FOCUS DC News Wire 11/15/13

 

 

At long last, a revised Planned Unit Development (PUD) application for the Randall School site at 65 I Street, SW was filed on May 31 with the Zoning Commission. The Telesis/Rubell team has had the shuttered school under contract from the Corcoran Gallery of Art since 2010 and has been working on plans for the site. With the help of Bing Thom Architects, the team has come forth with a plan to preserve the three existing historic buildings along I Street, SW for use as a contemporary art museum and other arts uses, as well as a restaurant. Other newer additions will be removed. 

 

Blend of Historic and Modern Design

 

The museum will be located in the original 1906 center building; other arts-related uses will be located in the west wing; and a restaurant with outdoor seating will be in the east wing (both wings were built in 1927). Behind the center building, a new four-story addition will house additional exhibition space for the art museum. The new addition will have exterior walls that will allow images and video to be displayed that will be visible from a large courtyard open to the public. Two 12-story towers with 550 residential units will wrap behind the historic buildings and courtyard. 

 

Following is a description of the design of the residential buildings from the PUD application: 

 

The new twelve-story residential building will be set behind the historic Randall School. It is comprised of nine distinct blocks that are stacked around the west, north and east sides of the site and behind the historic school structures to the south. These forms enclose a publicly accessible courtyard and run parallel to H Street, SW, the former Half Street, SW and former First Street, SW, thereby physically defining these streets in the neighborhood. Gaps between these building blocks emphasize their proportions and recall the slab building forms common in the Southwest neighborhood. The lower six levels of the new south west and south east building elements are cut at an angle leading into the center of the site in deference to the historic buildings. It is at these points that the entrances to the residential "towers" will be located just behind the historic buildings to the east and west. Six levels above these entries at the south side of the courtyard are two building wings that span from the perimeter of the building to columns on either side of the new museum structure. Ground floor units facing 1st Street, SW, H Street, SW and the courtyard will have individual entrances and private outdoor spaces along the street or at the interior courtyard. The site and public space in front of the historic buildings on I Street, SW will be modified to make the historic buildings accessible and to provide opportunities for street side café seating. The massing concept, which evolved through a series of meetings with District agencies and the staff of the Historic Preservation Office, places a majority of the project’s density away from the historic building toward the rear of the site. The sensitive massing of the new construction allows the historic Randall School to continue to appear as a separate building along I Street, SW, and maintain the character of the existing streetscape.

 

The building materials used for the residential buildings are primarily metal panels and glass arranged in an irregular format to contrast with the structured facades of the historic buildings. The main entrances will be located on the southwest and southeast corners of the buildings. Some sustainability elements include rain-water harvesting, urban forestry best-practices, and green roofs. Each residential building will have a rooftop pool and separate amenity space on the ground level. Parking for 200 vehicles will be below grade and six surface spaces along the right-away of 1st Street. Access to the parking garage and loading will be off of H Street, SW. 

 

Community Benefits

 

An extensive public benefits package is proposed for the project, which includes:

 

A new contemporary museum of art.

An annual art exhibit at the museum featuring art from Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6D residents, including at least one public school student.

Each year designate a neighborhood visual arts project in ANC 6D and provide resources needed to make the project a reality.

Organize, sponsor, and provide resources for an annual outdoor Arts Festival in ANC 6D that’s free and open to the public.

Offer free admission to the museum to all residents of ANC 6D (with proper ID).

Establish a program of recruiting museum volunteers from ANC 6D.

Pay five annual memberships in the Corcoran Gallery of Art for DC public school teachers.

Provide at least five annual full scholarships to ANC 6D residents to participate in the Camp Creativity program sponsored by the Corcoran Gallery of Art or the Corcoran College of Art & Design.

Twenty percent of the gross floor area dedicated to residential will be set aside for households earning up to 80% of Area Median Income (AMI).

Historic preservation of the three buildings along I Street, SW.

First Source Employment Agreement using District residents for at least 51% of the jobs created by the project.

Use of Certified Business Enterprise (CBEs) when possible.

Next Steps

 

The project is phased so the museum, other arts uses, retail, and the east residential building will be done first. The west residential building can be built in a later phase. The Telesis/Rubell team will have to come before ANC 6D for their support before meeting with the Zoning Commission later this year. Since the project includes a historic property, the developers also have to meet with the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB). A concern brought up by the HPRB is the design of the main entrance to the historic buildings. Currently, the entrance is sunken from the sidewalk with ramps to make the building ADA compliant. The Telesis/Rubell team will need to tweak their plans to comply with the HPRB.

 

 

Options Public Charter School routinely denied students with disabilities textbooks and placed them in overcrowded classrooms, according to current and former teachers at the school. The mounting allegations raise questions about the lack of special education oversight in DC.

 

DC's Attorney General has alleged that former managers of the school diverted at least $3 million to their own pockets. The lawsuit followed an investigation initiated by the DC Public Charter School Board into contracts between the school and two for-profit companies founded and controlled by its managers. That investigation came on the heels of a Freedom of Information request about the contracts filed by the Washington Post's Emma Brown.

 

Options, the city's oldest charter school, was founded to address the needs of the District's most troubled students with disabilities and received tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. The DC government allocates $28,884 for each student with disabilities, almost three times the amount allocated for other students.

 

Each October, DC officials visit schools to count the students enrolled and use that number to help determine the school's budget. According to one current teacher at Options, boosting student enrollment for "count day" has been a central goal of the school administration.

 

Former Options administrator Jeff Smith, who is not named in the lawsuit, led a marketing campaign in the summer of 2012 to boost enrollment before the count. The school gave students $25 Visa cards and free pizza for coming to school on count day , according to the teacher.

 

Chronic understaffing

 

However, this enrollment push did not include hiring extra teachers so that Options could maintain the teacher-student ratio that it promises. Options says it "ensures a six to one student to teacher ratio" in order to provide the personalized attention required by special needs students. According to the school's website, every classroom is supposed to have a special education teacher along with a general classroom teacher.

 

The Options teacher had 16 students per class on average last year, with two teachers per class. One of his classes had more than 20 students, 6 more students than desks in his classroom.

 

A former teacher at the school said that understaffing routinely led to the loss of one teacher from the classroom.

 

"Sometimes teachers didn't come to work, so they would have to pull teachers to cover," the teacher said. "So I would lose my special ed teacher for the day."

 

The former teacher said that rather than buying textbooks for students who might transfer out before the end of the year, the school chose not to send textbooks home with students. Instead, the teacher would give students xeroxed copies of the text to use for homework.

 

Speaking of the general atmosphere at the school, the former teacher said, "What is driving everything is money, and the bottom line is that these kids need services."

 

The court-appointed receiver for Options, Josh Kern, told GGE that he was unable to comment on the teachers' charges "with limited information about the specific allegations and limited time to respond."

 

Allegations similar to these have also appeared in the Post. One teacher told the Post that the school often lacked basic supplies like copying paper. And a former teacher said that several students spent the majority of the school year in a room for misbehaving kids, where they did not receive the services they were due. Smith denied that any students spent the majority of the year in such a room but told the Post that other charges were possibly true.

 

Minimal oversight allows lapses to go undetected

 

Special education services are a matter of federal law, specifically the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). All public school systems are required to identify students with learning disabilities, conduct assessments, and then determine what special education accommodations the students require. But there appears to be little or no oversight to ensure District public schools comply with IDEA.

 

DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) last conducted on-site monitoring of Options to ensure special education compliance in December 2011. The most recent visit before that was in May 2009.

 

As with all on-site visits to monitor special education compliance, OSSE posts a calendar on its website announcing these visits in advance.

 

OSSE has no authority to close charter schools, even if they are found to violate special education regulations repeatedly. Only the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) can close a charter school. But, although it will crack down on obvious violations of IDEA and respond to parent complaints, it does not regularly monitor schools for special education compliance.

 

PCSB spokesperson Theola Labbé-DeBose says the Board expects to decide whether to initiate proceedings to revoke Options' charter at its December 16 meeting, with a final decision at its meeting in January. But, she said, even if the Board decides to begin revocation proceedings, "the school would remain open through the end of this school year."

 

The federal government used to focus more on enforcing compliance with IDEA requirements. But in 2012, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that the Department would shift its efforts from ensuring the delivery of accommodations to tracking the performance of special education students on standardized tests.

 

"For too long we've been a compliance-driven bureaucracy when it comes to educating students with disabilities," said Duncan. "We have to expect the very best from our students. The best way to do that is by focusing on results."

 

Given this lax oversight, only families who are able to afford attorneys can hold District schools accountable for providing special education services for their children. At Options, 84% of students are low-income, according to the PCSB.

 

While the theft of public funds by Options officials angers many and is the focus of the District's lawsuit, the real victims are the school's 400 special needs students. Rather than keeping the school open, the DC government should immediately offer to pay their tuition at any private school in the area that will admit them and that provides the services they need. That would be expensive, but cost is not supposed to be a consideration under IDEA.

 

But even if Options is closed, as it should be, the system that allowed the school to deprive hundreds of students of accommodations they were legally entitled to year after year will still be in place. 

 

 

Several Virginia school boards and other prominent groups have asked the General Assembly to junk the current testing system in favor of something deeper and smarter that takes less time. The D.C. school administration is struggling over how best to score its annual exams. Montgomery County is wondering what to do about low scores on several annual tests it gives high school students.

 

This might be a good time for a testing holiday.

 

Most U.S. school systems are changing their annual exams to reflect the new Common Core standards. But schools have little experience teaching to that more challenging model. It makes no sense to assess teachers with student results on such new and inadequately understood exams.

 

So let’s take a year off. Schools can give the new tests but use the results only for improving teaching methods, not for assessing students and teachers.

 

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says this is a terrible idea. He thinks it would be bad for students and parents. When California officials announced they were taking a break from releasing test results next year to make sure teachers were ready, he released a statement:

 

“Letting an entire school year pass for millions of students without sharing information on their schools’ performance with them and their families is the wrong way to go about this transition. No one wants to over-test, but if you are going to support all students’ achievement, you need to know how all students are doing.”

 

As usual, few policymakers have spent much time or energy asking parents whether, as Duncan asserts, they would feel shortchanged if they didn’t get test results next summer. D.C. schools got into trouble recently for not telling parents that the latest test scores were not based on a reformed scoring system the city had spent $2 million to create.

 

Various reform proposals, such as a widely circulated Virginia resolution asking for tests with “greater validity,” “more cost efficient sampling techniques” and “expedited test retakes,” have not been subjected to much parental feedback.

 

What is the view of us parents, and an even more neglected group, us grandparents? Would a year without test results freak us out? Do we want a different way of assessing students? Is Duncan right that we need that data every year? Or is he afraid he would look weak if he indulged an experiment using the results just internally?

 

E-mail me at mathewsj@washpost.com or post a comment at www.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle. If you don’t want a year to go by without seeing new test results, please take the effort to write because, as is often the case, the people who want to make a change are much more motivated to express their views. I am hoping for a representative mix of opinion.

 

I once thought using test scores to rate schools and teachers was a good idea. I still think they are useful tools in assessing schools, but I no longer believe they work at the classroom level.

 

As I have said, “grading individual teachers with scores is too approximate, too erratic and too destructive of the team spirit that makes great schools.”

 

I had hopes that the switch to the Common Core tests would persuade the federal government and states to try other teacher rating systems. The odds are against that.

 

But it would be useful for parents and grandparents to take a more active role in the debate.

 

 

Word came yesterday from Ramona Edelin, executive director of the D.C. Association of Public Chartered Schools, that past chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board Tom Nida's concept of the Highly Qualified Trustee has become a reality. The first of three two and a half hour training sessions begins December 2nd from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Association offices. The other two classes will be held December 9th and January 6th.

 

The program is designed to cover "the key roles and responsibilities of charter school Boards of Trustees, and how you can be an effective board member." Topics covered include financial oversight, legal issues, working with your school leader, monitoring the academic program, understanding school performance data, fundraising, and building an effective board.

 

Perhaps the best part of this news is that the program is free for attendees. Advanced registration is required by emailing hqti2013@gmail.com. The project is being funded by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), and is a joint effort of the Association and the Charter School Management Research Initiative, of which I am a board member. Eventually the course work will be offered on-line together with a certificate of completion by an established university.

 

The email announcing the HQT program states that preference will be given to school leaders that piloted the course last spring. Classes will be limited to 16 people.

 

Mr. Nida first discussed the idea of the Highly Qualified Trustee with me four years ago and we have had many fascinating discussions prior to its formation. It is truly fantastic and personally rewarding to see this dream blossom, especially on the heels of the problems at Options Public Charter School and my calls for improved charter school governance.