Petition to DC Council for FY 2024 Charter School Budgets
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Anonymous
Oh please. The teachers at ITDS are in no way mistreated and neither are the kids. Raising class sizes to a level that is entirely normal and acceptable to DCPS (25 kids in elementary) would bring in 10 kids in 1st-5th. More middle school admits, if anyone wants the spots, could bring in another 6 kids (grades 6-8). So that's about $160k, maybe $100 of that can be used for salaries. Then if you take out the elementary and middle school aides (about $50K per year payroll cost), that's one per grade level so 8 people, or $400,000. So there's half a million dollars, just by doing things that are normal in DCPS. Of the 30 or 35 teachers ITDS has, each could have at least a $10,000 raise from this. If ITDS teachers had the same challenges DCPS does, in terms of big class sizes, mid-year admits, more at-risk kids, being the school of right for shelters and newly arrived kids who speak no English, including kids from self-contained classrooms, all those kinds of things, then they absolutely should get paid more. But as it currently is, 24 mostly non-ar-risk kids with high retention and no backfilling, plus a full-time aide, just isn't an especially difficult job. If that's too hard for someone then they aren't cut out to teach in DC. |
Anonymous
I'm not sure but I think the MV union is with a different union, not WTU, so the legalities would be different. I don't believe they have an agreement with the city itself. |
Anonymous
This ridiculous conversation is going to keep going in circles because OP (or whomever is responding) just doesn't understand the law or budgeting process. I'm guessing it's a charter teacher who isn't willing to move to DCPS, but is cranky that the WTU came through for DCPS teachers finally. |
Anonymous
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Dear Charter supporters: which one of your schools has a life skills classroom? I'll wait. And MANY (not all, I realize) so called "highly regarded" charters have no self contained classrooms special ed classrooms at all.
If you're not going to educate all our kids, don't come at me with "it isn't fair." |
Anonymous
St. Coletta KIPP Bridges |
Anonymous
Which one of those schools do your kids attend? |
Anonymous
None of them, I just know them to be schools that teach that kind of thing. Personally I do think many charters are avoiding serving kids with level IV IEPs, but I will say the absence of a self-contained classrooms doesn't mean there aren't kids with full time IEPs. They would be with a 1:1 aide and RSPs in a gen Ed classroom. |
Anonymous
To be clear- the enrollment data from OSSE suggests otherwise...level 4 students make up .029 of the DC Charter Enrollment and .028 of the DCPS total enrollment. The percentage served across sector is really close. So, while you may like your narrative, it is not really fact. And, I know of several charter schools with self contained classrooms and life skills classrooms. I don't buy in to the "highly regarded" crap...so, not sure what you mean. Sector Funding Category UPSFF DCPS At-Risk 23365 DCPS English Learner Elementary 4834 DCPS English Learner Secondary 2800 DCPS Students with Disabilities - Level 1 3516 DCPS Students with Disabilities - Level 2 1668 DCPS Students with Disabilities - Level 3 961 DCPS Students with Disabilities - Level 4 1417 DCPS Students with Disabilities - Total 7562 DCPS Total UPSFF 49525 PCSB At-Risk 22647 PCSB English Learner Elementary 2229 PCSB English Learner Secondary 1597 PCSB Students with Disabilities - Level 1 2475 PCSB Students with Disabilities - Level 2 2106 PCSB Students with Disabilities - Level 3 929 PCSB Students with Disabilities - Level 4 1350 PCSB Students with Disabilities - Total 6860 PCSB Total UPSFF 46318 |
Anonymous
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I do think if charters want equal funding to DCPS, they need to be willing to take kids after count day and to do midyear adds to their waitlists (and even permit people to add themselves to the waitlist midyear) when students depart. These are public schools, but they want to behave like private schools when they feel like it. I don't understand how they get away with it.
I don't actually agree that all charters should be required to offer self-contained classrooms and life skills classes, because I think that would be inefficient and not necessarily serve kids in need of these services any better. Many charters are smaller schools with necessarily smaller student bodies, and it doesn't make a ton of sense to create self-contained classrooms there. BUT I do think there should be more requirements for charters in terms of serving kids with IEPs/SNs. This does not mean every charter should be prepared to handle any kid with SNs. It means that there needs to be a good faith effort to find ways to offer their curriculum and philosophy to kids with SNs. If you are engaged with an educational philosophy that simply does not serve anyone other than high-SES, neurotypical kids with no learning or physical disabilities, then I question whether that philosophy belongs in a public school. The point of charters is to offer more experimentation and variety in terms of what public schools offer, to offer educational opportunity to every child. That means that ever school need not meet the needs of every student or family, but it should OFFER something for every student or family. For instance, I have no interest in the Kipp schools because I am not interested in their educational philosophy. But their philosophy encompasses a child like my child, even if their approach to my child is not one I want. So I have no problem with Kipp receiving funding equal to what a DCPS does because Kipp is not excluding children from its philosophy altogether. It's an option for my family, just one I won't be using. This is different than a school that has just decided it doesn't serve kids with dyslexia or kids who need skills training or kids who have special transportation needs or remedial education needs. Those are normal things for students to need and as a public school, you need a plan for serving them, even if it's not the exact same plan DCPS would offer. |
Anonymous
Charters choose to pay their teachers lower salaries in many cases. They want to be independent and therefore they choose how to allocate their budgets. They choose their staffing numbers, salaries, etc. Advocate with your charter leaders to increase teacher pay in their budgeting. |
Anonymous
PP here: the one with the SPED Data tables...to the earlier comment about DCPS serving more "at risk" kids....again, go check the actual data and stop spreading rumors. The at-risk percentage for charters is 48% and DCPS is 47%. To the poster above.... I can tell you don't exactly understand the implications of your first statement on your second. If Charters were to take all students mid-year, they would absolutely need to have the capacity to offer a self-contained classroom. In fact, they would have to stand one up mid-year if a student arrived and needed one. You see, by law, schools have to follow the IEP that tells them what the least restrictive environment is for that child. Of course, a new school can re-assess that decision, but that takes time and reducing supports for a new student isn't optimal. As with most things, the solutions to all of this seem so simple, until you are actually required to implement them. (Yes, I am a person required to implement them.) I don't necessarily disagree with some of what you say but so few people want to discuss the practical barriers (and the multiple conflicts of local/federal laws and good instructional practices vs. the political desires of our elected officials). And really here is the bottom line....charter schools are here to stay. There is no possible way for DCPS to absorb them and all the students they serve. None. One of my kids is in DCPS and I can't imagine what it would look like for them to have 48% more students. I get that people want charters to do extra stuff to get the same funds as DCPS- but you complain that our central staff is too bloated- how do you think schools are going to have the capacity to report on salaries, respond to FOIA requests, produce financial statements for every transaction, etc. without increasing staffing levels? You want charters to take students mid-year, but charter school building utilization (for the most part) far exceeds DCPS (they don't have the same sq. foot per student). Where do we put them? I guess my rant is this....it is really easy to solve these problems sitting at a keyboard and offering an opinion issue by issue. However, when you are responsible for implementing them, they are often times very much at odds. There are tons of trade offs and usually there is no optimal solution. It's just really frustrating to listen to all of this when what we really want is the same funds to support our teachers and honor their work. While some of the older/established charters may have surplus funding to do this without the City's help, most don't. I guess we could just have a charter school sick-out or close down our schools until we get funding? I mean, do you really want for us to "negotiate" this way? What might that look like? |
Anonymous
WITH WHAT MONEY? How does a school pay their teachers more when the increase in UPSFF doesn't cover the inflationary increase to our fixed costs? Where do we get the funds? Many schools are enrolled to capacity- we can't just "add kids" because we have an enrollment cap. We can't reduce fixed costs on our facilities because we have to meet debt covenant ratios based on loans and it isn't like food/material costs are going down. What magical budgeting skills do you think we have? Cutting "bloated" salaries...okay, lets just assume that I can do that...how much do you think that will save? A hundred grand? Cool- so all my teachers get a $2,500 raise? Compare that to the increases in DCPS...do you think we can keep teachers in our classrooms? If not, who does that hurt the most? The 48% of at-risk students that charters serve throughout the city. Wake up- this isn't to fill to coffers of charter schools... |
Anonymous
| Gosh it’s such a shame that no one’s ever invented a way for a school to legally bind itself to spend money in a particular way. Contracts? Nope, no such thing. Legislation? Never heard of it. Just hand your tax dollars over to opaque, unaccountable organizations and hope they choose to spend it on teachers. |
Anonymous
Nobody's imagining that charter schools would disappear all of a sudden. It's just the idea that *if* there is an empty seat, charter schools could be required to fill it even if it's after Count Day. Many charters won't do this. As I'm sure you know, PP, there's no right to a self-contained classroom at any specific school. Rather, there's a right to it within the school system. So nobody's saying that all charters have to create self-contained rooms on short notice. But they are saying that being the school system *of right* for all students no matter their needs and circumstances, is something that the charter sector doesn't do, doesn't want to do, flat out refuses to do. DCPS has that responsibility. And that responsibility can and absolutely should come with extra funding, UPSFF notwithstanding. |
Anonymous
You can apply for an increase in enrollment cap and that will allow you to increase class sizes. You can try harder to fill up empty seats before Count Day. You can stop spending money on consultants, admin salaries, and charter management organizations. You can lower your quality to DCPS levels-- honestly, that's a big part of the difference. |