FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

November 23, 2004

Key Charter School Amendments Survive Repeal Effort; Senator Reaffirms Congressional Role in Promoting School Reform in D.C.

Under intense pressure from the Williams Administration and the Board of Education, which sought repeal of the surplus property and other amendments passed just last month by the Congress [Bulletin, November 1, 2004], Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has agreed to a number of changes to the amendments. The Senator, however, has held firm on the most important of the surplus property amendments, citing in a letter to the administration Congress’s “long and established legislative history” regarding
charter school facilities and chiding the administration for failing to effectively address the charter schools’ facilities needs.

Under the revised amendments, which should become law this week, charter schools still are guaranteed a “right of first offer” on all current and future surplus school properties. This phrase replaces the “first preference” language in the pre-amendment law. Even more significant, the Congress refused to reinstate a provision of the pre-amendment law that enabled the administration to ignore the charter school preference whenever it could make more money by disposing of a surplus building to a non-charter school buyer.

However, surplus schools that already have been purchased, leased, transferred, or become subject to an exclusive rights agreement or a disposition resolution submitted to the Council prior to December 1 are exempted by the revised legislation from the right of first offer requirement. The exemption presumably is designed to cover the Randall School building, which the administration plans to sell to the Corcoran Museum, and the Franklin School building, which is rumored to be close to commercial disposition. The exemption evidently also is intended to apply to the Nichols Avenue School building, disposition
of which to Thurgood Marshall PCS was being held up by the administration even though TMA had taken possession of the building and begun renovations.

In addition to surplus property, the right of first offer also applies to excess space in school buildings currently operated by DCPS. According to the 21st Century School Fund, a D.C. non-profit, DCPS now controls nearly 6 million square feet of space it no longer needs to house its students (DCPS unofficial enrollment has fallen below 60,000 students this school year). Yet the BOE continues to hang on to all of its 150+ buildings, rarely sharing space with charter schools and stalling for months on accepting a staff-proposed policy on space sharing that took over a year to develop.

Another very important amendment preserved by Senator Landrieu gives converting schools the right to lease their DCPS school
buildings for a renewable term of at least 25 years. Prior law was silent as to whether converting schools could stay in their buildings. Another amendment that would have made it easier to convert DCPS schools to charter schools, however, was struck under pressure from the Board of Education. This amendment would have reduced from two thirds to 51% the percentage of teachers who must approve a conversion.

In her letter responding to the administration’s request that she repeal all of the amendments, Senator Landrieu discussed Congress’s efforts over the last several years to get the administration to take action on the charter school facilities crisis by making more surplus buildings available to the charter schools. According to the Senator, this history demonstrates that “despite there being a clear and compelling need for facilities for use by the rapidly expanding charter school movement in D.C. and an even clearer legal requirement that they be given preference...when disposing of surplus property,” few buildings have been made available to the charter schools by the administration. “[W]e are simply not on track to meet the needs for infrastructure by emergent charter schools” she added.

Responding to the administration’s argument that its treatment of the public charter schools should be a purely local matter, the Senator expressed agreement that education is “primarily a local function.” But, citing Congress’s investment in District charter schools of $43 million over the last three years, much of it to help the charter schools acquire and finance facilities, the Senator promised a continuing role for the federal government in District school reform. “We would not be fulfilling our responsibility to the taxpayers if we were to continue to allocate federal funds for [charter school facilities] purposes without also addressing the obvious and well-documented barriers that may prevent these funds from being well spent.”

The administration promised in August to permit charter schools to bid on five additional surplus buildings in October, but did not release the request for bids because it claimed that the pending congressional legislation required that the process be delayed. Now that the dispute over the legislation has been resolved it is anticipated that the charter schools will be able to
bid on the five buildings in the reasonably near future.

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