FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

February 2, 2006

BOE Resolves to Give up Millions of Square Feet; Charter School Priority For Space Not Acknowledged

At a special meeting yesterday afternoon, the Board of Education passed a resolution by which it committed to consolidate programs and to give up three million square feet of excess school space by July 1, 2008. The Board promised that it would eliminate the first million square feet by July 1, 2007. The vote was 8-0; Ward 7/8 representative William Lockridge was not present at the meeting.

In the resolution the Board directed the superintendent by May 15 of this year to submit a facilities master plan in which he is to state how much excess space the school system occupies and recommend program consolidations that will lead to the elimination of three million square feet on the above schedule. Last year, a Brookings Institution/21st Century School Fund report estimated the excess DCPS space at five million square feet.

The Board further resolved to take the actions necessary to consolidate programs and eliminate space by July 1 of this year.

Although the Board evidently intends to vacate entire buildings, it will not follow past practice and shutter them, declare them surplus, and pass them to the mayor for disposition. Instead, the Board plans to keep control of all of its 150+ school buildings and fill them with “other public purposes, such as health care facilities, public libraries, recreation facilities, and co-location with charter schools.” As expected, nowhere in the resolution does the Board acknowledge that by law the charter schools are entitled to make the first offer on all excess space the Board gives up.

Even so, the Board’s vote yesterday represents a major advance in the charter schools’ drive to gain access to public school space. FOCUS has been pushing the Board for many years to give up space and repeatedly tried to enlist the mayor and Council (through the chair and the Education Committee) in the effort. The Board proved remarkably resistant to these pressures, steadfastly refusing to share space with charter schools except in emergency circumstances and not even admitting to controlling any excess space.

But with the introduction of the School Modernization Financing Act of 2005, which the full Council will begin considering next week, the pressure for DCPS to “right-size” in order to save money greatly intensified. Some Council members are skeptical about DCPS’s ability to wisely spend the billions the bill would provide and would prefer that an independent “school construction trust” be set up to manage the funds and the facilities master plan. The Board’s action yesterday appears to be an attempt to demonstrate that it can responsibly manage the renovation program.

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