Funding for Shepherd's Renovation

[jsteele]

Can someone please explain to me what just happened to Shepherd's renovation funding? My Twitter feed just blew up, but I can't figure out what exactly happened. It seems that whatever it was, it might not be good for Grosso and/or Todd who up up for re-election.

[Anonymous]

Some info in this petition.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/881/854/920/restore-shepherd-funding/

[jsteele]

If I understand correctly, the funding requested in that petition was not restored. As a result, even after its current renovation, Shepherd will have the same old cafeteria and gym. That doesn't make sense. But, I'm also a little surprised that those two things cost $12 million. How bad are the current cafeteria and gym?

[Anonymous]

The Committee on Education reduced $12.44M in Shepherd ES Modernization and $109,000 in ADA Compliance and reallocated to the following projects:

$4.25M for Oyster Adams
? $300,000 for Aiton ES Renovation/Modernization
? $3M for Francis Stevens ES Modernization
? $1.7M for Garfield ES Renovation/Modernization
? $1.6M for Malcolm X at Green
? $1M for Raymond ES Modernization/Renovation
? $700,000 for Smothers ES Modernization/Renovation

[Anonymous]

From Brandon Todd on SP listserve today.

Neighbors- I wanted to be certain to provide some information regarding Shepherd funding. I too am completely incensed at the Committee on Education’s recent decision to remove the $12.4 million previously intended to go towards completing the modernization of Shepherd Elementary. I’d like to take a moment to outline the steps that led us to this point, as well as my current efforts to re-capture this lost funding for our school.

On March 8th, I sent my budget request letter to Mayor Bowser prior to her release of the budget. In the letter, I specifically asked for the full funding to complete the efforts to modernize Shepherd Elementary.

On March 24th, the Executive Office of the Mayor (EOM) released its budget. Included in the budget was the full $12.4 million to complete the modernization of Shepherd Elementary School.

On April 21st, I attended a hearing of the Committee on Education in which I continued to advocate for the full funding for Shepherd Elementary, and express my support for the Mayor’s budget which included said funds. At this hearing, Chancellor Henderson also provided testimony to discuss the importance of this funding.

At this point in time, the funds for Shepherd were still safe. On May 5, that changed.

On May 5th, the Education Committee removed Shepherd’s funding from the budget. The reason stated was that other schools have been untouched and one that has seen modernization should not receive additional funds unless they are to address health and safety issues. I seriously considered voting against this iteration of the budget because I completely disagreed with the Committee’s decision to de-fund Shepherd. However, to do so would have meant voting against Coolidge High School, MacFarland, and every other Ward 4 school in the capital improvement plan, as well as programming and operations for schools.

On Wednesday, May 11th, the entire Council held a budget meeting to discuss, in its entirety, the FY ’17 budget. I was adamant in my argument for the Council to re-instate the funding for Shepherd, so its modernization could be completed this upcoming fiscal year. I told the Council about the two critical issues you and I both know need to be addressed with this funding – the construction and completion of a full cafeteria for Shepherd Elementary, and the modernization of the school’s gymnasium. These two areas of concern have been a priority in the community for years, and for good reason.

Regarding the cafeteria: Shepherd has a well-documented history of rodent infestation. It is a major health hazard for our students to have to eat among rodent droppings on and near their lunch tables. Moreover, there is insufficient space for food preparation. Due to the limited preparation activity that can take place at one time, Shepherd must serve lunch in multiple shifts, leading to many students eating lunch for breakfast. Food storage is also a problem – currently, there is insufficient storage for many temperature-sensitive foods, including milk. Safety concerns also exist – in the event of a fire, students who are disabled or wheelchair bound have no exit strategy because the current cafeteria does not meet ADA requirements. This is unacceptable.

Regarding the gymnasium: Shepherd’s gymnasium is in dire need of modernization. Like the cafeteria, the gym is not ADA-accessible – limiting students who are disabled or wheelchair-bound in their use of the facility. Additionally, the current gymnasium has incredibly limited space for aftercare students. Because of this, students in the aftercare program are forced to separate, and are often placed in other areas in the school (including hallways) in order to accommodate the student size.

These are more than sufficient reasons to keep the funding for Shepherd Elementary in the budget.

I am scrubbing the entire budget in an effort to identify potential funding sources to re-allocate the needed funds for Shepherd Elementary School. I am also speaking with my colleagues for their support of restored funding. In the interim, I will continue to keep pushing in my efforts here, and I need your help. Individually, we are strong. United, we are a force.

The first vote on the budget is next Tuesday, May 17th. I will continue to work to identify funding for Shepherd.

Sincerely,
Brandon

Brandon Todd
Councilmember, Ward 4
Council of the District of Columbia
202-724-8052 (Office)
202-316-6001 (Mobile)

[Anonymous]

^^ignore the question marks (bullet point paste error)

[jsteele]

Does anyone know why the gym and cafeteria were not included in the renovation that is currently underway? This seems like another renovation shambles. Why would you renovate a school and not address the issues with these two facilities?

Brandon Todd is not looking too spiffy either. His explanation that he voted in favor of a budget that cut money from Shepherd because he wanted to vote in favor of money for Coolidge and MacFarland -- two schools which the Shepherd Park community is doing everything it can to avoid -- is not going to win him any Shepherd Park votes. I'm sure there is an interesting back story here that is not strictly explained by relative renovation needs.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Does anyone know why the gym and cafeteria were not included in the renovation that is currently underway? This seems like another renovation shambles. Why would you renovate a school and not address the issues with these two facilities?

Brandon Todd is not looking too spiffy either. His explanation that he voted in favor of a budget that cut money from Shepherd because he wanted to vote in favor of money for Coolidge and MacFarland -- two schools which the Shepherd Park community is doing everything it can to avoid -- is not going to win him any Shepherd Park votes. I'm sure there is an interesting back story here that is not strictly explained by relative renovation needs.

NP. My take on the renovations:

1) At the time the initial renovation plans were conceived, it was noted that the current cafeteria presented a fire hazard, in that students and staff with mobility issues would have trouble exiting the area in the event of an emergency. Multiple other issues abound as noted by PPs re: storage issues, rodents, too small to adequately accommodate the student body, etc. My ECE kid, for example, eats lunch at 10:50.

2) The gym is not ADA-compliant, and is generally in poor condition. For example, apparently the PTA raised funds a few years ago to install a temporary floor.

3) Shepherd's modernization was always supposed to happen in several phases. At some point, the phases got reshuffled, and the gym and cafeteria renovations got pushed back to the third phase. In the interim, other design elements were added. Also, unanticipated problems had to be addressed (e.g., pipes, sprinkler system replaced), cost overruns accumulated, and the third phase was eventually cut. Even so, the overall budget grew. Lots of mismanagement--for example, last summer, no work was done because apparently someone forgot to apply for the correct permits for work to begin.

4) In March, Mayor Bowser added a recommendation for $12.4 mil to be added to the budget for Shepherd's gym and cafeteria. Last week, Councilmember Grosso removed this item from the budget and reallocated it to other schools. AFAIK, Shepherd was the only school that had renovation funds removed from the Mayor's budget. Grosso is now on the record in the below article stating that he felt that the $12.4 allocated to Shepherd "did not make any sense."

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/article/20780187/dc-council-tries-to-fix-broken-school-modernization-program

5) The Committee on Education cites an "objective" formula that takes into account a number of factors in assigning a weight to each school's need for renovation. In justifying their low ranking of Shepherd, they state that Shepherd has already had some work done, which moved Shepherd down the list in terms of priority. In other words, Shepherd was penalized in their ranking for being in the midst of their renovation. Shepherd is now ranked 84th of 111 schools ranked.

6) It appears that at least some elements of the Committee's formula calculation are wrong. For example, they rank Shepherd's enrollment growth as a 3, indicating that 5-yr enrollment growth is between -1.7% and 0.1%. This does not seem accurate. Shepherd's population has grown in recent years--waitlists are long in the early grades, and they've added a PK3 class (with in-boundary students waitlisted). The Committee also apparently didn't take into account future projections--next year, Shepherd will be adding a second PK3 class to meet demand, along with a third 1st grade class (a bubble cohort). Here's a link to the Council's doc which lists the rankings for all 111 schools:

https://chpspo.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/grosso-cip-rankings-2016.pdf

I'm not on the SIT so I could be off on some of the details, so I hope I didn't misrepresent anything--but this is how I understand what's transpired.

[Anonymous]

This is ridiculous. We need more money for school modernizations so that we're not squabbling between one high need school and another. We should be able to do it all.
Who is standing in the way of increasing the total pot of modernization money?
Is it Mendelson? Bowser? These politicians need to stop blowing money on shenanigans like the streetcars and get back on track modernizing our schools.
I'm sick of hearing "not enough money".

[Anonymous]

But there is always extra money for Ellington! Crazy that one school is asked to put up with an unsafe gym and another school gets a blank check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is ridiculous. We need more money for school modernizations so that we're not squabbling between one high need school and another. We should be able to do it all.
Who is standing in the way of increasing the total pot of modernization money?
Is it Mendelson? Bowser? These politicians need to stop blowing money on shenanigans like the streetcars and get back on track modernizing our schools.
I'm sick of hearing "not enough money".

Mayor and council both opposed to increasing total pot of renovation dollars because the City has too much debt - approaching limit of amount of bonds we can have to maintain a good rating. In consumer terms we're too close to our credit limit and risking higher interest rates

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is ridiculous. We need more money for school modernizations so that we're not squabbling between one high need school and another. We should be able to do it all.
Who is standing in the way of increasing the total pot of modernization money?
Is it Mendelson? Bowser? These politicians need to stop blowing money on shenanigans like the streetcars and get back on track modernizing our schools.
I'm sick of hearing "not enough money".

Mayor and council both opposed to increasing total pot of renovation dollars because the City has too much debt - approaching limit of amount of bonds we can have to maintain a good rating. In consumer terms we're too close to our credit limit and risking higher interest rates

We wouldn't want money for schools to take away from the funds available for stadiums.

[Anonymous]

Being generous here, Grosso seems like he wants to change the prioritization from "squeaky wheel" schools that can do the dog and pony show (kids testifying, videos, etc) to a more objective process. Which is fine except in this case Shepherd is getting punished for being in the middle of its renovation, which makes no sense.

To be absurd to to prove point, say school X gets one set of classrooms done in it's renovation next year. Would this new formula drop them to the bottom of the list because they've got "some work" done?

[Anonymous]

How did Murch get money for underground parking then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did Murch get money for underground parking then?

What makes you think it did? Murch has no final design yet. Radio silence from DCPS on what is happening there. But the funding for the messed up swing space debacle is coming from the transportation budget.