• D.C. School Budget: Parents, Students Decry Cuts to High Schools, Librarians, Special Ed Coordinators [FOCUS and KIPP DC are mentioned]
• The D.C. Council Hearing on FY 2013 Education Spending [E.L. Haynes PCS and Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS are mentioned]
• D.C. Anti-bullying Bill Stalls
• We Can Prevent Bullying Before it Starts [Two Rivers PCS is mentioned]
D.C. School Budget: Parents, Students Decry Cuts to High Schools, Librarians, Special Ed Coordinators [FOCUS and KIPP DC are mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
March 28, 2012
The witness list ran nine pages for Wednesday’s D.C. Council hearing on Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s proposed FY 2013 education budget, testament to the volume of unmet needs--and programs at risk of cuts--in the city’s schools.
Gray’s proposed spending plan provides a 2 percent raise in the student funding formula, which amounts to about $86 million. But basic costs, including teachers salaries, have risen closer to 5 percent. The numbers triggered a long line of speakers describing the prospect of fewer teachers and diminished programs in their schools.
“I’m very concerned,” said D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown. “I just don’t understand just how we have better test scores, more students. more money going to the schools and less money going to the classrooms. I believe more money should go to the classrooms.”
The hearing was going strong into its seventh hour at 6 p.m. Officials from DCPS and other education agencies are due to testify on April 18.
A series of residents expressed alarm at DCPS plans to eliminate funding for special education coordinators--school-level administrators who manage the delivery of services to emotionally and physically disabled students. They deal with myriad legal requirements, and convene meetings between parents and educators to plan services for students. Some advocates say that the coordinators have played a role in whatever improvements DCPS has been able to make in its long-troubled--and court-monitored-- special education program.
DCPS says schools are free to use discretionary funds to retain the coordinators. Otherwise, their duties will be handed off to school psychologists. That got sharp pushback Wednesday from the psychologists themselves, whose focus is traditionally testing, intervention and crisis management.
“Our job has nothing to do with what special education coordinators do. Children in DCPS are going to suffer because of this change,” said Harriet Kuhn, a veteran DCPS psychologist. Kuhn said in an interview that the delays and disarray likely to result from the coordinators’ absence will expose the school system to more lawsuits on behalf of special ed families.
“The lawyers who sue the system are going to have a field day,” said Kuhn.
Other testimony raised concerns about DCPS’s plans to discontinue funding for librarians in schools with enrollment under 300. Again, schools are free to fund the position on their own, but the move is expected to affect about 50 schools
I’m very concerned by these changes,” said Stuart-Hobson Middle School parent Laura Marks, calling them, “shortsighted and misguided.”
“In a city that faces such stark challenges in reading and illiteracy, we should be spending more on libraries not less,” Marks said.
Some of the issues addressed Wednesday are perennials, such as funding for DCPS’s open-enrollment “comprehensive” high schools. While the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula provides $10,584 for high schools, the actual amount of money allocated to the schools by DCPS is usually substantially less, ranging between $6,140 and $7218 in the proposed FY 2013 budget. The rest is redistributed by DCPS to other schools or to the system’s central bureaucracy..
“It is in fact unconscionable,” said Cathy Reilly, executive director of the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators. Reilly also noted a proposed reduction (from 3.5 percent to 2.75 percent of total budget) in basic supplies, including toilet paper and cleaning materials.
“Everybody shares the goal of devoting lots of resources to our younger children,” said Matthew Frumin, chairman of the Wilson Management Corporation, the non-profit that raises money and advocates for Woodrow Wilson High School. But the city shortchanges high school students “at our shame and at our peril.”
Charter Representatives renewed their long-time debate with the District over inequities in funding of the public, independently-operated schools. Robert Cane, executive director of FOCUS said DCPS has long benefited from overestimating the annual enrollment that provides the basis for its budget appropriation from the city--about $100 million over the last four fiscal years. It is likely to collect extra money this year for students it didn’t enroll, he said.
Unlike D.C. public schools, public charter school funding is tied to actual enrollment. Charters can have some of their quarterly payments decreased if enrollment does not meet projections.
David Endom, director of financial planning for KIPP public charter schools, said the school network has to privately raise an extra $1,100 per student to finance its extended school day and school year.
A series of questions e-mailed to DCPS about Wednesday’s testimony was unanswered as of 5:45 p.m.
The D.C. Council Hearing on FY 2013 Education Spending [E.L. Haynes PCS and Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS are mentioned]
Examiner
By Mark Lerner
March 28, 2012
I spent a short time yesterday down at the Wilson Building listening to the public hearing on the Fiscal Year 2013 budget for education services. Most of the witnesses were there to testify in favor of the renovation of Stuart-Hobson Middle School.
I was glad I attended. There was a particularly interesting exchange between Councilman Marion Barry and James Henderson, the Chief Operating Officer of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School. Mr. Barry spent many minutes digressing on his desire to transform public schools in the District. But then he began asking Mr. Henderson questions which led to an intriguing observation.
Mr. Barry wondered what the percentage of free and reduced lunch children attended E.L. Haynes. "62 percent" was Mr. Henderson's response. The Councilman then went on to comment that he knew that Thurgood Marshall Academy PCS had a similar portion of free and reduced lunch children at about 70 percent. (Both E.L. Haynes and Thurgood Marshall Academy are Tier 1 schools as measured by the PCSB's Performance Management Framework.)
He then volunteered that he has gone by Thurgood Marshall at about 7:30 a.m. on weekday mornings and saw students hanging outside anxiously waiting to get into the school. Mr. Barry reflected on the fact that when he visits Ballou Senior High School, which has about 90 percent Title 1 children, at the same period he does not see children lined up to enter. He said that kids drift into to that school at all times of the day, sometimes not arriving until 11:30 a.m. (Both schools are located in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C.)
Mr. Barry asked Mr. Henderson for an explanation as to why students have different attitudes toward attending the two schools. Mr. Henderson answered without hesitation. "At schools like Thurgood Marshall and E.L. Haynes the staff goes out of their way to make a personal connection to the children."
Mr. Barry agreed with Mr. Henderson's assessment.
So now in one simple sentence we have the key to public education reform.
D.C. Anti-bullying Bill Stalls
The Washington Blade
By Lou Chibbaro Jr.
March 28, 2012
An anti-bullying bill introduced in the D.C. City Council in January 2011 is stalled in committee because its supporters haven’t been able to figure out how to pay for its implementation, according to an aide to D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6).
Charles Allen, Wells’ chief of staff, said Wells is facilitating discussions with advocates for the legislation and with the city’s Chief Financial Officer to identify funding sources and make changes to lower the potential cost of putting the bill’s provisions in place.
Wells is chair of the Council’s Committee on Libraries, Parks, Recreation and Planning, one of two committees with jurisdiction over the Bullying and Intimidation Prevention Act.
The bill would require D.C. public schools, city public charter schools, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the D.C. public library system, and the University of the District of Columbia to adopt policies “prohibiting harassment, intimidation or bullying” at their respective facilities.
At the time it was introduced, 11 of the Council’s 13 members signed on as co-introducers or co-sponsors of the bill.
LGBT activists said the bill was needed because large numbers of LGBT youth are victims of bullying in schools, parks and other public places. They praised the introduction of the bill but called on the Council to strengthen its enforcement and implementation provisions, saying shortcomings in the bill would prevent it from having a meaningful impact on the problem of bullying.
Allen said a problem arose when the Office of the D.C. Chief Financial Officer, an agency independent of the Council and the mayor, reviewed the bill in its role of preparing a financial impact statement for all proposed city legislation. According to Allen, the Office of the CFO indicated informally that the cost would be high for implementing the anti-bullying bill and the Council would have to determine where it would obtain the funds to pay for the implementation.
He said Wells wants to make changes to the bill to reduce the potential costs before the CFO’s office issues its official financial impact statement.
“Unless there is a plan to pay for it we would be passing empty legislation,” Allen said. “We don’t want to do that. We want to make sure that whatever we pass, it is something that can be put in place and implemented.”
He said Wells was hopeful that revisions could be made in the legislation that would lower the potential costs.
Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) serves as chair of the Council’s Committee of the Whole, which has concurrent jurisdiction over the bill in its role of overseeing the city’s public school system. Allison Abney, a spokesperson for Brown, said Brown has delegated the task of resolving the funding issue to Wells’ committee.
“We’re working with them and monitoring this very closely,” she said.
We Can Prevent Bullying Before it Starts [Two Rivers PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Blade
By Jessica Wodatch
March 28, 2012
A new documentary hits the nation’s movie theaters today. “Bully” tells the story of five brave families and challenges viewers to move from shock and resignation about bullying to action, the movie’s promotional website thebullyproject.com reports. Recent surveys indicate that about 13 million U.S. children are bullied each year and 3 million are absent from school each month because they feel unsafe.
Across the country, adults’ awareness of bullying, willingness to treat it as a serious issue, and take action about it is on the rise. Last year, a celebrity-led campaign, “It Gets Better,” reached out to children who are being bullied to offer encouragement and support. Even President Obama recorded a video. Recently, New Jersey announced $1 million would be added to the state’s Bullying Prevention Fund to help school districts meet the requirements of the state’s anti-bullying law, following the lead of many other states. Such investment is an improvement on ignoring the problem. But spending such vast sums begs a question: what if bullying could be prevented before it starts?
In 2004, a group of Capitol Hill parents and myself founded a new public charter school. We believed that creating a safe, caring environment that taught children social skills and gave them opportunities to practice them would prevent bullying before it starts. As a result, while I welcome any effort to try to stop bullying where it has taken hold, I also am convinced that investing in children early and often works best.
At the heart of our educational program is a commitment to teach students how to learn, and use the knowledge they have acquired to solve problems. Accordingly, we view behavior as an opportunity to learn, rather than simply assigning students a consequence when they make a mistake. We help our students to understand the impact of their behavior, so that they will want to change it in the future.
Of course, negative behavior can be observed, criticized, and punished. But that doesn’t address the root cause of the behavior. We engage our students to help them understand and internalize why what they did is wrong, and how they can act better in the future. When a student is able to fully understand why behavior like name-calling or bullying is wrong and the impact it has on their peers, they are more likely to want to not repeat it in the future.
Why does bullying persist? Adult complicity or indifference is part of the story—as is the idea that it is just a rite of passage—but does not totally explain its prevalence. The failure to engage students to learn and internalize positive behavior is another important factor. It’s easy to scare children, or entice them with rewards to get them to behave, but we want students to choose good behavior and make good decisions on their own, when adults aren’t around.
We teach our preschool through eighth grade students social and emotional problem-solving strategies through example and instruction. Skills such as advocating for oneself, peaceably resolving disputes, and understanding and communicating with one another are essential for success in life, as well as school. Students are encouraged to request opportunities to talk through their disagreements and resolve them. While our youngest students often need teacher facilitation to solve problems in this way, students who have been at Two Rivers for many years do this with ease. After years of practice, many Two Rivers’ students are more adept at problem solving with their peers than most adults I know. This approach helps address conflicts before they escalate and develops skills that will serve children well throughout their lives.
Our school also sweats the small stuff. Big problems like fear arise when seemingly innocent activities such as name-calling go unchecked, injuring children’s sense of well being. By intervening early and teaching our students how to talk to one another and support each other, we are able to create a climate of mutual trust and respect, in which everyone feels welcome. This way, students can flourish socially, emotionally and academically.
Preventing bullying before it starts isn’t easy – it takes determination, thoughtfulness, and hard work. But it isn’t impossible, and it’s critical for all our students.
Jessica Wodatch is executive director of Two Rivers Public Charter School. She grew up on Capitol Hill in D.C., and lives on the Hill with her partner, Liz, and their three children — all proud Two Rivers students.