- D.C. charter schools deserve funding equality [Eagle Academy PCS and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
- Equal funding
- The new school year brings changes to the region’s schools [Harmony D.C. — School of Excellence PCS, Lee Montessori PCS, D.C. International PCS, Academy of Hope PCS, Democracy Prep Congress Heights PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
- Charter school eyes Glover Park site [Shining Stars PCS and Bridges PCS mentioned]
- Allison Kokkoros to succeed Sonia Gutierrez as Carlos Rosario CEO [Carlos Rosario PCS mentioned]
- Former D.C. charter board CFO promoted private companies that allegedly paid him [Options PCS, Ideal PCS, and Community Academy PCS mentioned]
D.C. charter schools deserve funding equality [Eagle Academy PCS and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
The Northwest Current, page 9
By Ramona Edelin
August 13, 2014
This month, the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, Eagle Academy Public Charter School and Washington Latin Public Charter School filed a lawsuit to require the D.C. government to end its long-standing practice of illegally funding charter school students at a lower rate than it does D.C. Public Schools students. Over the last eight years — the period covered by the lawsuit — this practice has deprived public charter school students of over $770 million. This is a great deal of money.
The lawsuit follows more than a decade of effort by the charter schools and their advocates to convince the D.C. government to voluntarily end this inequity. Yet the government has continued to underfund charter school students compared to their D.C. Public Schools peers, even after the publication over the last three years of two government-sponsored reports acknowledging the funding inequities.
Public charter schools in the District are public schools, and they educate nearly as many public school students as D.C. Public Schools does — 44 percent of the total. Charters are publicly funded; may not charge tuition; must accept all applicants without screening; must offer special education services and services for students for whom English is a second language; and must obey all health, safety and civil rights laws.
Charter schools, held to a high standard of accountability by the mayorally appointed D.C. Public Charter School Board, have on average greatly outperformed the school system, especially with the most disadvantaged of our city. This is especially true east of the Anacostia River. In wards 7 and 8, charter school students outscore their D.C. Public Schools peers on the annual state assessment by 18 and 26 percentage points, respectively. And the charter high school graduation rate exceeds the D.C. Public Schools rate by 21 percentage points, enabling a higher share of public charter school students to be accepted to college.
Given these facts, it only makes sense that the law requires that all similarly situated public school students be funded equally. The Uniform Per Student Funding Formula law, passed by the D.C. Council, is designed to ensure this. Under the formula, for example, the same amount of public funding attaches to every third grader needing level 1 special education services, regardless of what type of school he or she attends.
We’ve gone to court because every year the government ignores the law and undermines the uniform per student funding requirement, annually costing public charter school students between $75 million and $130 million. On a per student basis, this translates to an average of $1,600 to $2,600 per year.
It does this by paying public charter schools only for the students they actually enroll as shown by a government audit, while paying D.C. Public Schools for the always-exaggerated number of students the government estimates will attend. It does this by appropriating tens of millions of dollars a year to D.C. government agencies that turn around and provide free services to D.C. Public Schools that the public charter schools have to pay for out of their budgets. And it does this by providing D.C. Public Schools with lateyear supplemental funding when it overspends its budget — but not public charter schools if they overspend their budgets.
The funding inequality caused by this flouting of the law impacts the vulnerable children educated at charters. While 76 percent of D.C. Public Schools students are economically disadvantaged, and therefore eligible for federal school lunch subsidies, a slightly higher share, 80 percent of charter students, are similarly disadvantaged.
Ignoring the law also discriminates by neighborhood and ethnicity. By choice, charter schools are typically located in the District’s most underserved communities, where the need for high-quality public education is greatest. In the upcoming school year, there will be just one charter school in Ward 3, D.C.’s most affluent ward.
The District’s public charter school reform has improved public education in the nation’s capital. Our city, which in the mid-1990s graduated only half its public school students, has been invigorated. The charter reform has since been accompanied by the reform of D.C. Public Schools, improving educational outcomes for students enrolled in the traditional school system.
We have reluctantly resorted to legal action to ensure fair public school funding going forward; we are not seeking damages for past underfunding. Our lawsuit asks the court to declare that the practices described above are illegal and to direct the government to follow the law in the future. It’s not too much to ask.
Equal funding
The Northwest Current, page 8
By David Kennedy and Chris Kain
August 13, 2014
A coalition of local public charter schools is suing the city over alleged inequities in funding between the city’s charters and its traditional public schools. The suit says each charter receives an average of $1,600 to $2,600 less per student each year than other public schools do.
As the lawsuit explains, school reform legislation adopted by Congress in 1995 requires the city to provide equal funding — based on a per-student formula — to both charters and non-charters to cover all operating expenses. Yet, the complaint argues, programs within D.C. Public Schools have routinely received more money per student than charters for various reasons, including direct funding of teacher pensions and supplemental funds for items like extra materials.
Financial support has also come to D.C. Public Schools programs via inter-agency transfers, such as the $35 million transferred from the Office of the State Superintendent from fiscal years 2008 through 2015 to the school system to help provide services to students with disabilities. The city’s charters received no extra funds for compliance, the complaint states.
Ted Gest, a spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Irving Nathan, told The Washington Post that city lawyers had reviewed the complaint and found it to be “without merit.” The paper reported that he and other officials had declined to comment further on the record, but Mr. Nathan wrote in a 2012 letter that the city’s additional spending on the traditional school system is legal. His letter states that the law can be read as simply requiring a minimum equal budget allocation, without precluding additional spending.
While we can’t provide a legal opinion, we’re inclined to support the charters, because we believe the intention of the legislation was for the city to provide funding that is in fact equal — not equal in only some respects. Furthermore, roughly equivalent funding is what’s fair. While it may not always be possible to make every dollar match every year, equity should be the goal, and measures should be taken to reach an appropriate balance.
Some argue that traditional schools require larger budgets because they must educate every student, while an individual charter can more easily expel a child. There’s something to be said for that point, which suggests the need for more planning and collaboration across the education spectrum.
But the reality of education in Washington is that roughly 44 percent of public school students are enrolled at charters, making this network an integral part of our local educational system. We shouldn’t shortchange nearly half of our local children.
We wish there were a way to resolve the issue outside of court. It’s unfortunate that the city’s charter program was instituted by Congress, rather than by local leaders; let’s avoid a court-mandated solution to this problem, which might result in relinquishing more control of our local programs to people who weren’t elected to run them.
The new school year brings changes to the region’s schools [Harmony D.C. — School of Excellence PCS, Lee Montessori PCS, D.C. International PCS, Academy of Hope PCS, Democracy Prep Congress Heights PCS, and KIPP DC PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown, Michael Alison Chandler, Donna St. George, T. Rees Shapiro and Ovetta Wiggins
August 15, 2014
The 2014-2015 school year begins with a lot happening in the world of education, from the implementation of the Common Core State Standards tests in many states (including The District and Maryland) — and a backlash against them — to high-profile challenges against teacher tenure. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 55 million students from pre-K to 12th-grade are expected to be in classes this fall, more than 18 percent of the U.S. population.
In the Washington region, many changes and new initiatives are underway. Here is a rundown of what is expected to change for the 2014-2015 school year in D.C. and the close-in Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
THE DISTRICT
Aug. 25 is the first day of school for D.C. Public Schools and many of the city’s charter schools. Here are some of the major back-to-school changes and news that parents can expect:
■ Those watching the city’s school boundary and student-assignment debate can expect to hear some news — within the next few weeks, but possibly before school starts — as the community advisory committee is soon expected to submit its proposal to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D). Gray is expected to announce his final plan by the end of September.
■ Four new charter schools are opening this fall. They are:
Harmony D.C. — School of Excellence, a STEM elementary school; Lee Montessori, opening with children in pre-kindergarten through first grade; D.C. International, a consortium of language immersion charters that have come together to offer middle and high school; Academy of Hope, a longtime adult education program that is converting to a charter; and Democracy Prep Congress Heights, which took over the old Imagine Southeast.
■ KIPP DC is moving its high school, College Prep, from Ward 8 to a new building in Ward 5, where it will have more space to expand. KIPP DC also has taken over the old Arts and Technology Academy, which was closed for poor performance, in an effort to turn it around academically.
■ D.C. Public Schools is modernizing seven schools over the summer: Hyde-Addison, Payne, Plummer, Shepherd and Stanton elementary schools; Kramer Middle School and Langdon Education Campus. In addition, Dunbar High’s renovated athletic field and stadium will be ready in time for football season.
■ Many DCPS students will return to find that their school cafeteria menus have been changed in response to feedback from student taste tests. Middle schools will see new lunch menus with at least three lunch options daily, including a rotating burger feature (charbroiled hamburger, cheeseburger, pizza burger, and Santa Fe burger are among the choices). All secondary students also will have three breakfast options each day, some hot and some cold.
■ More DCPS schools — 26 in all — will offer a longer school day for at least some students.
■ Four additional DCPS schools will use a school-wide blended learning program. In the 2014-2015 school year, Garfield Elementary School, Browne Education Campus, Johnson Middle School and Patterson Elementary School will implement blended learning school-wide. They join three schools that already have been using such models: Ketcham Elementary, Randle Highlands Elementary and Kramer Middle.
To view the complete article, visit link above.
Charter school eyes Glover Park site [Shining Stars PCS and Bridges PCS mentioned]
The Northwest Current, page 1
By Brady Holt
August 13, 2014
Glover Park could soon be home to Ward 3’s only public charter school, with the Shining Stars Montessori Academy eying a Wisconsin Avenue space as it scrambles to find a new home before classes start Aug. 25.
The three-year-old school, serving pre-kindergarten to third grade, needs D.C. Public Charter School Board approval to relocate from Columbia Heights to the former International Union of Operating Engineers (Local 99) training facility at Wisconsin and Calvert Street. The board will vote on the proposal Monday and is now seeking public comment.
According to the Shining Stars application, the school — projected to serve 124 students this fall — outgrew its original space in a converted industrial building at 1328 Florida Ave. in Columbia Heights. That site also had inconvenient access via an alley, odor issues and complaints from neighbors. A July Washington Post article said the school signed a lease for a small two-story office building in Petworth, at 1246 Taylor St., but the property owner pulled out of the negotiations to instead lease the space to another charter — Bridges, which was expanding from its existing location next door.
Shining Stars’ application states that some families have withdrawn from the school due to “distance from their residence, recruitment efforts by other schools and a general anxiety and heightened anxiety about the school relocation,” but it also calls the Glover Park site “a significant improvement on our current space.”
Aldel Brown, co-founder of Shining Stars and vice chair of its board of trustees, declined to comment on how the school found the space at 2461 Wisconsin Ave., but he echoed the application’s praise for the site. “It solves some of our community’s concerns in parking spaces for our staff and a playground on site, as well as natural light penetrating the classrooms,” Brown said.
The building won’t need major renovations to accommodate the school, and it’s adjacent to Guy Mason’s playground and recreation center.
Brown said Shining Stars provides the type of Montessori education that’s typically available only in a costly private school. “It offers a hands-on Montessori approach free of cost to the residents of Washington, D.C., … and one in which there’s a cultural awareness, cultural inclusion component,” he said.
Leslie Vaughn, a parent representative on the school’s board, also praised the program, saying it has helped her 4-year-old son with both his academic and social skills. She also said that many parents are “happy and excited” about the nicer facility, although others are wary of the new location.
The school has prided itself on diversity and serving families of all income levels, she said, but Glover Park is farther from many of those students — about 2 miles west, and without subway access.
Outreach will be key to easing concerns, said Vaughn. “Even when we’re in a less diverse ward, we will make it clear that our families are still diverse and we have a program and calendar to promote and educate and engage all of those cultures,” she said.
She added that she will now need to use transit to bring her son to school, whereas the old location was within walking distance.
Meanwhile, some Glover Park residents are hoping that Shining Stars can address concerns of their own. Various community leaders are meeting with school officials this evening to discuss “plans for teacher parking, school drop-off and pickup, crossing guards, use of the Guy Mason playground, and other issues related to the school’s relocation in our neighborhood,” advisory neighborhood commissioner Jackie Blumenthal wrote in an email.
The Public Charter School Board is taking written feedback on Shining Stars’ proposed move at public.comment@dcpcsb.org until Aug. 18, when the board will vote on the matter. Residents can also testify at the board’s public hearing at 7:30 p.m. Monday at 3333 14th St. NW, Suite 210; email the board by 3 p.m. Friday to sign up.
Board spokesperson Tomeika Bowden said she has never seen the members reject an application from an existing charter school seeking to move, but it has put applications on hold pending further meetings with neighbors. Bowden noted that Shining Stars would have the flexibility to adjust its academic schedule if its space isn’t ready by its scheduled Aug. 25 start date.
Allison Kokkoros to succeed Sonia Gutierrez as Carlos Rosario CEO [Carlos Rosario PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
August 15, 2014
The Board of Trustees of the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School has unanimously named executive vice-president Allison Kokkoros to be the organization's next executive director and CEO. Ms. Kokkoros has been associated with Carlos Rosario for 20 years. She had this to say about the transition:
"I am honored and humbled to step into the role of executive director and CEO of the Carlos Rosario School. I have seen the impact we have on the community by serving the new Americans who have found their way to our nation's capital and helping them realize their dreams. I look forward to building upon the foundation Sonia Gutierrez has built over the past four decades in partnership with our students and staff."
Anyone who has spent only a few minutes around the charter school realized that Mrs. Kokkoros was the perfectly logical individual to take over once Sonia Gutierrez decided that her stellar career helping others would take another form. Ms. Gutierrez remarked:
"I have known for a long time that Allison would be the one taking my place. She is an extremely competent professional totally committed to our school and our students. She has been working at my side for the last 20 years and I firmly believe no one is more qualified than her to take my position."
I have also met Ms. Kokkoros on numerous occasions through my work in the local charter movement and I would only add to Ms. Gutierrez's words that she is an exceptionally kind individual.
The press release announcing the change noted that Ms. Kokkoros has family members that have immigrated to this country who had seen the terrible destruction of war and longed for a better life in the United States.
The new CEO takes the reins of Carlos Rosario at an especially interesting moment. The school opened a second campus last year and is now planning to expand nationally the charter's award-winning education program for adults of foreign descent.
Former D.C. charter board CFO promoted private companies that allegedly paid him [Options PCS, Ideal PCS, and Community Academy PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
August 16, 2014
As the D.C. Public Charter School Board’s chief financial officer, Jeremy L. Williams was responsible for monitoring charter schools’ business practices and ensuring their compliance with rules meant to prevent financial mismanagement.
Instead, he allegedly received $150,000 to help three former managers of Options Public Charter School evade those rules and take millions of taxpayer dollars for themselves, according to a pending civil lawsuit.
Williams and the other defendants in that lawsuit have denied doing anything illegal.
But e-mail messages The Washington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Williams used his official capacity with the charter board to help the former Options leaders promote two for-profit businesses that allegedly served as vehicles for diverting millions of dollars in taxpayer funds meant for students.
“Thanks for assisting with the presentation yesterday,” David Cranford, one of the Options officials, wrote in March 2013, referring to a meeting Williams hosted for business managers from the city’s charter schools. On the agenda was a chance for the Options managers to pitch their company’s Medicaid billing services, which they argued could help schools recoup some of their special-education costs.
“Your involvement definitely opened up a lot of opportunities to work with other charters,” Cranford wrote.
“No problem chief!” Williams replied, according to e-mail records. “More opportunities looming. For certain.”
Williams’s attorney, Troy W. Poole, declined to comment. Williams did not respond to a request for comment.
Options, a school of about 400 at-risk teens, was thrust into turmoil in October when the D.C. attorney general sued, alleging that the school’s three former managers had concocted a contracting scheme to divert more than $3 million to their two for-profit businesses, Exceptional Education Management Corp. (EEMC) and Exceptional Education Services (EES).
By the time the lawsuit was filed, the three managers had left Options to work full time at those companies. Also named as defendants were local television news personality J.C. Hayward, who allegedly signed key contracts and other documents in her role as chair of the school’s board of directors, and Williams, who allegedly used his position at the charter board to aid the scheme.
Williams “regularly forwarded confidential, internal” e-mails to the three Options leaders, according to the complaint, and allegedly ensured that EEMC’s largest contract with Options would not be reviewed by the board’s staff. Court documents say the two companies paid Williams and a Virginia corporation he owns, Gemini Financial Strategists, $150,000 during a seven-month period in 2013, including his final six months as a charter board employee.
Attorneys for the five defendants have said their clients did nothing wrong, citing other charter schools that contract with management companies. D.C. law allows charter schools to enter into business agreements with for-profit enterprises, including “related parties” with whom school leaders have close ties.
Besides the pending civil case, there is a parallel criminal investigation in which federal officials are examining whether the former Options leaders committed Medicaid fraud by, among other things, exaggerating the needs of the school’s disabled students and paying students with gift cards to ride school buses, according to several people familiar with the criminal investigation.
Williams is a subject of the criminal investigation, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors “have indicated that a possible Indictment for Jeremy Williams” and other defendants in the civil case is “highly likely within the very near future,” Williams’s attorney wrote to the court in May, requesting that a judge temporarily halt proceedings in the civil lawsuit until the criminal investigation is over.
Williams’s e-mails from a 10-day period in March 2013 and an 18-day period in August show that on several occasions, he forwarded messages and financial documents to himself at outside e-mail addresses, including addresses associated with EEMC and Gemini Financial Strategists.
Many of those messages were related to Options, but others were related to Booker T. Washington, another D.C. charter school that had a contract with EEMC.
Some of the messages concerned Community Academy Public Charter School, a school that is the subject of another civil lawsuit alleging misuse of taxpayer dollars; Williams has not been linked to that case.
The e-mails also show that in March 2013, Williams invited Donna Montgomery — who was then both the chief executive of Options and the head of EEMC and EES — to a weekly telephone meeting on Tuesday mornings at 10 a.m. He sent a similar standing invitation to Andrea Shorter, an accountant who provided bookkeeping services for Options.
Charter schools are required to submit all contracts over $25,000 to the charter board, which examines them for conflicts of interest or other problems. Although Williams received a copy of Options’ contract with EEMC in March, the contract was not transmitted to board members until August, seven months after it had been signed.
On Aug. 20, the business manager at Ideal Public Charter School e-mailed Williams asking for advice on whom to hire for Medicaid billing assistance. Williams suggested EEMC, according to e-mail records.
The next day, Williams resigned from the charter board to join EEMC. He acknowledged in his resignation letter that he had been considering the job for the better part of the year and that the double allegiance created “certain conflicts.”
“It has been a decision that has eaten at me for over seven months. One that I should have made months ago,” he wrote in an e-mail to board members. “My indecisiveness has resulted in certain conflicts that could have been pacified had I been more selfish. There was simply too much to be done at PCSB for me to do so and I didn’t want to vacate my responsibilities and the PCSB team prematurely.”
Williams wrote that he believed EEMC could fill an important niche in the District by providing charter schools with the help and technical assistance that they need to improve and that the charter board was not able to provide.
“Many school leaders simply do not trust PCSB, particularly the minority leaders. They feel that PCSB is out to close their schools and not offer any assistance before doing so,” Williams wrote. “EEMC offers me the opportunity to work with some of these schools directly.”
In a separate e-mail to the charter board’s executive director, Scott Pearson, Williams wrote that he was “anxiously awaiting the opportunity for you to meet with the EEMC team to learn more about their mission and hopes for the public charter school sector.”
“You will find that transparency will be a non-issue with this vendor,” Williams wrote.
Pearson, who had not previously known about Williams’s affiliation with EEMC, was clearly concerned about the implications of that relationship, according to the e-mails.
“I need to understand this better to clarify if there were any conflicts,” Pearson wrote to charter board members and senior leaders on the day Williams resigned, according to an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. Months later, Pearson said publicly that Williams had acted as a “double agent,” inappropriately working on behalf of the private companies while employed at the charter board.
A PCSB spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit. “We cannot comment on matters in active litigation,” Tomeika Bowden said.
After Williams’s resignation, the board updated its employee manual to explicitly prohibit staff members from taking an outside job with a charter school without written permission from the board’s executive director.
The manual also prohibited employees from taking any outside job that would create a real or perceived conflict of interest.