Charter School Call to Action! Urgent!

[Anonymous]

March 11, 2009

School Leaders, Trustees, Parents and Friends,

Charter schools need your help this week!

Mayor Fenty and his staff are preparing the budget for next year. Mayor Fenty has promised not to cut the DCPS budget. But FOCUS DC is concerned about cuts to public charter school funding. Specifically, the public charter school facilities allowance is threatened and we are asking for everyone’s help to preserve it. If the funding is cut, it may prevent your school from purchasing or leasing a permanent site, from renovating your school, or worse, it may put your school in default on a current loan. Our goal is to make sure DC students attending public charter schools are not shortchanged and that quality public education is not jeopardized because of funding cuts.

Click here to tell DC officials to make sure all DC students are valued equally no matter what kind of public school they attend!

In addition to emails, you can call key city officials to let them know we don’t support cuts to the facilities allowance. See below for telephone contact information as well as a sample script you can use when calling.



BACKGROUND

The public charter school facilities allowance is similar to the DC Public Schools capital budget and its purpose is to allow schools to access and modernize school facilities. If you divide the whole DCPS capital budget by the number of students, then DCPS gets approximately $5,000 per student this year for facilities modernization and charter schools get $3,109 per student.

For the majority of charter schools, the $3,109 is not enough to cover actual facilities costs. The facilities allowance needs to cover not just rent/mortgage payments for public charter schools, but also:

Rainy Day Reserves. Schools have to put money away for unexpected expenses so when the boiler breaks or the roof needs to be replaced, these things can be addressed.

Lender Reserves. Banks now require schools to have a certain percent of money in the bank in order to get a loan to purchase or renovate a building. This is in addition to the loan payments.

Down Payment. In addition to rent payments, schools in temporary space have to save money for a down payment on a permanent facility, at least 20% of the purchase price, or more in this market.

Renovation costs. Whether a school has a temporary or permanent site, in almost all cases, the school will have to make improvements to the building and those costs are on top of the rent/mortgage payment.

Equipment. Purchases for things like furniture, computers, and kitchen equipment that can be depreciated.

A handful of public charter schools got an old DCPS building in the early years of the charter movement at a good price and don't need all of the facilities allowance for facilities costs. They are able to use the leftover funds to reinvest back into the academic program, for example, to pay for longer school days, smaller class sizes, musical instruments, etc. We think reinvesting any surplus back into the academic program is a good thing for kids, but we hear the government wants to restrict the use of the facilities allowance to capital expenses only.



THE REQUEST

Please help us by calling or emailing one or all of the following individuals before Friday the 13th to state your support for maintaining the facilities allowance at its current level of $3,109 per student. You don’t have to engage in any conversation; it should just take one minute each to make the statement, say thank you, and hang up or customize the email message, and send.

Dan Tangherlini, City Administrator, [phone],

William Singer, Chief of Budget Execution, [phone]

Victor Reinoso, Deputy Mayor for Education, [phone]



SAMPLE PHONE MESSAGES (choose appropriate message)



Hello, may I speak to…



Message 1 (Parent)

My name is ____ and I have _ child(ren) at ____ public charter school.

I am calling to request that the city not cut the charter school facilities allowance. We need as much support as the DCPS schools need to get school buildings in shape for our kids.

Charter schools are public schools too and all DC students deserve real school buildings.

Thank you.



Message 2 (PCS Staff/Trustee)

My name is ____ I work at/serve on the Board of ____ public charter school and I am a Ward _ resident. I have heard in the news that the Mayor promised not to cut funds for DCPS as he prepares the City budget.

I am calling to request that the Mayor also promise to not cut any charter school funds, specifically the facilities allowance.

Charter schools are public schools too; make sure they are funded equitably.

Thank you.



Message 3 (DC Resident)

My name is ____ and I am a Ward _ resident. I have heard in the news that the Mayor promised not to cut funds for DCPS as he prepares the City budget.

I am calling to request that the Mayor also promise to not cut any charter school funds, specifically the facilities allowance.

Charter schools are public schools too; make sure they are funded equitably.

Thank you.



If you have questions, please contact Ariana Quinones at Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS) 202.387.0405 or [e-mail].

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

So are charter schools taking steps to improve transparency into funding and management of properties? Yes, they are public schools but they also recieve private funds and are involved with commercial banking and real estate developer interests. There needs to be a give-and-take here to ensure that (more) funds are not wasted.

[Anonymous]

The District also needs to ensure an interest in the buildings that are being purchased for Charter Schools. If a Charter School goes belly up, what protections are in place to ensure that the owners of the school do not get to keep the building that the District has invested a chunk of money into.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. None of which justifies a cut in facilities funding. In fact, I made a point of calling my council member in addition to the authorities listed and saying if anything, charter schools should have their funding INCREASED to be commensurate with DCPS. After all, it's now been proven that they're doing a better job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So are charter schools taking steps to improve transparency into funding and management of properties? Yes, they are public schools but they also recieve private funds and are involved with commercial banking and real estate developer interests. There needs to be a give-and-take here to ensure that (more) funds are not wasted.

Regarding transparency, of course there should be transparency in all exchanges of public funds. However, let's push the transparency issue: charters schools are held to the same 'transparency' in No Child Left Behind AYP reporting--see DCPS website-DC-CAS reporting. However, across the city they stand at a stark disadvantage in terms of access to physical plant facilities conducive to learning-- due to the astronomical property values in this area, lesser amount of funding they receive, and cat and mouse games DCPS (backed by city government) has been playing in giving the right to bid on released school buildings to charter schools. Charter school students are consequently spread across our city studying in cramped church basements and rec centers--searching for private grants to give them adequate permanent settings. It's funny that transparency only applies when it suits the interests of the powers that be to charter schools (test scores). It is depressing that some excellent released school building have been sold to private developers for condos, and now stand no chance of ever serving as learning facilities for the children of this city--public or charter. How about some transparency on these real estate transactions?