Petition to DC Council for FY 2024 Charter School Budgets

[Anonymous]

Please sign this petition to urge the DC Council to provide equitable funding to DC Charter schools so that teacher/support staff pay can stay on par with DCPS salaries as well as providing equal funding for facilities and services.

https://p2a.co/QGLkMmI

Public schools (DCPS and public charters) receive a majority of their funding from DC’s annual budget through the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF). By law, DCPS and DC Public Charter Schools receive the same allocation per student through the UPSFF. This ensures equity: all students have access to similar resources regardless of where they live or go to school. It also means that funding schools receive outside the formula, such as one-time payments, are not subject to the same equity or long-term sustainability.

On March 22, the mayor released the budget that will include funding for fiscal year 2023-24 that underfunds DC Public Charter Schools by $187 million. As some may know, charter schools serve more than 48% of the 96,572 students enrolled in the public school system this academic year.

Petition here: https://p2a.co/QGLkMmI

Not meaning to start a Charter v DCPS debate thread - I hope that we can all agree that teachers are a precious resource who need to be paid fairly for an incredibly challenging job -the pandemic made that abundantly clear- and that all children deserve to have great teachers and safe, clean and modern facilities.

Thanks for supporting public education in all its forms.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I’m not advocating for more money to pay teachers until there’s a requirement they use the money to pay teachers more.

[Anonymous]

No thanks! Good luck with that ...

[Anonymous]

Lol after all the crap us unionized teachers had to take fighting for a raise I'm not too keen on letting charter schools get money on behalf of our efforts

[Anonymous]

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Op, don’t you know that DCUM is anti-charter schools? You better reach out to the parents at your school.

[Anonymous]

I have a client whose charter school wants to retain him, in middle school. But if he does repeat a grade, he can't do it at that charter school because they don't allow their students to repeat a grade. So as soon as he becomes a difficult student, he's sent to dcps.

Charter schools can't demand parity in funding if they aren't providing parity in education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, don’t you know that DCUM is anti-charter schools? You better reach out to the parents at your school.

NP it’s not about being anti-charter. Some charters have cash already and won’t increase teacher salary. There is no guarantee the extra money goes to teacher salary and certainly no guarantee that those teachers are paid equally with DCPS teachers.

Now there are some other issues at play here: DCPS teachers pay to be part of the union. Charter teachers do not. Paying into that service gives some benefits to DCPS teachers.

[Anonymous]

PP again and charters make some rules that allow them to remove kids with challenges- not backfilling after certain grades, not repeating a grade, etc.

[Anonymous]

They can get paid like DCPS when they work like DCPS. With DCPS class sizes and taking new kids mid-year in all grades.

[Anonymous]

Are they going to take Early Stages kids, so two younger kids with special needs in every PK3 class?

Are they going to take a fair share of new arrivals from all around the world, same-day, non-English speaking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol after all the crap us unionized teachers had to take fighting for a raise I'm not too keen on letting charter schools get money on behalf of our efforts

Seriously. You don't get to freeload on union results and then sh*i-talk the union.

[Anonymous]

It's very unclear to me how the budget "underfunds" charter schools. The petition doesn't explain it. OP, try to at least back up your assertions with a rationale. At all.

[Anonymous]

I don't blame parents for selecting a charter for their child. I think any parent would take the best option they have available to their child. So no shade there. But I am not a fan of charters because they undermine and destabilize traditional public schools. Nothing stopping chatter teachers from unionizing. Not interesting in signing this petition.