- D.C. charter board reviewing admissions preference for children of employees
- D.C. public schools enrollments continue to climb
- Herb Tillery resigns from DC Public Charter School Board [Friendship PCS mentioned]
D.C. charter board reviewing admissions preference for children of employees
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
October 8, 2014
The D.C. Public Charter School Board is considering a policy that would give the children of charter school employees preference in the city’s enrollment lottery.
The measure, which would give children a far better chance of getting into the charter schools where their parents work, is meant to bring the charter board’s policies in line with a law that the D.C. Council approved this past spring. That law is aimed at helping the city’s charter schools recruit and retain employees.
While the move could help with recruiting, it also will probably limit the number of seats available to other families who enter the lottery, an issue that has riled some parents.
Admissions to the city’s charter schools are decided by lottery, and preferences already exist for children of founding board members and siblings of current charter students. The law limits the number of employees’ children enrolled at 10 percent of the school’s total student body. Only full-time employees who are D.C. residents are eligible for the preference.
More than three dozen charter school leaders and teachers sent letters urging the D.C. Council to support the staff preference, which was ultimately approved as part of the 2015 Budget Support Act.
“It’s wonderful and miraculous that we do get so many good teachers when they are expected to work longer hours for less pay than regular teachers” at traditional public schools, said Ramona Edelin, executive director of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools.
Theola DeBose, a spokeswoman for the Public Charter School Board, said the panel’s vote on the policy is largely a formality because its job is to enforce the city’s charter school laws, not to write them. But she said the board wants to hear feedback about the change.
A public hearing is scheduled Tuesday, and the public comment period ends the next day. A vote is scheduled for November.
Some parents have expressed concerns about the effect of the expanded preference policy. Karyn Schwartz, a mother of 3-year-old twins, testified before the charter board about the issue last month.
After sibling preference is given, only a handful of seats are sometimes available to new families hoping to get into some of the most sought-after charter schools, Schwartz said in an interview.
By adding a preference for school employees, she said, “effectively, the greater community would be shut out of [those] schools. . . .That could undermine public investment in charter schools.”
Schwartz said her twins were wait-listed at all of the family’s preferred schools this year, so she chose instead to pay tuition at a private school.
She also wondered whether the policy would make it harder for lower-performing charter schools with more challenging students to attract the best teachers, because teachers would prefer to work for a higher-performing school where they also could enroll their children.
Don Soifer, a board member, said he plans to support the measure because it will bring the panel’s policies in line with the law, but he echoed the parental concerns.
Soifer said there is an acute shortage of spots in the top-
performing charter schools, noting that the additional preference could take seats away from children who might be the first in their families to go to a charter school.
“Who does this cut against?” he said. “It cuts against the child of a teenaged mom, and more of the children we built this system to help benefit.”
D.C. public schools enrollments continue to climb
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
October 8, 2014
Enrollment is up in both D.C. charter and traditional public schools this year, according to unofficial numbers released this week by officials from the D.C. Public Charter School Board and D.C. Public Schools.
There were 38,302 students enrolled in public charter schools and 47,651 in D.C. Public Schools, based on an annual count conducted this week by the Office of the State Superintendent for Education. That’s a nearly 3 percent increase for the public school system, and a little more than 3 percent for the charter schools. An audited report of enrollment is due early next year.
D.C. public school enrollment has been in steady decline since the 1960s, when there were about 150,000 public school students in the city.
In 1995, enrollment had dropped just shy of 80,000 students when the D.C. School Reform Act was passed by Congress, paving the way for charter schools to open in the District. Since then, charter schools have grown rapidly, as traditional public schools have mostly continued to decline. About 44 percent of public school students in the city attend charter schools now, a number that is unchanged from last year.
In the past few years, both charter and traditional schools have seen enrollments increase.
“We are happy to have 2,000 new charter school families, and happy to see that more parents are coming back to public schools overall,” said Theola DeBose, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
Kaya Henderson celebrated the news on Twitter Tuesday as a positive sign for the school district.
Herb Tillery resigns from DC Public Charter School Board [Friendship PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
October 9, 2014
After just gaining member Rick Cruz the D.C. Public Charter School Board has a brand new opening. An individual closely associated with the PCSB has revealed that Herb Tillery resigned his position. The reason, according to the source, is that the organization for whom he serves as executive director, the College Success Foundation, was recently awarded a major grant from the Gates Foundation which will keep him exceedingly busy in his day job.
Mr. Tillery was never a major presence on the board since his appointment a little over a year ago. Most times I have attended the monthly meetings he was not present. He joined at the same time as Barbara Nophlin, whose own board status is being reviewed by the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability. It was brought to light in July that she is working for Friendship Public Charter School under a $195,000 a year contract to train principals. Working for a charter at the same time that you regulate them should not be permissible.
Mr. Tillery's resignation puts him in a good position to assume the role of Deputy Mayor for Education depending on who wins the upcoming race for Mayor. In the past he served as Deputy Mayor for Operations for Anthony Williams.
I hope this time around the PCSB will make the upcoming nomination of a new member by the Mayor public before the individual is confirmed by the D.C. Council. We learned of Mr. Cruz's addition after the Council vote.