New CLOSED PCSB meeting Wednesday March 12

[Anonymous]

https://dcpcsb.org/special-board-meeting-march-2025

This is the fourth closed meeting in the past few weeks. On short notice.

Something. Is. Not. Good.

[Anonymous]

I can only think a school is in financial failure and they're planning a bailout, or there's some major scandal, or they're trying to figure out how to get through a review cycle with multiple shutdowns.

[Anonymous]

This is bad.

[Anonymous]

Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

How is that not bad? Closing schools may be good for the system in the long run, but it's bad for the students who attend it, and frankly it reflects badly on charter leaders and the PCSB's oversight that it's come to the point of closure. Much like with Eagle Academy, weak oversight and poor/corrupt leadership can run a school right into the ground before the PCSB even realizes what's happening.

If you look here and scroll down to past meetings you can see an unusually high number of closed meetings recently. https://dcpcsb.org/events WHY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

But people have already submitted their lottery entries. I guess if they close a school right now it could just not match anyone to it, but that still sucks because parents wasted a slot on a school that is now unavailable. And the kids at the closing school would not have been warned in time to lottery elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Any readout on this meeting?

Open meeting Monday is looking perilous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

Agree that it's not emergency level bad -- it's just part of the internal, deliberative discussions they need to have in closed session as they approach charter reviews. But it's not them trying to close schools before the lottery. They may be trying to close schools but the lottery window is DONE. High schools closed some weeks ago and elementary middle closed last week. if there are schools closed this year, those parents will have to take whatever seats are left. That's assuming that they weren't in the lottery already.

Also, if you look at past years, meetings where reviews were scheduled were usually preceded by special/closed meetings in the prior month or weeks. This happened in October 2019 before they went into three charter renewals in November 2019. The difference this year is the sheer volume of charter reviews require more closed meetings to deliberate before the public review. Reviews used to start as early as November and go through early spring. Now they are compressing reviews with a timeline that starts mid-March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

Agree that it's not emergency level bad -- it's just part of the internal, deliberative discussions they need to have in closed session as they approach charter reviews. But it's not them trying to close schools before the lottery. They may be trying to close schools but the lottery window is DONE. High schools closed some weeks ago and elementary middle closed last week. if there are schools closed this year, those parents will have to take whatever seats are left. That's assuming that they weren't in the lottery already.

Also, if you look at past years, meetings where reviews were scheduled were usually preceded by special/closed meetings in the prior month or weeks. This happened in October 2019 before they went into three charter renewals in November 2019. The difference this year is the sheer volume of charter reviews require more closed meetings to deliberate before the public review. Reviews used to start as early as November and go through early spring. Now they are compressing reviews with a timeline that starts mid-March.

Okay, but why the super short notice? The list of schools up for review has been known for years. It seems like something unexpected happened.

[Anonymous]

Why are Republicans the only ones that know how to be transparent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are Republicans the only ones that know how to be transparent?

The PCSB is Republicans.

Maybe they're figuring out how many schools they will have to close when DC loses $1 billion from its budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are Republicans the only ones that know how to be transparent?

The PCSB is Republicans.

Maybe they're figuring out how many schools they will have to close when DC loses $1 billion from its budget.

The rich kids will be fine in private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

Agree that it's not emergency level bad -- it's just part of the internal, deliberative discussions they need to have in closed session as they approach charter reviews. But it's not them trying to close schools before the lottery. They may be trying to close schools but the lottery window is DONE. High schools closed some weeks ago and elementary middle closed last week. if there are schools closed this year, those parents will have to take whatever seats are left. That's assuming that they weren't in the lottery already.

Also, if you look at past years, meetings where reviews were scheduled were usually preceded by special/closed meetings in the prior month or weeks. This happened in October 2019 before they went into three charter renewals in November 2019. The difference this year is the sheer volume of charter reviews require more closed meetings to deliberate before the public review. Reviews used to start as early as November and go through early spring. Now they are compressing reviews with a timeline that starts mid-March.

Okay, but why the super short notice? The list of schools up for review has been known for years. It seems like something unexpected happened.

The PCSB changed to a new accountability system. While outcomes aren't available publicly, they are calculating the information for every school. They have been clear that this new system is much more complicated and will take much longer to produce results. Going forward, they will likely have school report cards out in February or March when they used to come out by November. So everything is just later. The timeline has shifted but not the process. Still looks to me like the schools that likely have the most difficult reviews coming are scheduled earliest in this new timeline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh it is not bad and they are trying to close schools before the lottery deadline so those kids can reorder their lists and have more options or put in late lists.

Agree that it's not emergency level bad -- it's just part of the internal, deliberative discussions they need to have in closed session as they approach charter reviews. But it's not them trying to close schools before the lottery. They may be trying to close schools but the lottery window is DONE. High schools closed some weeks ago and elementary middle closed last week. if there are schools closed this year, those parents will have to take whatever seats are left. That's assuming that they weren't in the lottery already.

Also, if you look at past years, meetings where reviews were scheduled were usually preceded by special/closed meetings in the prior month or weeks. This happened in October 2019 before they went into three charter renewals in November 2019. The difference this year is the sheer volume of charter reviews require more closed meetings to deliberate before the public review. Reviews used to start as early as November and go through early spring. Now they are compressing reviews with a timeline that starts mid-March.

Okay, but why the super short notice? The list of schools up for review has been known for years. It seems like something unexpected happened.

The PCSB changed to a new accountability system. While outcomes aren't available publicly, they are calculating the information for every school. They have been clear that this new system is much more complicated and will take much longer to produce results. Going forward, they will likely have school report cards out in February or March when they used to come out by November. So everything is just later. The timeline has shifted but not the process. Still looks to me like the schools that likely have the most difficult reviews coming are scheduled earliest in this new timeline.

That's pretty inconvenient for using the data to make lottery choices.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if they're thinking through how cute to the DC budget will affect the marginal schools.

This is what you get for cozying up to the Republican party.