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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Elizabeth Corinth Testimony on School Budgets

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Hello my name is Elizabeth Corinth. I am a Ward 6 resident, the LSAT Chair for School-Within-School @ Goding where my 3 children attend, and a co-organizer of the DC LSAT Collective, which is a volunteer-run group formed to promote mutual support and sharing of best practices among DCPS Local School Advisory Team members.

I’m here today to speak specifically to the impact of the recently released budget allocations on School-Within-School @ Goding. In this second year of the implementation of DCPS’s new budget model, we have definitely experienced the “fiscal cliff” which many had warned about. Let me walk through how that came about, since many schools find themselves in a similar place right now.

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