Operation Funding Equity

Chairman Kwame Brown and the Committee of the Whole held a public rountable hearing on Tuesday to hear from the community regarding a budget request from Mayor Gray. The Mayor requested to provide DCPS with $25 million in 2012 supplemental funding to cover "spending pressures" with no proportional supplemental funding for your schools. FOCUS mobilized the DC public charter school community to fight to ensure that charter school kids get their fair share of the funding.  It was a huge success.  Watch the video: 

SUMMARY OF THE FUNDING INEQUITY:

Did you know the DC School Reform Act requires that students at DCPS and public charter schools be funded uniformly?

Under the law, if DCPS is given extra operating funds, then charter schools are required to get extra operating funds as well.  In the Mayor’s funding request, there are no operating funds provided for charter schools. Please contact your councilmember TODAY and ask them to stop this inequity once and for all.

We don’t oppose providing extra funding for DCPS to handle spending pressures, but charter schools also have spending pressures.  And we also want the Mayor to follow the law. We want to make sure that charter schools receive their fair share so that we too can work to have the kind of quality schools we want for all DC students.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Call or Email your council member. Please contact your ward council member, Chairman Brown, and the four at-large council members to let them know you want public charter schools to receive supplemental funding too.

Tell a Friend.  Recruit DC friends, family, and coworkers to make a call, send an email, or attend the hearing and help us fight for equal funding and equal treatment for students in public charter schools. Forward this email to your lists to get the word out. Use this link http://bit.ly/xf2rgt to share the information on your Facebook page, website or with your Twitter followers.

Sign up to receive FOCUS Advocacy Alerts. Join us to fight for funding equity for public charter schools in DC. Nearly 42% of all public students in D.C. attend charter schools. You can help ensure those 32,000 kids get a fair shake. It takes less than a minute to sign up: http://focusdc.org/join-movement

WHO YOU SHOULD CONTACT: