FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin
August 19, 2004
--Mayor Announces Facilities Help for Charter Schools; CityBuild Funds, Surplus Properties to be Made Available
--Credit Enhancement Program Moves to State Education Office
Mayor Announces Facilities Help for Charter Schools; CityBuild Funds, Surplus Properties to be Made Available
CityBuild
In his weekly press briefing yesterday, Mayor Williams formally announced the kickoff of CityBuild, an initiative designed to help charter schools locate in neighborhoods targeted for development. The mayor also announced that several surplus school buildings would be made available to the charter schools "within the next two months." The mayor was joined at the podium by Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, the ranking member of the Senate D.C. Appropriations subcommittee, and by Deborah Gist, the interim head of the State Education Office.
The CityBuild program is the brainchild of Senator Landrieu, who convinced the Congress to include funding for it as part of the $13 million annual windfall that comes to the District's charter schools in the package that brought vouchers to the District. (DCPS also receives $13 million of federal largesse annually).
According to information distributed at the meeting, the CityBuild program is designed to support the mayor's drive to bring 100,000 new residents to the District by targeting 12 neighborhoods "that have the near term potential of attracting or
retaining new home owners, particularly those with school age children...."
Under the program, academically strong D.C. charter schools willing to serve as "neighborhood centers" in one of the 12 designated
neighborhoods can apply for up to $1,000,000. Each of the five schools selected in the first and in each of the subsequent rounds (assuming Congress renews voucher funding for the planned five years) can use the money to relocate or open an expansion campus in one of the target neighborhoods or, if it already is located in one, to expand its capacity.
The program will be administered by the State Education Office, which has scheduled a pre-application conference for interested charter schools on August 24th at 5:00 p.m. More information can be had by contacting Rebecca Sibilia, Management Officer of the SEO, at 724-2294.
The Request for Applications is on the District Grants Clearinghouse, http://www.opgd.dc.gov/opgd/cwp/view,A,1316,Q,609787.asp.
Surplus Properties
The mayor,through the offices of Economic Development and Property Management, controls more than 20 school buildings that were declared surplus by the Board of Education in the mid 1990's. Jurisdiction over these buildings came to the mayor through the efforts of FOCUS, which fought for two years to get them away from DCPS so that they could be made available to the charter schools, which have a legal preference to acquire them.
However, since 2000, when jurisdiction shifted to the mayor, only three of the many transferred buildings have been made available to the charter schools, in spite of protests by FOCUS and other charter school advocates. Yesterday, however, the mayor
announced that four additional former school buildings will be made available for charter school bid: Bruce, Old Congress Heights, Crummel, and Langston/Slater. Bruce was returned to DCPS two years ago in spite of charter school protests that DCPS did not need the building and would not use it; DCPS gave up the building to the mayor this past spring. Slater was occupied for many years by the ARE public charter school, which closed last year.
The mayor also announced that the Keene school would be made available. Keene has been used by one charter school or another under a lease or sublease for several years; this coming school year it will be occupied under a one-year lease by a campus of the Community Academy PCS.
Credit Enhancement Program Moves to State Education Office
The D.C. charter school Credit Enhancement Program, which over the last few years has provided more than $11 million dollars to
various public charter schools to help them acquire and renovate their facilities, is moving to the State Education Office from the Department of Banking and Financial Institutions.
Jennipher Snowden, the head of the program, will continue at the helm.
The Credit Enhancement Program was established several years ago with $5 million in federal funds earmarked for the program by Congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, in collaboration with FOCUS and the Charter Schools Development Corporation (CSDC). Senator Landrieu later arranged for an additional $13 million of federal money to go into the fund, and the Williams administration added another $5 million. Additional federal money was added in FY 2004 and more is expected as part of the FY 2005 budget. The fund, which also makes direct loans to charter schools for facilities acquisition and renovation, has helped 13 charter schools; three more are in the pipeline.
The move appears to be part of a consolidation of charter school activities in the SEO, which in the near future apparently also will be taking responsibility for CityBuild and for coordinating the administration's overall response to the continuing charter school facilities shortage.
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