Blogs

Amid D.C. Council deliberations over Mayor Vincent Gray’s $77 million supplemental spending package, the District’s public charter schools have been left reeling. A recent series of political maneuvers will dearly cost the students of these publicly funded schools. 

Rumors spread before the council’s vote on the mayor’s supplemental package. Among the more serious included a suggestion that charter schools’ quarterly payments from the city might be stopped unless the council voted on the spending package. 

At the latest Youth Town Hall held by the Mayor, as the PCYLC councilmembers kept asking the Mayor questions about fair funding that he was dodging, one of the PCYLC asked Mayor Gray, “Mr. Mayor, why would you hold these events if you won’t listen to us?”  

As the District of Columbia Council considered Mayor Vincent Gray's $77 million supplemental spending package last week, rumors began flying. One was that D.C. public charter schools' quarterly payment from the city might be stopped unless the council approved the mayor's package.

Clark Ray of OSSE is responsible for setting up a championship game between DC public schools and public charter schools to give public charters the chance to compete.  That vision is now one step closer to being realized. 

Ray has invited all public charter principals and athletic directors to a meeting on Tuesday, May 1 centered on the topic of charter schools playing for citywide championships this upcoming athletic season.  We’re pleased that Ray is meeting with charter leaders to craft a plan moving forward and we applaud him for his leadership.

If you look over April’s headlines, you’ll find everything from columns on our 3rd Annual Gala (check out our Facebook page for pictures!) to continued debate over the Mayor’s proposed budget to the four charter schools DCPCSB approved to open next year.  Here are our suggestions for articles you should review.

Can you believe it’s almost May?  While there won’t be nearly as many open houses in the coming months, there are still many opportunities to visit public charter schools that you think might match well with your family!  So, for your review, here’s our list of upcoming open houses.

With the Mayor’s budget proposal finalized near the end of the month, March was, as anticipated, a busy time for the public charter community.  DC public education news covered the lack of financial parity in government policies and the DC government’s inequitable management of unused DCPS buildings.  To keep you updated, here are our suggestions to catch you up with the news from last month. 

Though there will be fewer open houses this month than there were the last two months, there are still plenty of great opportunities for you to see what DC public charter schools are all about!  Check out our list of this month’s PCS open houses. 

After outlining issues of financial parity in our previous blog post, one question remains: has PEFRC responded in a way that works toward achieving fair funding?  The short answer – in some respects yes, and in others no.   

In the past few weeks, we’ve highlighted our new Public Charter Youth Leadership Council (PCYLC) on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  We selected over 20 passionate, talented DC public charter school students, all driven to advocate for the public charter community, from a large pool of applicants.  After all, who would be better to advocate for financial parity in DC public education than the very students being affected?