WASHINGTON D.C., DC — DC Public School parents and teachers are pouring through the latest budget proposals. It cuts hundreds of thousands of dollars to some of the most at-risk schools. Much of the DCPS budget battle boils down to timing and compliance with current law.
The DC Council passed the School’s First in Budgeting Act last year. Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said DCPS will work to comply next year but simply didn’t have the time to implement it this budget cycle. The law also gave DCPS until Feb. 9 to let schools know what their projected budgets would be. The idea was to give parent and teacher groups (LSAT – local school advisory team) plenty of time to crunch the numbers and advocate for more money. Well, DCPS not only missed that deadline but the budget proposals also weren’t released until Wednesday, just two days before schools to a week off for Feb. vacation.
“I do think it’s disrespectful to parents and school communities,” said DCPS parent and advocate Betsy Wolf.
“I’m on the verge of anger with regards to how DCPS treats parents,” said Chairman Phil Mendelson.
“We always have to wait on Uniform Per Pupil Funding formula which the Mayor released yesterday. As soon as we got that we released our budgets to schools,” explained Chancellor Lewis Ferebee. “We gave our schools two weeks so that gives us this week and if families aren’t available next week, they have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the following week. Budgets aren’t’ due until March 1.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser bumped the per-pupil funding which adds about an extra $500 per student, a percentage of that determines how much schools get. But even though those numbers are up, some schools in Wards 7 and 8 with the most at-risk population are bracing for cuts as deep as $300,000, according to a press release by Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
“Yesterday when we had only partial information we found 10 schools very quickly were being cut even though enrollment was flat or going up and that makes no sense,” said Mendelson.
But the Chancellor said while the cuts look large, they are just a 5% decrease of the one-time federal recovery money schools received last year. Still, Ferebee said their new formula ensures kids who need the extra money get it.
“We layer on additional dollars who have special needs students who have language services students who are identified as at risk, so equity is really at play at how we allocate resources,” said Chancellor Ferebee.
“Their numbers don't make sense either. You cannot say this is the base. The base doesn't cover the grade level classrooms and the Assistant Principal,” said Wolfe. “So the result is that schools with a lot of students who are classified as at risk, or other categories, have to spend a portion of their targeted funds just covering the basic education.”
Since DCPS didn’t have the budget ready for the Council last week, Chairman Mendelson scheduled a makeup virtual oversight hearing Friday. To testify, you must sign up by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22.
While some parents and teachers are upset because they’ll still be on vacation, the Chairman said folks can testify virtually. The Mayor will submit her final budget to the Council on March 22.