PCSB meeting Monday night

[Anonymous]

Agenda is up, looks like a pretty light meeting. But there will be the Quarterly Finance Report read into the record, which is a chance to see which schools are on the financial concern list.

https://dcpcsb.org/board-meeting-january-2025


There's also a Public Comment notice for charter reviews of Cedar Tree, Hope Community, and IDEA, which will occur in March. This is a later-than-usual start for the review cycle, which surprises me because there are 20 schools to be reviewed. Maybe the delay is due to the new ASPIRE scoring approach. I think it's going to be a tough year for Hope Community, their enrollment and finances are concerning.

https://dcpcsb.org/notice-charter-review-cedar-tree-pcs-hope-community-pcs-idea-pcs

[Anonymous]

IDEA was on the financial monitoring list last quarter.

[Anonymous]

Board book is up. (I love how they give basically zero time for anyone to prepare.)

***There's a deck about the review and renewal process, it says 20 schools will be reviewed this year. Which they are not even beginning to do until the March 17 meeting, which is after the lottery closes. So if any school gets shut down, people are SOL. Or the school is allowed a one-year corrective action plan, perhaps that's the intent here. There are definitely some iffy schools on the review calendar and it wouldn't surprise me if one or more were shut down.

***Financial Report: The Monitoring List includes Capital Village, Digital Pioneers (new), Girls Global (new), IDEA, KIPP (due to the fraud), LEARN, LEE, Bethune (new), Rocketship (new), Social Justice (new), and St. Coletta. This is a big increase in the number of schools listed, and there's a reason given for each. Of the schools listed, Capital Village, Girls Global, IDEA, Bethune, and Social Justice are up for review this year.

Harmony has been removed from the Monitoring List.

[Anonymous]

Also the link to Capital Village's CAP is wrong. The correct number in the URL is 3616281.

[Anonymous]

These are not a comprehensive recap, just things I thought were of interest.

Jim Sandman calls out the process for occuring too late to be helpful during the lottery. Answer is no because data comes in too late. Hope to get onto an earlier schedule in a future year. But there is lots of other info available now.

Staff member states that there are some schools with academic and/or financial concerns and that they expect to issue review conditions to some schools to improve or risk revocation, and in some cases to recommend initiating revocation.

Dwight Davis asks what recourse a parent has when their school is not answering their tough questions. Walker-Davis encourages people to reach out to PCSB.

Meeting was over at 7:37. I'm surprised it was so short, given what a lengthy and troubled slate of schools they have to review this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are not a comprehensive recap, just things I thought were of interest.

Jim Sandman calls out the process for occuring too late to be helpful during the lottery. Answer is no because data comes in too late. Hope to get onto an earlier schedule in a future year. But there is lots of other info available now.

Staff member states that there are some schools with academic and/or financial concerns and that they expect to issue review conditions to some schools to improve or risk revocation, and in some cases to recommend initiating revocation.

Dwight Davis asks what recourse a parent has when their school is not answering their tough questions. Walker-Davis encourages people to reach out to PCSB.

Meeting was over at 7:37. I'm surprised it was so short, given what a lengthy and troubled slate of schools they have to review this year.

I'm not sure that this information is easily found by parents. I follow the PCSB closely and if it hadn't been for this thread, I would not have recognized that such an important financial list was part of the proceedings. I suppose they only have a public discussion when the school is put on a formal corrective action plan but not when they get added to the monitoring list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not a comprehensive recap, just things I thought were of interest.

Jim Sandman calls out the process for occuring too late to be helpful during the lottery. Answer is no because data comes in too late. Hope to get onto an earlier schedule in a future year. But there is lots of other info available now.

Staff member states that there are some schools with academic and/or financial concerns and that they expect to issue review conditions to some schools to improve or risk revocation, and in some cases to recommend initiating revocation.

Dwight Davis asks what recourse a parent has when their school is not answering their tough questions. Walker-Davis encourages people to reach out to PCSB.

Meeting was over at 7:37. I'm surprised it was so short, given what a lengthy and troubled slate of schools they have to review this year.

I'm not sure that this information is easily found by parents. I follow the PCSB closely and if it hadn't been for this thread, I would not have recognized that such an important financial list was part of the proceedings. I suppose they only have a public discussion when the school is put on a formal corrective action plan but not when they get added to the monitoring list?

Yes, I was extremely underwhelmed by that answer as well. Parents can tell of financial trouble in the FAR, which is also something a lot of people wouldn't know to look at. And the schools make (or, are supposed to make) their budgets public. Putting the monitoring list more visibly in the minutes is one of the changes they've made after the embarrassing failure of Eagle Academy. And I can't help but notice the monitoring list is longer than it used to be.

SO many charter schools are way behind or flagrantly noncompliant in posting their board minutes. Enforcement of that rule is non-existent, and it's really sad because it's one of the first places a parent would think to look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are not a comprehensive recap, just things I thought were of interest.

Jim Sandman calls out the process for occuring too late to be helpful during the lottery. Answer is no because data comes in too late. Hope to get onto an earlier schedule in a future year. But there is lots of other info available now.

Staff member states that there are some schools with academic and/or financial concerns and that they expect to issue review conditions to some schools to improve or risk revocation, and in some cases to recommend initiating revocation.

Dwight Davis asks what recourse a parent has when their school is not answering their tough questions. Walker-Davis encourages people to reach out to PCSB.

Meeting was over at 7:37. I'm surprised it was so short, given what a lengthy and troubled slate of schools they have to review this year.

I'm not sure that this information is easily found by parents. I follow the PCSB closely and if it hadn't been for this thread, I would not have recognized that such an important financial list was part of the proceedings. I suppose they only have a public discussion when the school is put on a formal corrective action plan but not when they get added to the monitoring list?

Yes, I was extremely underwhelmed by that answer as well. Parents can tell of financial trouble in the FAR, which is also something a lot of people wouldn't know to look at. And the schools make (or, are supposed to make) their budgets public. Putting the monitoring list more visibly in the minutes is one of the changes they've made after the embarrassing failure of Eagle Academy. And I can't help but notice the monitoring list is longer than it used to be.

SO many charter schools are way behind or flagrantly noncompliant in posting their board minutes. Enforcement of that rule is non-existent, and it's really sad because it's one of the first places a parent would think to look.

One has to wonder why the PCSB doesn't call it the "Financial Monitoring List" in the agenda and materials as that's all that it is? Calling it the FY25 Quarterly Financial Report when there is no holistic report on FY25 Quarterly Financials of the PCSB or of charters, seems rather disingenuous. It will be very telling when the FY24 Financial Analysis Report comes out to see the actual information for the schools on the list and others that didn't make the list but are really far off on enrollment, operating margins, etc.