years ago. The result of this shift is that many of the 146 DCPS schools have space they don't need -- enough room for 20,000 additional students, possibly many more (although DCPS has only 146 active schools, it controls around 190 buildings).

Meanwhile, most charter schools do not have permanent homes and many of these are occupying cramped or otherwise unsuitable buildings, paying as much as $25 a square foot for the privilege. The schools and their advocates have been engaged in excruciatingly slow negotiations with a parade of DCPS facilities managers over the last five years but have not convinced DCPS to give up a single building. Without transferring control over these buildings to a neutral party there is little likelihood that this situation will improve.

Mayor's Staff Meet with Charter School Reps, Express Willingness to Consider Changes to School Takeover Bill

Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory McCarthy and two of his staff members met last week with a group of charter school leaders to discuss the potential impact on charter schools of the latest version of Mayor Anthony Williams's plan to take control of the DCPS schools.

Under the mayor's plan, the Board of Education would be reconstituted as a "true state board of education" with the power to set such state educational policies as minimum academic standards, attendance rules, and credit hour requirements, including for the public charter schools.

In addition, if the plan were adopted by the Council, authority over the 18 BOE charter schools would be given to the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which would become the sole chartering authority in the District. BOE charter schools would
have to reapply for a DCPCSB charter within two years.

Charterschool representatives at the meeting expressed concern about two parts of the bill: the application of state rules and standards to charter schools and the elimination of one of the two chartering boards.

As to the former, under the School Reform Act the District's charter schools are independent of both DCPS and the D.C. government. The Act sets up a completely separate accountability scheme for the charter schools, as part of which the chartering boards monitor and evaluate the same matters that the State Board would have the authority to oversee. Giving the State Board such power over the charter schools would therefore be a clear violation of the Act and would undermine the independence from government control that makes charter school success possible.

Those in attendance also expressed concern about the elimination of the Board of Education chartering power without creating another chartering board to take its place. Leaving aside the question of whether the BOE should or should not be in the charter school business (many think not), having multiple chartering authorities is the hallmark of a healthy charter school movement. Around the country, those states that have more than one chartering authority have more charter schools and more vibrant charter school movements. Creating a charter school monopoly in the District, where thousands of students sit on charter school waiting lists, would be a step backward.

Charter school representatives in attendance were gratified by the expressed willingness of the mayor's staff to seriously consider the concerns raised by the bill. Stating that "the charter schools aren't broken" and that the administration did not want to overturn the statutory scheme, McCarthy invited those in attendance to submit written comments and promised that charter
school independence would be protected in the final version of the bill. He also expressed the view that there were no insurmountable barriers to the idea of creating another chartering board

Subsequent to the meeting FOCUS submitted detailed comments on the bill, which faces an uncertain future n the Council.


Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #001
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 387-0405 phone
(202) 667-3798 fax
www.focus-dccharter.org