FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

October 13, 2004

--Senate, House
Pass D.C. Budget; Facilities Preference, Other Charter School Provisions
Strengthened
--DCPCSA, FOCUS, Other Advocates Fight Off Attack on
Independence

FY 2005 D.C. Appropriations Bill Sent to President;
Focus-Drafted Amendments Strengthen Facilities Preference, Conversion
Rules

Thanks to the good offices of Senator Mary Landrieu
(D-LA), ranking member of the Senate D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee, and
close collaboration between FOCUS and the DCPCSA, D.C.'s charter schools have
achieved a number of long-standing legislative goals.

Charter
School Access to Former and Current School Buildings

Attached to
the FY 2005 Approps bill -- now awaiting the President's signature -- are
several School Reform Act amendments drafted by FOCUS and supported by the
Association. The first is a complete rewrite of the charter schools'
preference to acquire surplus DCPS facilities (declared surplus by the Board
of Education and transferred to the jurisdiction of the mayor). The
preference, interpreted as a mere discount by the administration and yielding
very few properties over the years, now becomes a right of first offer.
The right applies to all surplus properties currently under the mayor's
jurisdiction and to any DCPS schools that are declared surplus at any time in
the future. Under the amendment, charter schools must be given the right
to lease or purchase a surplus property for at least 25% less than its
appraised value, and, if it is to be leased, must be offered a lease of at
least 25 years that is renewable for an unlimited number of 25-year
terms.

The "right of first offer" language also was inserted by the
amendment into the section of the facilities preference that applies to
underutilized DCPS properties.

These amendments are likely to have an
immediate impact on charter school efforts to acquire school buildings.
For example, the administration is poised to open five additional
surplus buildings to charter school bid, and will be bound by the new
requirements. Additionally, the amendment by its terms supercedes prior
law, regulation, or mayoral order, which means that the charter schools may
now be eligible to bid on such former school buildings as the Franklin and
Randall schools, for which the administration has been seeking non-school
users.

Conversion Charter Schools

Several other
FOCUS-drafted amendments will make it easier for DCPS schools to convert to
public charter schools. The first gives converting schools the right to
lease their DCPS school buildings for a renewable term of at least 25 years at
the rate DCPS leases space to non-profit organizations or at market rate less
25% (current law is silent on whether converting schools can keep their
buildings). This amendment applies to Paul Public Charter School, the
only converted school to date, and to any DCPS school that converts in the
future. The second amendment reduces from two thirds to 51% the
percentage of teachers who must approve the conversion (two thirds of parents
still need to approve). The third amendment gives teachers in a
converting school the right to remain at the charter school for the year
following conversion. After the first year, continued service at the
charter school is at the option of the school; teachers not continued will
have the right to teach at a DCPS school.

Chief Financial Officer Fails in Bid to Take Over Charter
School Audit Process

A
combination of strenuous advocacy on the part of FOCUS, the DCPCSA, and others
and last minute action by members of the House D.C. Appropriations
Subcommittee stopped an amendment to the School Reform Act that would have
given the District's Chief Financial Officer (currently Natwar Ghandi)
unprecedented power over charter school financial matters.

As
independent non-profit corporations, charter schools are responsible for their
own financial affairs. Because charter schools receive public funds,
however, their financial practices are subject to close monitoring by their
chartering authorities. To this end, both chartering boards require
monthly or quarterly submission of financial statements. In addition, by
law each charter school must contract annually for an independent audit of its
books and submit the audit report to its chartering authority.


Not satisfied with this process, the Office of the Chief
Financial Officer sought an amendment that would have required all of the
charter schools to be audited by a single auditor selected by and reporting to
the CFO, following audit standards developed by the CFO.

Charter school
advocates opposed this legislation on the basis that it was unnecessary given
the already extensive financial audit and reporting requirements in the law.
In addition, by law the charter schools are not part of D.C. government
and not subject to its oversight. Instead, the charter schools are
subject to a rigorous but separate accountability scheme that gives exclusive
oversight authority to the chartering boards. The amendment proposed by
the CFO would have undermined this scheme, placing the CFO above the
chartering boards and subjecting the charter schools to an additional layer of
bureaucratic oversight.

The House and Senate were persuaded by these
arguments and rejected the CFO's proposed amendment to the School Reform Act.
Instead, the conferees accepted substitute amendments drafted by FOCUS
and by the D.C. Public Charter School Board. These amendments make it
more explicit that the chartering boards are to enforce the charter school
annual audit requirement and require the boards to detail the results of the
annual audits in their annual report to the mayor, Council, and Congress.


The House and Senate conferees in their Report did urge the chartering
authorities and the OCFO to develop a memorandum of understanding to govern
the annual audits. Wasting no time, the CFO presented his views on the
matter to around 15 charter school leaders who attended a regularly-scheduled
meeting between the charter schools and the administration to discuss issues
of mutual interest. It was clear from his presentation that the CFO has
not given up on his desire to control the audit process by means of hiring a
single auditor (or perhaps two). Although admitting that most charter
school audits are being properly done, the CFO justified his position on the
basis that "one or two bad apples" could ruin the reputation of the charter
school movement.

The continuing opposition of the D.C. Public
Charter School Board to this idea was made clear by its representative at the
meeting, and several charter school leaders and advocates also spoke against
the notion, reiterating the arguments that had been made in the Congress.


All parties, however, expressed their willingness to meet to
seek a compromise solution, and multi-party negotiations involving the OCFO,
the chartering boards, DCPCSA, FOCUS, and representative charter schools are
likely to begin soon.

Friends of Choice in Urban
Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #104
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 387-0405
phone
(202) 667-3798
fax
www.focusdc.org