FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin



May 16, 2005

--Council Votes Extra Funds for DCPS, Charters; Rejects Parity on “Resident Dividends”
--Patterson Bill Would Guarantee Level or Increasing DCPS Funding Through 2009; No Mention of Funding Formula or Uniformity Requirement
--Barry Introduces Bill to Hand Over Old Congress Heights School to Community Groups
--DCPS Schedules Community Meetings on Co-Location Sites

Council Votes Extra Funds for DCPS, Charters; Rejects Parity on “Resident Dividends”


The D.C. Council on Tuesday passed the Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request Act, increasing the mayor’s proposed DCPS budget by $14.936 million and the charter school budget by $4.847 million. The charter school increase represents $261.43 for each of the anticipated 18,540 charter school students.

The extra funds for DCPS are to be used to avert DCPS school layoffs, which were being threatened by DCPS as a way to close a budget gap created by salary step increases built into existing collective bargaining agreements. The extra funds for the charter schools are required by the School Reform Act, which mandates uniform per student funding in the District. The foundation level of the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula will be adjusted upward to take into account these funding increases.

While honoring the uniformity requirement with regard to the layoff-prevention funds, the Council decided to ignore it in connection with the so-called Resident Dividend funds contained in the mayor’s proposed budget. The mayor proposed to give DCPS $21 million in extra funding for “special academic initiatives” and the charter schools $4.2 million in supposedly equivalent funding. The actual charter school amount required for equal funding, however, should have been above $6.2 million. The Education Committee of the Council had asked the full Council to raise the charter school funding to the correct level, but a majority of the Council evidently demurred.

The extra $4.2 million represents an additional $226.53 for each of the expected charter school students. The DCPS amount is higher — around $343 per student — a clear violation of the law. These funds will not be put through the Formula — another violation of the law.

Patterson Bill Would Guarantee Level or Increasing DCPS Funding Through 2009; No Mention of Funding Formula or Uniformity Requirement

Education Committee chair Kathy Patterson has introduced a bill [B16-0285] that apparently seeks to decouple DCPS funding from enrollment for the next three years. Under the bill, which is co-sponsored by Council members Fenty, Mendelson, Ambrose, Barry, and Evans, DCPS would be given a three-year budget covering the period from July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2009. The budget would be based on the FY 2006 DCPS operating budget but would increase each year at the same rate that D.C. Government revenues increase.

According to the bill, a three-year budget “will enable the Board [of Education] to conduct advance financial planning with a stable allocation of resources and will support long-term school reform efforts that are necessary to improve student achievement.”

The bill asks Congress to amend the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to permit the District to adopt a 3-year budget for DCPS. The Act now requires annual budgeting.

The legislation makes no mention of the School Reform Act, controlling congressional legislation requiring that annual funding be based on a formula that provides a uniform dollar amount for each student enrolled by DCPS and the charter schools. In accordance with the formula, DCPS’s total per-student operating funding has declined as students have left for the charter schools.

It is not known whether Mrs. Patterson and her co-sponsors took the School Reform Act into account in developing the legislation or how they intend for charter schools to be funded if the legislation passes.

Barry Introduces Bill to Hand Over Old Congress Heights School to Community Groups

The School Reform Act gives charter schools the first right to acquire surplus school buildings. This legal right, however, has not prevented the Williams administration, which controls the buildings, from selling them off to developers or using them for other administration purposes without first offering them to the charter schools. Now two members of the Council have introduced bills that, if passed, would prevent the charter schools from acquiring two surplus school buildings that the mayor would like to offer to them.

New council member Marion Barry has introduced legislation that would transform the Old Congress Heights school into a community center. The legislation [B16-0254], co-sponsored by eight other Council members, would transfer Old Congress Heights to a consortium of Anacostia development groups, which would have to complete the transformation of the school building into a community center “in not [more] than 10 years.” The building would be transferred without cost.

The Old Congress Heights bill follows another introduced in January by Council member Vincent Orange. The Orange bill [B16-0021] would require the use of the Crummel school as an “Early Childhood and Enhancement Pilot Program,” to create and test a “uniform reading and mathematics curriculum” for DCPS students in K-3. The bill would fund the program by increasing the business personal property tax by $1.00 per $100.

Old Congress Heights and Crummel are two of five surplus school buildings (the others are Bruce, Slater/Langston, and Keene) that Mayor Williams announced at a press conference in August 2004 would be put out for bid by the charter schools. Rather than offering them to the charter schools at that time, as required by the School Reform Act, the Williams Administration evidently felt bound by D.C. surplus property laws to ask the Council for its approval. An attempt in the late fall to get the Council’s ok failed because time ran out on the 2004 legislative session. Following that failure the administration spent months debating whether Council approval was really necessary. Now FOCUS has been told that a new request for approval will be transmitted to the Council’s Government Operations Committee this week. The Committee is chaired by Vincent Orange. Other members of the committee are Phil Mendelson, Carol Schwartz, Adrian Fenty, and Jim Graham.

DCPS Schedules Community Meetings on Co-Location Sites

DCPS has scheduled three community meetings to discuss the ten potential charter school co-location sites approved by the Board of Education earlier this month. The first meeting, to discuss possible co-location at Bunker Hill ES, Emery ES, Tyler ES, and Old Miner school, will be held this Thursday, May 19, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. At Bunker Hill Elementary School, 1401 Michigan Avenue, N.E.

The second meeting, to discuss Ron Brown and Fletcher-Johnson middle schools, will be held at Ron Brown, 4800 Meade St. N.E. From 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Thursday May 26.

The final session will be held on Thursday, June 2, from 6:00-8:00 at Ferebee-Hope Elementary School, 3999 8th St. S.E. Under discussion will be possible co-location at Ferebee-Hope, Draper ES, P.R. Harris Education Center, and Hart MS.

Requests for charter school letters of interest in these schools are posted on the DCPS web site, www.k12.dc.us.

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