- D.C. FY 2013 Budget Passed, Charter Facility Allotment Underfunded
- DC Principals: “Class of ’08” Continues to Dwindle
- D.C. Council Unanimously Approves $9.4B Budget
DC Charter Schools Examiner
By Mark Lerner
June 6, 2012
Apparently the D.C. Council did find $25.1 million to cover DCPS overspending but not the $1.2 million to bring the charter school facility allotment to $3,000 per child.
As the Washington Post reports the fiscal year 2013 budget has been passed.
Now charters must figure out what to do with a cut to their revenue. For example, assuming a $2,900 facility allotment and an average student body of 400 charters will see their funding cut by $40,000 a year.
Extremely sad day.
The Washington Post
By Bill Turque
June 5, 2012
In 2008, then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee turned over a third of the city’s public school principal posts, reassigning some leaders and hiring what the head of New Leaders for New Schools, a recruiting nonprofit, called “an army of believers.”
But struggling urban school systems chew up principals. With each successive spring, more members of the DCPS 2008 cohort have moved on through resignation, retirement, termination for poor academic performance or other issues. Officials never spell out the exact reasons, and few of those moving on ever talk.
DCPS confirmed Tuesday that at least 17 school leadership jobs will change this year. They include three more members of the class of 2008: Michael Johnson of Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering HS; Tanishia Williams-Minor of Washington Metropolitan HS; and Margaret Stephens-Aliendre of Moten Elementary@Wilkinson. By my count, that makes 28 of the 46 — about 60 percent — who are no longer in the schools where Rhee placed them. (This tally does not include Brian Betts, the Shaw Middle School@Garnet-Patterson principal who was murdered in 2010). While a few have moved into senior administrative posts or to other schools, most left the system.
Principal attrition under Chancellor Kaya Henderson is not as heavy as in the Rhee era. The 17 changes represent about 14 percent of the system’s principal posts. But the churn is considerable compared to Montgomery County Public Schools, where the 10 percent turnover in 2011 (the most recent year available) was “unusually high,” according to spokesman Dana Tofig. For the previous three years, he said, turnover was between 5 and 6 percent.
Also among this year’s D.C. departures are some veteran school leaders, including Katie Jones of Winston Education Campus, Gwendolyn Grant of Cardozo HS and Angela Tilghman of Garfield Elementary, a 2004 winner of The Post’s Distinguished Educational Leadership Award for her work at Miner Elementary.
Other schools or programs losing principals are:
Aiton Elementary: Irina Malykhina
Ballou STAY: Wilbert Miller
Browne EC: Rashida Tyler
Garrison ES: Rembert Seaward
Langdon EC: Barbara Campbell
Prospect Learning Center: Keesha Blythe
Seaton ES: Douglas Rice
Shaw MS@Garnet-Patterson: Kimberly Douglas
Walker-Jones EC: Melissa Martin
H.D. Woodson HS: Thomas Whittle.
An 18th school, Deal Middle School, has been operating with an interim principal, James Albright, since the departure of Melissa Kim last fall. Albright is a candidate for the permanent post, DCPS said Tuesday.
The Washington Times
By Tom Howell Jr.
June 5, 2012
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown on Wednesday shepherded unanimous approval of the city’s $9.4 billion fiscal 2013 budget hours before he was forced to address mounting questions about his political future amid a federal probe into the finances of his 2008 campaign.
The council’s 13-0 vote placed their final stamp on Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s budget, which includes $5.9 billion in local funds for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The spending plan extends benefits to needy families for a year and raises money through initiatives such as an expansion of bar hours and the city’s traffic-camera system.
Revisiting an issue from fiscal 2012, council members also decided to compensate city workers for four furlough days they took in 2011.
Mr. Gray praised the council for passing a budget that adheres to his priorities and closes a $172 million gap for the year.
But attention quickly shifted from the spending plan when Mr. Brown announced Wednesday afternoon that he would hold an impromptu news conference to address intensifying murmurs that prosecutors are wrapping up their investigation into his campaign finances.
“I have no plans at this time to resign,” Mr. Brown told a bevy of reporters, adding that he did not believe he broke any laws in 2008. “Clearly, I would not like to have all these distractions. I regret the fact we’re even having this conversation.”
The yearlong federal investigation came after an audit performed by the Office of Campaign Finance that said Mr. Brown’s re-election committee did not report more than $100,000 in contributions and failed to report or substantiate hundreds of thousands of dollars more in expenditures, among other financial irregularities.
Mr. Brown said he wished he could have used the moment before the TV cameras to talk about the budget instead of his personal issues.
Budget talks in past weeks circled around a key topic in the District, affordable housing. And in a notable move that marked something of a victory for Mr. Brown, the chairman amended Mr. Gray’s plan by dedicating about $18 million to the Housing Production Trust Fund with funds tied to the anticipated sale of city-owned land.
City lawmakers spent a significant chunk of Tuesday’s session debating whether they should delay a 25 percent cut in benefits to residents who have relied on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for more than 60 months.
The council voted 10-3 in favor of extending the benefits under a proposal by council member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, after other lawmakers said city officials failed to prepare enrollees for self-sufficiency.
“Where has this government been over the last 14 years?” council member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat, said.
Mr. Graham, chairman of the Committee on Human Services that oversees alcohol regulation, also reiterated his opposition to a proposal that allows bars to stay open until 4 a.m. during the week of the presidential inauguration and on certain holidays.
Mr. Brown proposed the special hours in lieu of a mayoral plan that would allow bars to stay open for an extra hour every day of the year.
“Nineteen days of 4 a.m. is better than 365 days of 4 a.m., so we very much appreciate that,” Mr. Graham said. “But there’s still going to be some very serious spillover effects.”
Mr. Graham successfully moved a measure that would require participating bars to notify the city whether they plan to stay open until 4 a.m. and submit a “safety plan.”
He failed to place $2 million — the amount needed to cover the cost of eliminating the bar proposal — at the bottom of a contingency “wish list” for unanticipated revenues that enter city coffers through revised estimates this month and in September.
The 7-6 vote to kill the measure marked the first time newly sworn-in Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5 Democrat, cast a voice vote from the dais. He supported Mr. Graham’s proposal.
Mr. McDuffie will gain oversight of the Department of Employment Services as chairman of a committee on workforce development issues.
“I believe every member should have a committee,” Mr. Brown said.
Council member Michael A. Brown, at-large independent, will now oversee the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development — formally overseen by the council chairman — as part of a newly formed Committee on Housing and Economic Development.
Council member Muriel Bowser, Ward 4 Democrat, will oversee the Department of General Services as chairman of the Committee on Government Operations, Chairman Brown said.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday released a bill for fiscal 2013 that contains a $667 million federal payment to the District for its court system and security programs, plus $60 million to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — which helps disadvantaged city children to attend private schools — by funding the SOAR Act supported last year by House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
The appropriations bill keeps a longstanding ban on publicly funded abortions in the District and prohibits the city from using federal funds for its needle exchange and medical marijuana programs.
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