FOCUS DC News Wire 10/15/13

 

 

A federal judge has dismissed most of a lawsuit that sought to stop the closure of 15 D.C public schools but is allowing several of the plaintiffs’ civil rights claims to move forward.

 

“In the end, Plaintiffs have failed to allege facts that would sustain the majority of their counts,” Judge James E. Boasberg wrote in an opinion Thursday. “Some issues at the heart of this case, however, remain open.”

 

Activists with the community group Empower D.C. filed the lawsuit in March in an effort to stop 13 of the schools from being closed in June. They argued that the school closures violated a number of local and federal laws, including civil rights provisions. The closures disproportionately affected black, Hispanic and disabled children, they argued.

 

Boasberg declined that initial request to block the closures, ruling in a strongly worded opinion that the activists had “no likelihood of ultimate success on the merits” of their complaint. They had showed no evidence, he said, that Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) had intended to discriminate.

 

In Thursday’s opinion, Boasberg appeared no less skeptical of the activists’ position, saying that their civil-rights arguments “may ultimately be too slender a reed” on which to hang their case. But under the law, he said, they deserve time to gather and present information before he issues a final ruling.

 

“That said, however, the Court is not in the business of sanctioning a fishing expedition into decades of [school system] files,” Boasberg wrote. “Only targeted discovery will garner approval.”

 

Empower D.C. activists said they were pleased with the ruling. “We’re happy that we can still litigate on some of the counts around discrimination,” said Daniel del Pielago, an organizer for the group. “We’re still in the game.”

 

A spokesman for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, whose lawyers are representing Henderson and Gray in the case, declined to comment. D.C. officials have argued that they needed to close schools with low enrollment to use resources more efficiently and improve education across the city.

 

 

D.C. Public Schools teachers may have to work without pay if the federal government shutdown continues past the end of the month.

 

A spokesman for Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said that nearly 4,000 teachers and other city workers will be paid on time on Tuesday. But that may be the last on-time payday for a while for the men and women who educate city kids.

 

The District’s regular funds are frozen because of the federal government shutdown. The city has been using a $144 million contingency reserve fund to pay city employees to stay on the job. But that cash is running out.

 

It’s “questionable” whether the District will be able to make its next payroll on Oct. 29, said Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro. “And after that, all bets are off.”

 

Gray and other D.C. leaders have been pushing Congress to pass a bill that would allow the District to use its own locally raised dollars to fund city government.

 

“It’s unfair to ask people to work for free,” Ribeiro said, explaining that teachers will be asked to continue to report to work even if paychecks are delayed. They will receive back pay, but many have bills and mortgages that can’t be put off, Ribeiro said.

 

D.C. charter schools are also facing a financial pinch if the shutdown continues past Oct. 25, when they are each supposed to receive a substantial payment from the city. That payment — which amounts to a quarter of each school’s annual public funding — will not arrive until the Capitol Hill standoff ends.

 

In an e-mail sent Sept. 25 — six days before the shutdown began — the executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board urged school leaders to begin conserving cash in case of a prolonged shutdown.

 

“It seems hard to imagine that the government would remain shut down for nearly a month or more,” Scott Pearson wrote, “but anything is possible.”

 

 

Haste makes waste, you know.

 

Lots of folks are mighty anxious to end the federal government shutdown. From immigrants pushing a reform agenda and smaller government types seeking spending curbs to President Obama bunkered in for a fight with Republicans to veterans sidling up to closed memorials built in their honor, the voices for special interests have been loud and strong.

 

Shout-outs on behalf of children, not so much.

 

Youngsters are caught in political crossfire.

 

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray moved as quick as stealthy lightning to announce the Wednesday before the shutdown became a reality that he had declared all 33,000 or so D.C. employees “essential” and that he would use the city’s contingency fund to pay them.

 

It was an unprecedented move by a D.C. mayor to make such a hasty move, the blessings of federal overseers and D.C. lawmakers notwithstanding. And now the reserve coffers are drying up.

 

He then said that, since public works employees were getting paid, they might as well do the federal government workers a favor, too, by having their D.C. counterparts pick up trash at federal parks.

 

Suffice it to say, D.C. is probably doing Yogi Bear’s nemesis, Ranger Smith, a big favor.

 

Mr. Gray’s passive-aggressive politics also had him confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with a Democratic head-butt on Wednesday. The senator from Nevada told the mayor, “I’m on your side. Don’t screw it up.”

 

The move must have knocked some sense into the mayor, because on Thursday evening he finally got around to mentioning that children are caught in the crossfire of the shutdown.

 

Public charter schools might close, and thousands of children who receive vouchers might be at risk as well.

 

The shutdown threatens to close the schoolhouse on nearly 35,000 students in charter schools if the city fails to pay the charters their allotment, Donald Hense, founder and chairman of Friendship Public Charter Schools, told me.

 

The looming deadline is particularly risky for new startups and small charters that do not have substantial cash reserves, he said.

 

“We’re reasonably safe now,” he said of Friendship and other large, established charters. “But if they stay on this shutdown long, almost everybody else will be closed.”

 

D.C. payments to charters, which educate 43 percent of school-age children, are due Wednesday.

 

Mr. Hense also highlighted two things that, I think, our leaders are ignoring.

 

“It’s illegal to have people come to work and to knowingly be aware you are not able to pay them,” he said.

 

And if a charter has a bond for building and renovations but insufficient cash on hand to pay, “its credit rating could be in trouble.”

 

Thousands of other D.C. youngsters are also caught in the crossfire.

 

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is federally funded, is at risk, too.

 

That’s because no fiscal 2014 federal or D.C. spending plan also means no appropriated funds for the vouchers, which are given to poor families.

 

The mayor said it’s “unconscionable” that the nation’s capital is treated like a federal agency by Congress and the White House.

 

What’s truly unconscionable is that the mayor placed trash and garbage in the front of the line for limited expenditures.

 

In city hall’s haste to prove a point about the lack of D.C. budget autonomy, it wasted precious dollars — and political capital.

 

So much for leadership during a time of crisis.

 

 

A D.C. Superior Court judge appointed a receiver Friday to oversee two for-profit companies that are led by the former managers of Options Public Charter School, who have been accused of creating an elaborate contracting scheme to divert millions of dollars from the school.

 

The former managers, who deny any wrongdoing, are among the defendants in a civil complaint that the District’s attorney general filed this month.

 

The receiver is Joe Bruno, president of Building Hope, a nonprofit organization that provides business services and loans to charter schools. Bruno will be responsible for taking control of the two companies’ finances and preserving their assets while the civil lawsuit proceeds.

 

Although no one has been criminally charged in the case, investigators have been interviewing people, and a grand jury is expected to convene as early as next week, according to several people familiar with the case.

 

The future of Options remains uncertain. The D.C. Public Charter School Board said last week that it would vote on Oct. 16 about whether to take a first step toward closing the school because of financial mismanagement.

 

Josh Kern, who was appointed by the court to oversee Options, sent a letter this week asking the charter board not to take any such action until he can assess the school’s operations. “It is imperative that I be able to provide the staff a sense of security about their employment at Options,” Kern wrote.

 

A spokeswoman for the charter board said the board is taking the request “seriously” and “will need to hear from the receiver before it decides how to proceed on Options.”

 

 

D.C. Council member David A. Catania will hold a public meeting this week to hear from city education officials regarding the status of Options Public Charter School, which faces revocation amid recent revelations of financial mismanagement.

 

Catania's public roundtable discussion will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 18 in Room 500 of the John A. Wilson Building in downtown Washington, and will also focus on plans to ensure that the school's roughly 400 students continue to receive a high level of educational services.

 

Members of the public may submit written testimony which will be made part of the official record. Copies of written statements should be submitted to the Council's Committee on Education no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1.

 

A separate meeting on that issue will be held Wednesday, Oct. 16 by the Public School Charter Board.

 

School Reform Bills in Markup

 

Meanwhile, the education committee began its markup of a seven-bill package introduced this summer by Catania that builds upon previous efforts to reform the city's public schools system.

 

The five-member committee, which includes Ward 8's Marion Barry and Ward 7's Yvette Alexander, began its markup of two of the bills, including the Focused Student Achievement Act of 2013, which ends the mandatory "social promotion" of students inadequately prepared to move on to the next grade.

 

"The future the District of Columbia depends on effective schools that prepare students for success in life," said Catania, at-large independent, who chairs the committee. "These bills are based on the philosophy that every child in every neighborhood deserves a quality education — with no exceptions."

 

Critics have argued the legislation makes way for an eventual charter-school takeover.

 

 

Coming right off the heels of the contracting controversy regarding Option Public Charter School, the D.C. Public Charter School Board at its meeting Wednesday night will introduce a new policy for public comment regarding financial agreements charters reach with other entities.

 

The PCSB is strengthening all of the areas that could have tipped the organization off to problems at Options. Among other details, the body is setting strict time specifications for the submission of all contacts $25,000 and above, with higher standards for those over $100,000. It mandates when schools must deliver to the PCSB school board of directors' meeting minutes and conflict of interest policies. In addition, the new rules call for informing the PCSB of the top three earning employees per fiscal year of each charter school, and greater transparency regarding contracts that are likely to trigger a conflict of interest, for example those that are awarded to family members of schools' leadership or past employees.

 

The supporting documentation states that the "PCSB staff also will review other information, including charter school’s Board minutes and school annual audits, to identify contracts which were awarded by a school but not submitted to PCSB as required by the SRA" [School Reform Act].

 

The proposal explains that the PCSB will issue a notice of concern if the new reporting requirements are not met and then a charter warning "if a notice of concern under this policy is issued to that charter school in two consecutive years or more than one notice of concern is issued in one year." I would add specific penalties for failure to disclose potential financial conflict of interest activities.

 

Obviously, the PCSB has reacted strongly and appropriately to my earlier call to revise the CHARM report on charter school finances and charter school governance practices.

 

Now the question will be whether the PCSB has the staff and procedures in place to be able to effectively monitor its portfolio of schools.

 

 

The Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School on Wednesday opened a 50,000-square-foot workforce development campus in Northeast Washington, an expansion that allows the adult education center to provide job training to more low-income District residents.

 

The new facility will serve more than 500 students on any given day. And like Carlos Rosario’s existing school on Harvard Street NW, it will focus on serving immigrant students.

 

Allison Kokkoros, the school’s chief academic officer, said the programs at the center have been carefully designed with an eye toward economic realities: They want to prepare students for jobs that are in high demand in the Washington area and to focus on fields where there is room for students to advance up a career ladder and eventually earn higher wages.

 

With those conditions top of mind, they’ve concentrated their efforts on three programs: culinary arts, health care and information technology support.

 

“We are always asking the question: Are we aligned with what employers need?” Kokkoros said.

 

To achieve that synergy, Carlos Rosario created corporate advisory boards for each of its programs. The boards are comprised of experts and employers in that sector who offer guidance about what skills are most critical.

 

One clear instance of the boards’ influence is “The Bistro,” a room in the culinary arts space that is set up like a restaurant. Employers said they increasingly wanted back-of-house staff to be able to perform front-of-house tasks in a pinch. So now, in addition to learning knifework and other food preparation skills in the state-of-the-art kitchen, culinary students must practice skills such as serving wine or taking dinner orders.

 

Students at Carlos Rosario often face dual challenges: Not only are they trying to learn a new career, they are often trying to learn English. The school aims to support its students through all steps of that process.

 

Fredy Reyes, for example, first came to Carlos Rosario in 2009 when he arrived in the United States from Cuba. He didn’t speak English, but the school helped him find work as a dishwasher at Chipotle. As he moved through the school’s English language program, he was promoted at Chipotle to cashier, manager and finally general manager. Now, he’s taking classes at Carlos Rosario’s new facility to train for a nurse’s aide certification.

 

“I got everything I need here,” Reyes said.

 

With the opening of the campus in Northeast, school leaders say they plan to keep their most basic orientation classes and literacy classes at the Harvard Street school. The new facility, known as the Sonia Gutierrez campus, will house the job training programs and more intermediate language classes.

 

Jorge Delgado, the principal of the new school, said Carlos Rosario uses a highly data-driven approach to assessing the outcomes of the programs. For example, the school tracks whether its students pass a certification test or get placed in a job, and it follows up with them over time to see if they are able to hang on to that position or advance to a more skilled one.

 

Data, too, will continue to shape Carlos Rosario’s course offerings.

 

“If we find there’s another area where there’s demand, we turn on a dime,” Kokkoros said.