WLC Budget Letter for DGS Hearing

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Dear Chairwoman Lewis-George:

As the Council reviews and decides on the FY 2025 budget, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs urges the Council to prioritize investing in DC’s young people. Although there have been many improvements to DC public school buildings over the years, the inequities in physical school conditions experienced by students of color and lower-income students have persisted. These poor school conditions disproportionately affect students of color and students living in poverty.  Students in Wards 4, 5, 7, and 8 are more likely to experience crumbling school infrastructure and lengthy delays in any repairs. As schools are experiencing challenges with re-engaging students in school since the pandemic, and the community is experiencing an uptick in crime, the District must prioritize investment in students’ education and send a message to young people in DC that they are valued and worthy of our investment. The Council must commit to guaranteeing all DC students can attend school buildings throughout the city that are physically safe and welcoming environments for all students, school staff and the school communities that use these buildings.   

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Mary Levy DCPS Council Budget Testimony

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I have studied and analyzed DCPS budgets and policies for almost 45 years, starting when our children were DCPS elementary students.  For many years, including last year and this, schools’ budgets have been unstable, inequitable, and inadequate for what is expected of schools.  Unfortunately, although the FY 2025 budgets are somewhat more equitable than in the past, nothing else has changed.

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Elizabeth Corinth 2/28/2024 Updated Testimony

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UPDATED TESTIMONY - 2/28/24 - 11:31AM Hello, my name is Elizabeth Corinth. Thank you for the chance to testify. I am a Ward 6 resident, the parent of three DCPS students, an LSAT member, and a co-facilitator of the DC LSAT Collective. I have also served as a substitute teacher at several DCPS and public charter schools.

First I’d like to speak to the importance of Local School Advisory Teams, and the need to do more to ensure that every school has an active LSAT with productive connections to their school community and their principal. Currently this is not the case at every school, despite it being a requirement of the WTU's collective bargaining agreement. In conversations with LSAT members from all 8 wards, a few key barriers to this goal have become apparent:

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Valerie Jablow DGS testimony on 2-26-2024 on DGS to DC Council

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I am Valerie Jablow, a DC education analyst who discovered via FOIA that neither the CFO nor DGS has records of rent payments for a 5-year period by the Mary McLeod Bethune charter school for the former DCPS school Slowe, which the charter leases from DC.[1]

 I received no response from the mayor’s office about this; the charter board apparently believes it has no purview here; and the school did not provide me the missing records.[2]

 All of that--as well as DGS responses to council oversight questions--raise a number of serious issues around DC-owned school buildings that I hope you get answers for:

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Our current system has inefficiencies and inequities that impede the ability of DCPS to provide quality educational opportunities to all families, which is its mission. 

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As we ( Student Assignment Advisory Committee) work to ensure that students have a clear assignment to schools of right based on DCPS attendance zones and feeder pathways; to ensure that there is adequate capacity in the geographically zoned DCPS facilities at each grade level (Pre-Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle, and High), including feeder pathways, taking current and future population and enrollment trends into account; and work for equitable access among District students to high-quality public schools, these are 4 of our challenges:

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Letter from C4DC to DME Kihn on Student Assignment

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We are looking forward to the work of the Student Assignment Advisory Committee, the technical team, your staff, and our community in the development of plans for DCPS boundaries and the city’s public school buildings and grounds. We believe that as the group begins its work,  there should be  agreement on the problems that the plans seek to  address and shared values to  guide the group. 

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Scott Goldstein Oversight Testimony before the DC Council

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Good Morning Chairman Mendelson and Council Members. As we measure the performance of our education agencies we should start with a focus on the objectives of our education system. I’ll quote former PCSB board member Steve Bumbaugh who frequently says we have one question to answer in education advocacy and policy: “Are we giving poor kids what the rich kids have?” It may seem oversimplified, but when some students walk three blocks to school and others travel two miles and some students have to take double math and reading blocks while other students enjoy arts and music and language education and when some students have stable long-lasting relationships with teachers and others go to schools where nearly half the staff leaves each year - it’s an apt starting place to measure the performance of our education agencies. To me, our objective is to prepare students to be ready for careers, college, citizenship, and life as an adult. And accordingly, we should also ask whether we’re providing all students the opportunities they deserve to expand their horizons through a well-rounded curriculum and empowering them to control their destinies.

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Betsy Wolf - Testimony on DCPS FY24 School Budgets

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DCPS dropped its FY24 budget models last week. Here are some insights.

Background: Looking at per pupil budget amounts without considering context is very misleading. Example: Let’s say a school has many self-contained classes. It may look like the school has substantially more $, but that’s not actually true. Moreover, special ed and English learner dollars only reach those student subgroups, who are in the minority in the vast majority of schools.

Solution: The best way to compare budgets across schools is to first remove the $ going to special education and EL students. Removing fixed positions (including psychologists and social workers) and funding buckets for special education and EL students gives a better comparison.

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Performance Oversight Hearing DC Public Schools March 1, 2023 Testimony of Suzanne Wells President, Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s Performance Oversight hearing. My name is Suzanne Wells. I am the president of the Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization, but the testimony I am delivering today is my own.

My testimony will focus on 1) deep concerns with the planning between DCPS and the independent Public Charter School Board, and the urgent need to amend the School Reform Act, 2) the need to increase the salaries of educational aides, and 3) asking DCPS to consider a child of staff lottery preference.

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