- D.C. Seeks Stevens School Developer — Again
- D.C. Council Seeks to Cut Transportation Costs for Special-Ed Students
- Poorer Schools Not Getting Fair Share of Funding
- Stay Informed
D.C. Seeks Stevens School Developer — Again
The Washington Business Journal
By Michael Neibauer
November 29, 2011
D.C. is trying again to redevelop the West End's historic Stevens School. It's a good bet the winning bidder will draw no apartments into its blueprints.
The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development on Tuesday launched its search for a development team and an educational team willing to partner on the future redevelopment of the Stevens building and the land surrounding the school.
DMPED issued a pair of requests for expressions of interest, one to qualified development teams and one to qualified educational-use teams, who may ultimately join to redevelop the Thaddeus Stevens School, a historic landmark located at 1050 21st St. NW. Click here for the RFEI.
Teams that make the final cut will be asked to work together — developer with educational institution, and vice versa — to submit a joint response to the District. The selected development team will be required to share the costs of rehabilitating the school, according to the RFEI issued Tuesday.
A timeline included with the soliciation suggests the selection of finalists will come in February and a final bidder in the spring.
The idea of rehabilitating Stevens for use as a school, and to develop the grounds surrounding the school in some (likely) for-profit fashion, was first floated by West End community leaders in May.
Stevens, constructed in 1868 with new wings added in 1896, was slated to be redeveloped as apartments until former Mayor Adrian Fenty cut ties with Equity Residential, the Chicago-based chosen developer, in November 2010. Vocal West End residents wanted nothing to do with Equity's apartment plans, fearing it would morph into a de facto George Washington University dorm, and the project went nowhere.
Fenty left Stevens' fate to then-incoming Mayor Vincent Gray.
Any redevelopment is years away. In the meantime, there has been talk of using the school's ground to temporarily house the West End fire station. The existing station will have to go out of service when EastBanc starts construction of its mixed-use project at the intersection 24th and L streets NW.
Georgetown-based EastBanc's plans include a 174-unit condominium complex over a new West End Library and a 52-unit apartment complex over a new fire station.
D.C. Council Seeks to Cut Transportation Costs for Special-Ed Students
The Washington Examiner
By Lisa Gartner
November 30, 2011
The D.C. Council wants to find a cheaper way to transport special-education students, whose busing system costs the city $92 million -- or $26,285 per student.
When the public schools lack the services for a student's special needs, the federal government requires the District to foot the bill of sending the child to another school. That's currently the case for 3,500 students, served by the Department of Student Transportation's $92 million budget and 840 buses that run 645 routes.
That's an average of 5.4 students on a bus at a time -- a frustrating inefficiency as city officials look toward the fiscal 2013 budget.
At a breakfast with Mayor Vincent Gray on Wednesday, council members suggested ideas to cut the cost. At-large Councilman David Catania suggested a car-sharing program, like ZipCar, that would allow parents to drive their own children to school -- $26,285 is well above the cost of a reasonable used car -- but Gray quickly dismissed the proposal, saying it "doesn't resonate with me."
Rather, he said, the high cost of busing special-education students was "a symptom, not the problem." The problem was D.C. Public Schools' inability to serve the students, Gray said.
A 14-year-old lawsuit, referred to as the Blackman-Jones case, has haunted the city with charges that it fails to provide adequate services to students with special needs.
Earlier this year, the portion of the suit claiming the District did not provide timely evaluations for children was dropped, but the more substantive part -- tackling the services themselves -- remains on the books.
Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled on Nov. 16 that the District has failed to provide services to hundreds of students between the ages of 3 and 5 who were eligible for special education under federal law.
D.C. Public Schools has opened two diagnostic centers for preschool-age children since 2009, and the percentage of these kids identified as needing special-education services has increased from 2 percent to 7.4 percent.
"I am disappointed that the ruling ignores our remarkable progress over the past two years," Chancellor Kaya Henderson said.
Poorer Schools Not Getting Fair Share of Funding
The Washington Times
By Ben Wolfgang
November 30, 2011
Loopholes in federal education law have allowed districts to funnel more state and local money to wealthy schools at the expense of their low-income counterparts, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Education Department.
More than 40 percent of low-income schools don’t get their “fair share,” the report says, despite federal requirements that districts spend “comparable” amounts of money at poorer schools eligible for Title 1 funding.
“Children who need more are getting less,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters Wednesday.
Districts have skirted the rule in part by not including individual teachers’ salaries as part of their calculations. Experienced instructors earning more money often flock to safer, more-affluent schools, while younger teachers making much less tend to end up in poor, inner-city classrooms. That difference in pay is usually not included when districts show spending comparability between schools.
The disparity has led to a misuse of Title 1 dollars, Mr. Duncan said. The money, meant to aid disadvantaged or disabled students, is instead often used by poor schools to close ever-widening budget gaps.
But Mr. Duncan conceded that districts are technically in compliance with federal law as it is currently written. While the administration has used executive authority in recent months to revise the student loan system, Head Start program and other aspects of education policy, Mr. Duncan said that isn’t an option this time. Only action by Congress, he said, can close the loophole and guarantee funding equity to all schools within a district.
A bipartisan education reform bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in October includes a requirement that districts include “actual teacher salaries” in their accounting.
The measure, crafted by committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, Wyoming Republican, awaits a vote on the Senate floor.
“This report confirms that the problem of poor kids getting less than their fair share of state and local resources is real in many places, but it is also of a scope that can be addressed without bankrupting school districts,” Mr. Harkin said in a statement Wednesday.
The average district could fix the problem by redirecting about 1 percent of annual spending, the report states, though such a change would mean a reduction in funds for wealthier schools in a district.
House Republicans are also eyeing adjustments to Title 1 spending. Earlier this year, the Committee on Education and the Workforce passed a flexibility bill designed to allow states and districts more leeway in how they spend federal money, including Title 1 dollars.
The bill, part of a larger education reform package, is awaiting a full House vote and is expected to generate fierce resistance from Democrats, who fear schools will neglect poor, disabled and minority students and spend the money elsewhere.
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