The board also pointed out that 67 percent of those on wait lists are for Performance Management Framework Tier 1 schools. It adds that 40 percent of open spaces are in Tier 1 schools. There is especially strong demand for Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten and the sixth grade. Dual-language charters are especially popular.
One student may appear on multiple wait lists.
Some of the schools with the largest wait lists and the number of students include Creative Minds International PCS, 1,030; DC Bilingual PCS, 1,403; District of Columbia International School, 1,565; Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS – Brookland campus, 1,722; Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS, 1,218; Latin American Montessori Bilingual PCS, 1,069; Mundo Verde PCS, 1,412; Two Rivers PCS – 4th Street campus, 1,659, Washington Latin PCS – middle school, 1,254, and Washington Yu Ying PCS, 1,168.
The wait list to get into a DCPS school is 9,437.
Even if the charters with significant wait lists wanted to expand or replicate there is absolutely nowhere for them to go. Commercial space, although exorbitantly expensive to rent, is not even available. Many DCPS facilities sit empty and a great number are grossly underutilized. Yet, the people we elect to represent us are doing nothing about this issue. Instead, they spend hours and hours in furious debate over what information a charter school must include on their website.
“His uniform is pure Wall Street: loafers, dress pants and crisp-collar shirt topped off with his signature bow tie.
Lyttle takes students to World Wrestling Entertainment matches, makes connections and builds trust, trying to get them to relax and enjoy themselves. He hosts lunches in the cafeteria, a chance to mentor or just listen.
I think the world of Mr. Joe Smith, the CEO/CFO of Eagle Academy. He would never allow this score to stand. He cares about the children too much for this to happen.
In other news, Washington Latin PCS has announced that it is going to replicate. Beginning next year it will open a new school that will start with the fifth grade that will eventually go up to twelfth. Other details about the expansion are extremely limited. For the 2018-to-2019 school year Washington Latin had a wait list of almost 1,600 children. Leaders at the school apparently feel like they have a moral obligation to be able to accept more students. How many other charters with excessively large wait lists feel the same way?
“The opening volley in this effort is legislation being promoted as a well-meaning effort at transparency and accountability. Sponsored by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), the measure would subject the independent nonprofit charter schools to the open-meetings and Freedom of Information Act requirements that apply to D.C. government entities.
In addition, the newspaper’s editors say nothing about the bill being advanced by education committee chairman David Grosso that contains its own transparency requirements. They observe that charters receive only 70 percent of the funding of the traditional schools, and therefore having to answer to Freedom of Information Act requests would be burdensome for their small administrative staffs. However, the data required to be shared by Mr. Grosso also imposes an unfunded mandate on this sector. The Council should worry about the academic performance of the 48,000 students that are enrolled in DCPS facilities and leave the charters to the DC Public Charter School Board. This body has its own list of onerous reporting requirements.
Justin Wm. Moyer of the Washington Post revealed last evening that Childrens National Health System next year will open a pediatric health research facility on the site of the old Walter Reed Hospital. The 12-acre Children’s National Research and Innovation Campus will include an outpatient clinic.
“The institute’s goals were hatched in the home of Joseph E. Robert Jr., who made a fortune selling the real estate held by failed savings and loans in the early 1990s.
Mr. Robert’s son had undergone more than nine hours of surgery at Children’s National several years before that. His son has since become a Marine, and Mr. Robert donated $25 million to the hospital for a surgical center. A few years after that, he was sitting around his dining room table with some hospital executives, discussing how to make surgery less frightening and painful for its patients and their parents.
Last fall, armed with the business plan that came out of that initial discussion, Mr. Robert visited Abu Dhabi. He had become friendly with the ruling family and with the crown prince, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Mr. Robert was also instrumental in support of Washington D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, the plan that provides private school vouchers for children living in poverty in the nation’s capital. Just recently, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced that she would like to double the size of the OSP from $45 million to $90 million. In trying to figure out how to get this program passed by Congress in 2004, Mr. Robert promoted the three-sector approach that gives equal funding to vouchers, DCPS, and charter schools. Mayor Bowser has stated that she supports the OSP because of the money it provides to the traditional schools and charters, as well as the additional choices it gives to parents regarding the education of their children.
When he was alive Mr. Robert was a fierce advocate for those less fortunate then himself, and he enlisted many from the fields of politics, entertainment, business, and healthcare to give of themselves and their pocketbooks to join his endeavors. He founded Fight for Children which has raised over $300 million for young people in the Washington, D.C. area. He is credited with bringing in over a billion dollars for children and education.
As we have seen in the news in the last week, his legacy continues.
“Lawmakers said they want to ensure that federal civil rights laws and safety regulations apply to students in the program, according to the three-page letter to DeVos from Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Education Committee Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) and Norton.
The questioning comes as Ms. DeVos has moved to increase the number of vouchers awarded to low-income students by raising the budget of the program from its current $45 million dollars a year to $90 million.
Choices for families are needed now more than ever. The 2019 D.C. lottery just concluded, so we are expecting anytime this year’s charter school student wait list data. However, for the 2019-to-2020 school term there are 9,437 students on DCPS wait lists and last year there were over 11,000 pupils wanting to get into charters who could not. Having your child admitted to your desired public school continues to be a tremendously frustrating experience for District of Columbia families. Ms. DeVos is on exactly the right track.
Not so brave are those trying to defend charters from those that want to see them become a part of history. The latest assault comes in the form of a Trojan Horse complaint about the lack of transparency around charter school board meetings and finances. The D.C. Council has gotten into the act in the form of a bill introduced by Charles Allen that would force a long list of unfunded mandates on charters. In reaction, last week Council Education Chairman David Grosso brought forth an alternative that would force charters to comply with Open Meeting laws and detail expenses for all to see. The legislation is supported by all the remaining council members and, incomprehensibly, by FOCUS. My god, didn’t we just recently close a charter school in part to rid our movement of union activity? Couldn’t someone have similar guts to tell the Council to stay out of a school sector over which it has no authority?
My wife Michele and I were extremely fortunate to be able to attend last Thursday evening the 2019 FOCUS Gala held at the elegant North Hall of the Eastern Market. The rain was coming down in cold cylindrical pellets outside but inside the space was warm from all the handshakes and hugs given and received from men and women who for years have worked day in and day out to transform public education in the nation’s capital.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser released her proposed 2020 budget this week and it has some good news for charter schools. First, she is requesting that the charter school per pupil facility fund be increased another 2.2 percent to $3,335. This would be the second year in a row that this number would go up by this proportion. The jump is important, because as Two Rivers PCS’s executive director Jessica Wodatch explained at last night’s 2019 FOCUS Gala, the cost of construction in the nation’s capital is rising tremendously.
Still, I’m not quite sure about the Mayor’s strategy here. It seems like instead of turning over vacant DCPS buildings to charters she is encouraging them to rent space in the commercial real estate market. Wouldn’t it be preferable to have these schools lease from the city instead of turning taxpayer money over to developers? What am I missing?
“FOCUS is pleased that Mayor Bowser delivered on her commitment to increase the facilities allotment for public charter schools by 2.2 percent. The predictability of facilities funding is crucial to public charter schools as they plan to make needed improvements to their buildings or lease facilities to accommodate their student bodies. This is a wise long-term investment that helps ensure that the nearly 50 percent of students attending public charter schools have buildings that enhance, rather than hinder, their experience.
Simultaneously, we are concerned that the increase to the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) falls short of the needs of all D.C.’s students. The 2.2 percent increase in the base UPSFF does not keep pace with the District’s funding pressures or inflation, and increases the gap between the current level of funding and the city’s own definition of funding adequacy as defined in the 2013 report Cost of Student Achievement: Report of the DC Education Adequacy Study.
In addition, a broad coalition of advocates for children and youth have been working diligently to ensure that our schools have the mental health supports they need to manage the level of trauma experienced by our students. Not increasing the funding to support at-risk students will leave schools scrambling to ensure that our most vulnerable students have the supports they need to be successful in school.
In other words, the very argument that charters have been making for years that is contained in the FOCUS engineered funding inequity lawsuit against the city is affirmed in the administration’s own budget. Can we now settle this thing and reimburse charters for the approximately $100 million a year in revenue provided to DCPS that the other sector did not receive?
I had the great pleasure recently of visiting Early Childhood Academy PCS and sitting down for a conversation with the school’s executive director Wendy Edwards. Ms. Edwards explained that ECA started in 2005. She informed me that the Ward 8 charter is currently leasing space in two different small community centers with two different landlords. One was built by former D.C. City Councilmember H.R. Crawford and is now managed by his son. The Walter Washington Estates is located behind the school. Ms. Edwards detailed that both locations of the school were opened simultaneously. She recounted that the charter began with 110 students in grades pre-Kindergarten three and pre-Kindergarten four. The school has added a grade a year and now goes up to the third grade. Approximately 254 students are currently enrolled at Early Childhood Academy PCS; one hundred percent of the children qualify for free or reduced meals.
This was the perfect time to pay a visit to ECA since the charter is currently building a brand-new permanent facility. It is a fantastic story. The Menkiti Group, a developer located in the Brookland community of Northeast D.C., purchased the long-vacant Johenning Baptist Church so that ECA could have a permanent home. The situation reminds me of the Ezra Company that acquired abandoned warehouses at 705 and 707 Edgewood Street, N.E., so that the William E. Doar, Jr. PCS for the Performing Arts and D.C. Prep PCS, respectively, could operate at these locations. Ms. Edwards wanted me to know that Karl Jentoft of TenSquare Consulting, was a tremendous help in securing the $19 million dollars in loans, including New Market Tax Credits, to secure this property and construct an addition. She is also grateful for the great support from CityFirst and Chase National Banks. The property will be a 38,000-square-foot facility and hold 300 students. Since the new headquarters is located directly next door to one of the current classroom buildings, Ms. Edwards and I were able to take a walk over to observe the progress. It is extremely impressive. The new school, which ECA will own, will open this summer.
Our discussion then turned to learning from Ms. Edwards what her greatest challenge was once she transitioned into the executive director role.
Tonight the DC Public Charter School Board is scheduled to take a final vote on the proposal by Cesar Chavez PCS for Public Policy to close its Capitol Hill High School and Prep Middle School campuses and consolidate its students at its Parkside High School location. The current Parkside Middle School will close at the end of next year due to low academic performance. The highly controversial move would eliminate the only unionized charter school in the District when Chavez Prep closes its doors.
• “It is within the school’s exclusive control to close campuses provided the school’s enrollment ceiling is commensurately reduced.
• It is within the school’s exclusive control to reconfigure campuses provided it remains within its enrollment ceiling and serves grades for which the local education agency (LEA) has been approved to serve.
The proposed charter amendment that will be considered this evening includes an enrollment ceiling decrease from 947 to 847 students. It would also allow Chavez to re-open a middle school at the Parkside location beginning with the 2020-to-2021 school term, starting with the sixth grade only for that year.
The Chavez board has made the right decision in order to protect the future existence of the school. This charter management organization has been having academic difficulties for years and is now at risk of defaulting on its loans. It appears that it expanded too fast without first developing a deep bench of leadership capacity, a pattern we have unfortunately seen repeated many times within our sector.