Letter to Council Members regarding the nomination of Ms. Marino to PCSB

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We are writing to express our concern over the nomination of Maura Marino for the DC Public Charter School Board (PCSB) and ask that Ms. Marino’s nomination be tabled and not voted on. 

As both authorizer and regulator, the PCSB must maintain neutrality in all its decision making. The council allocates the authority to oversee and regulate the charter sector to the PCSB and provides $1 billion dollars in public money annually to fund it. 

Ms. Marino has extensive professional involvement in expanding the charter sector in DC and directing philanthropic dollars to individual DC charter schools, including ones that have struggled with performance and finances. The question for all of us is: Does Ms. Marino’s close connection to charter school expansion in DC and philanthropic funding to the charter sector compromise her ability to be neutral and objective in the decisions the PCSB makes on everything from charter school accountability to mergers and acquisitions and whether a school opens or closes?

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Attendance and Truancy

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The most concerning numbers are the schools with high percentages of students with over 21 unexcused absences.  These are largely in our neighborhood high schools and in areas of the city where there is more concentrated poverty.  The numbers are staggering and beg for a deeper understanding at each of the sites. 

Continuing to address food and housing challenges and the reductions in health care access are critical as a start.

Either students and families are not safe or do not feel safe attending. Or we do not have the agreement of these young people and or their families that it matters if they attend, not because of the threats of failure or punishment, but because it will benefit them and give them a future.  Or they are missing school for significant reasons and this is not being captured in the excused or unexcused data process for us to attend to.  Or the students are in school but missing 40% of their classes.  With failure due to absence, once a student has missed class 30 times in the course of a year, they have failed.  Once a student is absent 20 consecutive days and all required interventions have been performed, they can be withdrawn.  While these are reasonable requirements, it does mean that there is no point in attending after these thresholds have been reached.  These may not be all of the reasons but they are a good start.

Along with housing, food and health care – safety.  Right now, primarily in wards 1 and 4 it is not safe for parents to take their children to school if they can be profiled as Hispanic or are their legal status is not secure.  Children see adults detained by masked men coming from unidentified cars and often accompanied by MPD.  If students are over 18, they can also be hassled, detained and deported even if they are picking up younger siblings.  There are multiple examples cited here in this letter.  Trauma, losing a parent, watching adults have to stand by while a loved one is taken away in this manner has severely undermined the trust in the city, the schools both charter and DCPS, and above all that the police are concerned with keeping everyone safe.  The African American communities in parts of our city have confronted threats to their safety for decades as well. 

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PCSB Council Budget Hearing May 30, 2025 Valerie Jablow

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I am Valerie Jablow, a DC resident and education analyst, commenting on the mayor’s proposed budget with respect to charter facilities funds.

In the face of cuts to essential social services in DC in the proposed budget, it is imperative that DC ends the blank check that is annual per pupil facilities payments to DC charter schools. Over the last decade, DC has sent more than $1 billion in per pupil facilities payments to the dozens of nonprofits running DC charter schools.

Importantly, DC has no clear accounting of what that >$1 billion in facilities money was actually used for.

Below I have outlined the many expensive problems associated with such faith-based oversight of DC charter facilities payments—and offer some concrete solutions.

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2025-5-30 PCSB Council Budget Oversight Testimony

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I appreciate this opportunity to testify on the Public Charter School Board.  The Council has the power to put in place policies that are fiscally sound and will better protect families and provide greater stability. 

Here are three recommendations

Ø  First: There should be a policy put in place by the Council regardless of any voluntary shift in practice by the PCSB that requires notification by the PCSB of financial monitoring or citations of concern after the Oct. 5th student count and before the Dec 16th opening of the lottery. 

Because: Last summer Eagle Academy Public Charter School closed in August forcing those families to find a school on the eve of the start of a new school year.  This spring families at I Dream and Hope PCS find themselves post lottery looking for space for their children. A few of these families are the same families displaced by the Eagle closing.  We have a system that incentivizes mobility and instability prioritizing operators and often to the disadvantage of families. Charter schools or even the PCSB make decisions that effect whether a school will remain open after the lottery has closed.

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New U Early College Public Charter School,

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This is a school for 11th and 12th graders, so it is dependent on students leaving their current high school.  The Boundary and Student Assignment Study completed in 2024 included a strong recommendation on planning both within the charter sector and between DCPS and the charter schools.  This application does not address the ramifications for schools that will be affected by the exodus of students after 10th grade.  It is a very limited cohort starting with 33 students and going to 144.  While it is all about doing college in high school and compressing the experience to make it more economical, it does not adequately address quality or what might be a full educational experience for 16- to 18-year-olds.

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Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act of 2025 3-26-2025 Hearing

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I am Cathy Reilly, director of the Senior Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators and facilitator for the Ward 4 Education Alliance and the Coalition for DCPS and Communities. I am submitting testimony on the Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act of 2025 which requires the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) in coordination with the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to offer a school governance mandatory training for members of a Board of Trustees of a public charter school.

This act is the sole legislation proposed in response to the closing of Eagle Academy Public Charter School in August of 2024 causing significant disruption for these families as well as for the entire system as it worked to place these students in schools.  It is inadequate.

As the Council steps into greater oversight of the PCSB due to the exposure of issues apparent in the December 5th hearing on the closing of Eagle, what is the larger plan to protect the institution of public education in DC? I suggest that you consider the following:

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Jablow testimony, board training bill 3/26/25

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I am Valerie Jablow, a DC education analyst.

The bill that is the subject of this hearing--to provide training to board members of DC charter schools--came about in the wake of the rather dramatic collapse of Eagle Academy, which included the equally dramatic step of its board to close the school a week before the start of this school year.

It is tempting to believe that better board training would have prevented that--or at least minimized the damage.

Unfortunately, that is not the case—and this legislation doesn’t prevent it from happening again. That is because this legislation would not prevent a head of school from keeping important fiscal matters away from its board; not representing fiscal matters directly to the board; and/or repeatedly misrepresenting this to the council and charter board without any check by either body.

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Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act of 2025, March 26th Hearing, Suzanne Wells

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Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing on the Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act of 2025 introduced by Councilmember Henderson.  This Act requires the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) in coordination with the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to offer a school governance mandatory training for members of a Board of Trustees of a public charter school.

  This Act was introduced in response to the abrupt closure of Eagle Academy in August 2024.  I want to be clear that I fully support training for members of a Board of Trustees of a public charter school, but I do not support the Board of Trustees Training Amendment Act of 2025.

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SBOE Testimony on HS Graduation Requirements 12-11-2024

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Perhaps the biggest task coming up for you all is the work on the Graduation Requirements Revisions.

I look forward to seeing a robust engagement plan, how is this going to proceed?  Is the advisory committee for the Grad Profile the same, who is on it, will teachers, parents and others be represented how were they selected, are the meetings open? 

I served on the Advisory Committee for the last revision of the grad standards.  We wrestled a lot with which subjects might benefit from a competency-based approach which decouples the Carnegie unit and time from course completion, and for which subjects it would represent a narrowing of exposure.  We struggled with how to ensure that students would not unknowingly be closing out opportunities by their course choices to post-secondary schools they might aspire to by their junior or senior year.  We tried to assess the quality of internships and alternative experiences and how to measure that quality.  As we tried one option on, we often discovered some unintended ramifications that needed to be addressed.  I hope some of the work and recommendations from that group can be revisited with more information now. 

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