FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

January 19, 2005

--Charter School Property Tax Rebate Bill Passes Council; Funding Needed to Implement
--Mendelson Reintroduces Founders Preference Bill
--Patterson Takes Over Education Committee; Schedules Hearing, Introduces DCPS Facilities Bill
--BOE Declares One-Year “Moratorium” on Charter School Applications
--Council Rejects Resolution Declaring Bruce Building “Surplus”; Gales, Bundy Schools to House Homeless, Social Service Agency
--FOCUS Publishes Second Edition of Charter School Startup Guide

Charter School Property Tax Rebate Bill Passes Council; Funding Needed to Implement

Thanks to the strong efforts of Councilmember Phil Mendelson, in December the charter school property tax rebate bill passed the Council. The bill permits charter schools to apply for a rebate of the portion of their lease payments that reflects the property tax paid by the lessor. FOCUS and others had been promoting the rebate for nearly three years but were unsuccessful until Mr. Mendelson took the lead.

Unfortunately, contrary to the councilmember’s expectations the bill was passed “subject to appropriations,” which means that money must be specifically appropriated to fund the tax rebate (estimated at $250,000 in 2004 for all the charter schools that pay property tax). Unless Councilmember Mendelson can convince the Council to eliminate this requirement, the charter schools will have to convince the Williams administration to include the needed funds in the proposed FY 2006 budget he will send to the Council in March or, if that effort fails, the Council will have to find the funds elsewhere. In any case, it is unlikely that the rebate will take effect prior to the 2005 tax year.

Mendelson Reintroduces Founders Preference Bill

Councilmember Phil Mendelson yesterday reintroduced a bill that he had introduced for FOCUS during the last Council session but which had not been moved forward by then chair of the Education Committee Kevin Chavous. The bill would amend the School Reform Act to give an admissions preference to a small number of the children of those who found a charter school. Under current law there is no guarantee that these children would be able to attend the school their parents founded. An admissions preference already exists for the siblings of enrolled or admitted charter school students.

Patterson Takes Over Education Committee; Schedules Hearing, Introduces DCPS Facilities Bill

Councilmember Kathy Patterson is the new chair of the Council Education Committee, replacing Kevin Chavous, who lost his Council seat last November. Two of the remaining four members of the Committee are also new: former Mayor Marion Barry and Vincent Gray, who defeated Chavous. Continuing members of the Committee are councilmembers Phil Mendelson and Carol Schwartz.

Mrs. Patterson has scheduled a hearing for February 9th to take testimony on DCPS’s capital improvement program and the “ongoing facilities needs at local schools.” Specifically, the councilmember wants to hear testimony about DCPS ‘s building renovation plans, its capital needs, and efforts to get Congress to pay for needed building renovations. The councilmember also wants testimony about a just-introduced bill (by herself and councilmember Jack Evans) to create an “education trust” to encourage public-private partnerships to help renovate schools.

Charter school facilities needs are not mentioned in either the hearing announcement or the proposed legislation. The charter schools have been trying for years to gain access to DCPS school buildings no longer needed by DCPS. The school system controls nearly 6 million square feet it does not need to house its enrollment, which dropped below 60,000 this year. This represents enough room for more than 35,000 additional students — more than double the number enrolled in all of D.C.’s charter schools. The Board of Education, however, has steadfastly resisted Council admonitions (and two laws) that it share unneeded space, and most charter schools have been forced into the commercial market, leasing or buying often inadequate space at high prices.

BOE Declares One-Year “Moratorium” on Charter School Applications

The Board of Education will not take applications from charter schools this year, meaning that no BOE charters will open in the fall of 2006. According to a Board source, the reason for the moratorium was “to give the superintendent an opportunity to see what direction he wants to take charters as it relates to the needs of DCPS.” The idea for the moratorium (and the reasoning behind it) evidently came from the Board, not from the superintendent.

Over the last year at least three Board members have mentioned the idea of shucking off the Board’s chartering responsibilities by giving the Superintendent control over Board-chartered schools. This talk evidently has continued in spite of repeated communications from FOCUS explaining that for the Board to do so would violate the School Reform Act, D.C.’s charter school law. The Act expressly provides that the charter schools are not part of DCPS, that DCPS rules, policies, and procedures do not apply to the charter schools, and that no DCPS personnel, including the superintendent, can have anything to do with the decision whether or not to grant a charter.

This is the second time the Board of Education has taken a vacation from chartering. The Board, which has chartered 26 schools since 1996 (of which it later shut down seven) also did not accept applications for the 2001-2002 school year.

In spite of its evident ambivalence about its chartering role, the Board last summer fought off proposed Congressional legislation to take away its chartering authority and replace it with a second independent chartering board organized along the lines of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, D.C.’s other charter authorizer.

Council Rejects Resolution Declaring Bruce Building “Surplus”; Gales, Bundy Schools to House Homeless, Social Service Agency

Apparently for reasons having nothing to do with the charter schools, the Council rejected an emergency resolution that would have freed the mayor to receive bids from charter schools to lease or buy the Bruce surplus school, which has been empty for several years. The vote was 8 in favor of the resolution, 4 opposed, and one absent. Emergency resolutions require a 2/3rd vote for approval. The Bruce disposition likely will be resubmitted to the Council by the administration but probably not in time for a charter school to occupy Bruce next fall. The administration also has asked the Council to approve the disposition of four other buildings it wishes to dispose of to the charter schools, but the Council has not acted on any of them.

Bruce and the other four buildings long ago were declared surplus by the Board of Education and transferred to the mayor. Under the School Reform Act, this declaration and transfer trigger the charter school preference to acquire these buildings. At that point, the mayor is required by law to offer the buildings to the charter schools. For reasons unknown, however, the mayor decided to ask the Council to approve disposition to the charter schools under laws that apply to the sale of non-school public properties. Sale of these must be approved by the Council, which first must determine that the District no longer needs them for a public purpose. If such a determination is made, the Council must then approve the mayor’s intended purchaser or lessee.

Application of this two-step process to surplus school buildings makes no sense and delays charter school access. First, the buildings can be sold or leased to the charter schools only if the Council determines that the schools no longer are needed for a public purpose. But charter schools are public schools and carry out a public purpose — to provide public education to public school students. Second, application of the Council process means that the Council can forbid the mayor to sell or lease a surplus school building to a charter school even though he is required by congressional legislation to do so.

Charter school access to surplus school buildings is already limited by the administration’s own reluctance to let them acquire the buildings. For example, the administration has decided to use the surplus Bundy School to house the D.C. Children’s Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization. The Center had been scheduled by the administration to move into the surplus Gales School, which had been used as a homeless shelter until its closure for renovations last April. The charter schools were not permitted to bid on either building prior to its being offered for other uses, in violation of the School Reform Act. The administration is in the process of selling another surplus school, Randall, to the Corcoran Museum for eventual use as an art school and condominium project. Again, the administration did not make the building available to the charter schools.

FOCUS Publishes Charter School Startup Guide

FOCUS has just published a 524-page Guide to Starting a Charter School in the District of Columbia. The Guide, which helps applicants through the process of designing a good school and completing the charter school application, was written by FOCUS-staffers Alicia Daugherty and Cynthia Millinger, with help from local experts on facilities, business management, special education, and other important aspects of running a charter school.

The Guide is an integral part of FOCUS’s comprehensive startup program, which also includes community information sessions, school design workshops, and one-on-one help for serious applicants. The Guide is provided free to those who enroll in the design workshops; others may purchase it for $75.00 by calling FOCUS at 202/387-0405.

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