NEWS
- Revised budget includes more funding for charter facilities [FOCUS, Washington Latin PCS and DC International PCS mentioned]
- Academy for Construction and Design to uproot from its long-time home at Cardozo [IDEA PCS mentioned]
- D.C. school construction projects reshuffled
Revised budget includes more funding for charter facilities [FOCUS, Washington Latin PCS and DC International PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
May 14, 2015
A revised $2.4 billion budget approved by the D.C. Council Education Committee on Thursday includes new funding for early literacy initiatives, community schools that offer on-site wraparound services, and charter schools facilities.
Many of the new initiatives were funded through an $8.6 million reduction in funding allocated for public charter schools, based on an adjustment to their enrollment projections.
Earlier this year, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education projected a 4.7 percent increase in charter enrollment, to 39,448 students for next school year. An updated forecast, after the first two rounds of the citywide enrollment lottery, anticipates 38,962 students or a 3.4 percent increases.
This week, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) requested that the D.C. Council dedicate some of those funds to charter facilities, increasing spending by $85 per student next year.
Publicly funded, independently operated charter schools often struggle to find adequate facilities. Some operate out of office buildings or former warehouses. To offset the cost of leases or construction, the city pays charter schools a facilities allotment. The per student sum was last increased in this year’s budget from $3,000 to $3,072.
Robert Cane, executive director of FOCUS, a charter advocacy group, said that the boost is helpful but ultimately does not bridge wide disparities in capital spending between charter and traditional schools, which he called “virtually unlimited.”
The city has invested more than $3.2 billion in renovations for the traditional school buildings since 2007, though capital funding is expected to slow in the next few years.
The Deputy Mayor for Education last fall announced two grants worth $4 million, allocated by the D.C. Council, that would have helped two charter schools, Washington Latin and D.C. International, pursue construction plans. But those funds were frozen when Bowser took office amid a budget deficit, and the grant was ultimately eliminated.
The amended budget was unanimously approved by the education committee Thursday, and will go to the full council for a vote.
The revised budget also restores funding for library collections and after-school programs and includes nearly a half million to implement a “Books from Birth” plan, which would send a book a month home to every child in the District under age 5.
Academy for Construction and Design to uproot from its long-time home at Cardozo [IDEA PCS mentioned]
Washington Business Journal
By Daniel J. Sernovitz
May 14, 2015
The Academy of Construction and Design is winding down its final academic year at the Cardozo Education Campus, but despite rumors that began to surface late last year that it was closing for good, the District-based pipeline for future construction workers is not closing for good.
The decade-old academy, established to encourage high school students to consider careers in construction and related fields, has formed a partnership with the IDEA Public Charter School in Northeast Washington's Deanwood neighborhood to start the next academic year in the 100,000-square-foot former Deanwood School building at 1027 45th St. NE.
The relationship was borne of necessity, after officials at Cardozo and D.C. Public Schools determined the academy was no longer a good fit on the education campus. At the same time, it is also one of opportunity as both IDEA and the academy hope the partnership will boost enrollment in the years ahead.
"What we’re going to do is try to serve as a complement to what they already have," academy co-founder Carol Randolph said. "They understood the importance of what we were offering, they didn’t see it as a dumbing down of the school."
The academy was launched from Cardozo Senior High School in 2005 with the support of its then principal, Reginald Ballard Jr., who has since retired. In the years since, neighborhood demographics around Cardozo have changed, as has the District's support for vocational technology programs, and Randolph said she was told by school officials to look for new space last April. DCPS spokesman Frederick Lewis could not comment before this article was published but I will update this story with the system's response.
Representatives for the D.C. Students Construction Trades Foundation, which oversees the academy, began meeting with officials from IDEA late last year about forming a partnership. IDEA Head of School Justin Rydstrom said he felt the academy would be a good fit since IDEA's focus extends beyond academics into other fields including architecture, computer-aided design and Microsoft applications as well as a Junior ROTC program. Starting this fall, IDEA's students will be able to take academy classes in fields ranging from carpentry and construction management to interior design and plumbing.
"We just think it's a great partnership because it complements what we have already," Rydstrom said. "I think it's going to be a perfect addition at this time."
The partnership comes just a few years after IDEA reconfigured its core academic programming, including doing away with its junior high school. The charter school's enrollment for the current academic year increased by about 10 percent to nearly 220 students, and IDEA also just received 15-year renewal to continue to operate in the District. The academy will operate from space that had been occupied by the junior high program and will receive oversight from IDEA's own board concerning new programs or teachers coming on board.
Academy co-founders Randolph, Roderick Woodson and John McMahon launched the program, which opened its doors to the public in 2005, in response to a shortage of qualified D.C. residents to meet the District's requirements for city-backed projects. The idea was to interest younger students in the construction trades while they are still in high school so that they can get exposure to the industry, the experience needed to decide if they want to pursue it further, and the opportunity to land jobs after high school with that background.
Since its founding, more than 400 middle school and high school students have taken career and technical education classes and activities. What's more, Randolph said, about 90 percent of students who have participated in the program also tend to stay in school through graduation. Of them, two-thirds also go on to college.
"Students, who, heretofore, had not found any reason to stay in school, found that there was some connection between head and hand," she said.
The academy is more than just classroom education, as students get real-world experience in the construction industry working on everything from renovation projects and Habitat for Humanity builds to, this year, building a sustainable mini-home with chemical toilet that can be moved around on a tractor. Randolph said the academy puts a heavy emphasis on community outreach and plans to offer adult classes in CPR, safety and OSHA training.
Meanwhile, the academy is planning to honor this year's class of 15 at its annual Meet the Future scholarship and awards luncheon, where it plans to officially announce the partnership with IDEA. Randolph said she hopes to boost enrollment in the coming year to somewhere between 25 and 40 students.
D.C. school construction projects reshuffled
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
May 14, 2015
The D.C. Council’s Committee on Education approved a revised capital budget plan Thursday that reorders some school projects and factors in a ranking of school projects based on some objective criteria.
Under the new plan, Garrison Elementary in Ward 2 would receive about half of the funding that was proposed in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) plan, with a $20 million commitment for next year, rather than a two-year commitment of $41 million. Some other projects were moved up in the queue, including Houston and Kimball elementaries in Ward 7, Maury Elementary in Ward 6, Hyde-Addison Elementary in Ward 2, and Raymond Elementary in Ward 4.
Before announcing his budget recommendations, D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large), chairman of the Education Committee, noted that decisions were guided by financial limitations. He said during public hearings, witnesses advocated for 20 different schools to begin construction next year. “That was simply not possible,” he said. He recommended moving back to an approach of renovating in phases so more schools can see improvements sooner.
The $1.3 billion, six-year school construction plan that Bowser proposed last month prompted protests because it pushed back more than 40 school projects, while increasing the price tag of others including Duke Ellington School of the Arts, which is now expected to cost nearly $180 million. (The revised plan trims $4 million from the school’s construction budget for next year).
In response, the Education Committee developed a facility analysis that ranks schools based on relative need. The criteria include the condition of the facility, previous construction or upgrades, enrollment growth at the school and in the community.
Schools were rated on a standard score of 1 to 5 in each category for a maximum base score of 5. Bonus points, worth a quarter point each, were awarded to schools that have portables or schools where more than 75 percent of the students are considered “at risk.”
Some of the schools that got moved up in the timeline ranked high on the list: Houston and Kimball and Raymond are ranked in the top 10. Some others did not: Hyde-Addison ranked number 85, and Maury ranked 29.
Eliot-Hine, a Ward 6 middle school that got delayed for three years in the mayor’s budget, remained in the plan with a 2019 start. Many parents have pushed for a faster time line, and council member Charles Allen (Ward 6) introduced an amendment that would have accelerated construction. The amendment failed. Grosso noted that many schools rank higher than Eliot-Hine on the ranking. (It came in 49th.)
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