FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

March 29, 2005

Mayor’s FY 06 Budget Mostly Good News for Charters

The FY 2006 budget submitted last week by Mayor Anthony Williams to the Council fully funds charter schools under the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula and the Charter School Facilities Allowance Formula. The facilities allowance will be $2,775 per student, up from $2,380 in FY 2005.

Last year at this time the mayor submitted a budget that sought to limit the facilities allowance to $1,981, the FY 2004 amount. The Council restored the allowance to its proper level after strenuous efforts by FOCUS and the charter schools.

Although the mayor’s proposed budget this year implements the funding formulas, it improperly provides $21 million to DCPS outside the UPSFF to use for special academic initiatives. The budget also provides the charter schools with $4.2 million outside the formula, an apparent attempt to maintain funding parity.

The funding law requires that all general fund appropriations for public education be funded through the UPSFF, which guarantees equivalent funding for DCPS and charter school students. Going outside the UPSFF, in addition to being illegal, generally leads to inequities, and this year is no exception: the $21 million given to DCPS represents $343 for each DCPS student, while the $4.2 million given to the charter schools represents only $227 per student.

FOCUS will be working with the administration and the Council to get these funds put through the UPSFF or, barring that, to increase the amount of extra-formulaic funding given to the charter schools.

Patterson to Hold FY 06 Budget, Capital Budget Hearings

Education Committee Chair Kathy Patterson (Ward 3) has announced that a FY 2006 DCPS/PCS budget hearing will be held on April 13th at 10:00 a.m. in room 412 of the Wilson Building. A hearing on the FY 2006 DCPS capital budget will be held on April 11 at 1:00 p.m., also in room 412. Those wishing to testify should contact Evelyn Bourne-Gould at 724-8195 or at egould@dccouncil.us.

Surplus Schools Disposition Process Delayed Again

Confusion and delay in the administration and Council are once again preventing the charter schools from getting their hands on much- needed surplus DCPS school buildings under the mayor’s jurisdiction.

Last August the mayor held a press conference to announce that he was making available five surplus school buildings to the charter schools, which have been trying since 2000 to get the administration to loosen its grip on the former DCPS schools under its jurisdiction. But only after months of delay did the administration follow up this promise by asking the Council to approve the disposition of these buildings to the charter schools. Unfortunately, the 90-day Council review period did not have time to run by December 31, the end of the last Council period. The administration and the Council then got into a dispute about whether the disposition approval request needed to be resubmitted in the new Council period, starting anew the 90-day clock.

This dispute lasted until just recently, when, according to an administration source, the mayor decided to accede to Council member Vincent Orange’s demand that he resubmit the disposition request. Orange, chair of the committee that must approve the request, has introduced a bill that would authorize a non-charter school use for one of the five buildings.

All of this confusion and delay was unnecessary. The School Reform Act, D.C.’s charter school law, requires the mayor to give charter schools a right of first offer on all surplus school buildings, and this mandate supercedes the more general preexisting law that provides for Council approval of D.C. surplus property dispositions. Were the Council to direct the mayor not to offer a surplus school building to the charter schools, the Council would be directing the mayor to ignore the Act, which it has no authority to do. Thus, the administration should not have asked the Council to approve the disposition of these buildings in the first place.

Co-Location Plan Behind Schedule

A list of underutilized DCPS schools designated by Superintendent Janey as suitable for charter school co-location failed to make the agenda for the Board of Education’s March 16th meeting and will not be dealt with by the Board until its April 20th session. The delay throws further into doubt the charter schools’ prospects for occupying any DCPS buildings next fall.

The Board approved co-location guidelines and directed the superintendent to compile his list more than a month ago. The guidelines had been worked out by a committee comprising DCPS facilities staff, FOCUS, and the two chartering boards and were submitted to the Board in April of 2004. FOCUS started urging DCPS to develop a co-location plan in 1998 but no action was taken until the Council passed legislation calling on DCPS to develop such a plan.

Approval by the Board of the co-location list is just the first step in a months-long plan that must be completed before any co-locating charter schools are presented with leases. Prior to that the superintendent must seek the cooperation of the principals at the targeted schools; notify relevant advisory neighborhood commissions about the co-locations; and hold public meetings and a public hearing.

Originally, this plan would have resulted in signed leases sometime in May, just enough time for co-locating charter schools to make necessary improvements to the buildings. Now, unless time can be made up along the way, no leases will be signed until at least June.

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