Petition to DC Council for FY 2024 Charter School Budgets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what our charters are supposed to do under DC and federal education law. Each charter is an independent local education agency (LEA) and, therefore, responsible for all IDEA compliance. For large charters with multiple schools (like DC Prep, KIPP or Friendship) they may have just one self contained classroom for all of their schools. However, single site charters (like E.L. Haynes, Yu Ying, DCI, and the vast majority of other charter schools) are responsible for delivering the same special education services as DCPS. (With the exception that both charter LEAs and DCPS can petition to OSSE for a private placement in certain circumstances).

This wasn't always the case, it used to be that charter schools could elect to have DCPS serve as the LEA for special education. However, that was repealed about 5 years ago (well before COVID). It is actually really inefficient, but I'm not sure I disagree with them having the obligations...assuming they can be funded equally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

How would you guarantee the increase in budget would go to teacher salaries? There is not guarantee that all that money would go to salaries. The lack of oversight and wanting an independent organization makes taxpayers such as myself wary of giving a bunch of money to charters.




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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what our charters are supposed to do under DC and federal education law. Each charter is an independent local education agency (LEA) and, therefore, responsible for all IDEA compliance. For large charters with multiple schools (like DC Prep, KIPP or Friendship) they may have just one self contained classroom for all of their schools. However, single site charters (like E.L. Haynes, Yu Ying, DCI, and the vast majority of other charter schools) are responsible for delivering the same special education services as DCPS. (With the exception that both charter LEAs and DCPS can petition to OSSE for a private placement in certain circumstances).

This wasn't always the case, it used to be that charter schools could elect to have DCPS serve as the LEA for special education. However, that was repealed about 5 years ago (well before COVID). It is actually really inefficient, but I'm not sure I disagree with them having the obligations...assuming they can be funded equally.

Right, see, that law could change. As long as we're imagining various scenarios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

How would you guarantee the increase in budget would go to teacher salaries? There is not guarantee that all that money would go to salaries. The lack of oversight and wanting an independent organization makes taxpayers such as myself wary of giving a bunch of money to charters.




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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

I said they can match DCPS' quality. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should be more supportive of DCPS.

If you want more space there's always trailers, like DCPS uses. Or dividing across multiple buildings, like DCPS does. Or utilizing less than ideal spaces, like DCPS does. It's a bit rich to complain about money but refuse to implement the solutions that DCPS has to use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

How would you guarantee the increase in budget would go to teacher salaries? There is not guarantee that all that money would go to salaries. The lack of oversight and wanting an independent organization makes taxpayers such as myself wary of giving a bunch of money to charters.



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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

I said they can match DCPS' quality. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should be more supportive of DCPS.

If you want more space there's always trailers, like DCPS uses. Or dividing across multiple buildings, like DCPS does. Or utilizing less than ideal spaces, like DCPS does. It's a bit rich to complain about money but refuse to implement the solutions that DCPS has to use.

Nope- you said No, you said "You can lower your quality to DCPS levels-- honestly, that's a big part of the difference." You can literally read it in your pp.

And I am hugely supportive of DCPS- I send one of my kids there, volunteer on the LSAT, and show up for DCPS hearings/groups, etc.

You are so wrong to think that charters don't use trailers, or divide across multiple buildings. The occupancy study across all schools found that DCPS has major underutilization (esp. at the high school level).

Unfortunately, I don't think you are very in to backing up your statements with any data (and you don't seem to know much about the charter sector's very real challenges with facilities, staffing, and all of the other challenges DCPS faces). I find it stunning that people are so intrenched in a political point of view that you would want the teachers and children in those schools to get less funding....mind blowing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what our charters are supposed to do under DC and federal education law. Each charter is an independent local education agency (LEA) and, therefore, responsible for all IDEA compliance. For large charters with multiple schools (like DC Prep, KIPP or Friendship) they may have just one self contained classroom for all of their schools. However, single site charters (like E.L. Haynes, Yu Ying, DCI, and the vast majority of other charter schools) are responsible for delivering the same special education services as DCPS. (With the exception that both charter LEAs and DCPS can petition to OSSE for a private placement in certain circumstances).

This wasn't always the case, it used to be that charter schools could elect to have DCPS serve as the LEA for special education. However, that was repealed about 5 years ago (well before COVID). It is actually really inefficient, but I'm not sure I disagree with them having the obligations...assuming they can be funded equally.

Right, see, that law could change. As long as we're imagining various scenarios.

True, but I'm not really imagining scenarios. I'm talking about what we have NOW and the funding before council NOW. Have the hearing, change the laws, by all means. But you can't do that before the budget has to be passed in a month or so.

Since we can't and even though it is less than perfect, how about we just make sure to fund all of our schools via the UPSFF (like the law says and the city has done for the past 10+ years) instead of changing the rules and ripping the rug out from underneath our charters as they recover from the same learning losses and struggles our DCPS schools have?

To be clear, I don't think the current system works. It is flawed and deserves a public examination. That won't happen under the gun of the budget process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

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.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what our charters are supposed to do under DC and federal education law. Each charter is an independent local education agency (LEA) and, therefore, responsible for all IDEA compliance. For large charters with multiple schools (like DC Prep, KIPP or Friendship) they may have just one self contained classroom for all of their schools. However, single site charters (like E.L. Haynes, Yu Ying, DCI, and the vast majority of other charter schools) are responsible for delivering the same special education services as DCPS. (With the exception that both charter LEAs and DCPS can petition to OSSE for a private placement in certain circumstances).

This wasn't always the case, it used to be that charter schools could elect to have DCPS serve as the LEA for special education. However, that was repealed about 5 years ago (well before COVID). It is actually really inefficient, but I'm not sure I disagree with them having the obligations...assuming they can be funded equally.

Right, see, that law could change. As long as we're imagining various scenarios.

True, but I'm not really imagining scenarios. I'm talking about what we have NOW and the funding before council NOW. Have the hearing, change the laws, by all means. But you can't do that before the budget has to be passed in a month or so.

Since we can't and even though it is less than perfect, how about we just make sure to fund all of our schools via the UPSFF (like the law says and the city has done for the past 10+ years) instead of changing the rules and ripping the rug out from underneath our charters as they recover from the same learning losses and struggles our DCPS schools have?

To be clear, I don't think the current system works. It is flawed and deserves a public examination. That won't happen under the gun of the budget process.

NP but DCPS isn’t getting extra money because of learning loss and no one is ripping the rug out from underneath charters. They are not being given less money than previous years- DCPS is specifically paying teachers more money. It’s not as if DCPS schools are getting a windfall of cash to fix facilities or hire more staff. They will have to continue to deal with learning loss from the pandemic without extra resources. The only difference is that their students don’t have parents who apply through a lottery months before the school year starts. You are being disingenuous if you don’t think that puts charters at an advantage already in terms of engaged parents.

[Anonymous]

Amazing how much people argue over pennies in the budget.

Let the charter teachers get paid. Teaching is not easy, doesnt matter where you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

How would you guarantee the increase in budget would go to teacher salaries? There is not guarantee that all that money would go to salaries. The lack of oversight and wanting an independent organization makes taxpayers such as myself wary of giving a bunch of money to charters.



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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

I said they can match DCPS' quality. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should be more supportive of DCPS.

If you want more space there's always trailers, like DCPS uses. Or dividing across multiple buildings, like DCPS does. Or utilizing less than ideal spaces, like DCPS does. It's a bit rich to complain about money but refuse to implement the solutions that DCPS has to use.

Nope- you said No, you said "You can lower your quality to DCPS levels-- honestly, that's a big part of the difference." You can literally read it in your pp.

And I am hugely supportive of DCPS- I send one of my kids there, volunteer on the LSAT, and show up for DCPS hearings/groups, etc.

You are so wrong to think that charters don't use trailers, or divide across multiple buildings. The occupancy study across all schools found that DCPS has major underutilization (esp. at the high school level).

Unfortunately, I don't think you are very in to backing up your statements with any data (and you don't seem to know much about the charter sector's very real challenges with facilities, staffing, and all of the other challenges DCPS faces). I find it stunning that people are so intrenched in a political point of view that you would want the teachers and children in those schools to get less funding....mind blowing.

NP and I’m glad you are a supporter of DCPS but I would guess you are a supporter of a ward 3 school or your kid is in PK or K. My guess is you don’t see the real challenges many DCPS schools face in terms of student population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I don’t think so. Tell your charter board to increase teacher salaries if you don’t like current pay structures. Charter teachers should unionize if they want the collective bargaining power that the WTU has. Why on earth should they benefit from the DCPS union’s efforts if they choose not to unionize (MV aside)?

Some context for anyone who’s trying to figure out what this is about: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1109459.page

This is silly. Salaries can't be increased independent of funding. The salaries of the unionized charter school are lower than the other charters. It isn't that the union isn't effective, they just can't raise salaries to compete with other charters (or DCPS) without getting equivalent funding.

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.

How would you guarantee the increase in budget would go to teacher salaries? There is not guarantee that all that money would go to salaries. The lack of oversight and wanting an independent organization makes taxpayers such as myself wary of giving a bunch of money to charters.



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...

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.

WHAT? Did you just say these public charter schools (that serve majority black and brown kids across the city) should just lower the quality of instruction? Wow.

Also, charters can't just "apply" for an enrollment cap increase. That whole process wasn't even available for the last two cycles due to PCSB changing the rules and not offering the opportunity last year. Also, the enrollment ceilings for most schools aren't just willy-nilly- they match the legal occupancy of your buildings. Of course we want to have more students, but our school facilities are very different than DCPS- we don't have large underutilization in most charter schools.

I do agree- the place to cut would be consultants, admin, and CMOs (for the ONE CHARTER IN DC THAT PAYS A CMO). However, that isn't going to get you very far when it comes to raising teacher salaries to mirror DCPS.

I understand being flummoxed by the situation. I wish the Mayor decided to do this the same way it was done the last two times there was a WTU increase and put the funds through the UPSFF. There is a lot of historical precedent for the city following the law around equitable funding after large WTU increases. These are operational funds and should, by law, go through the funding mechanism. If they want to change that- change the law, but that will require public discourse. Not just a budget hearing.

I said they can match DCPS' quality. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should be more supportive of DCPS.

If you want more space there's always trailers, like DCPS uses. Or dividing across multiple buildings, like DCPS does. Or utilizing less than ideal spaces, like DCPS does. It's a bit rich to complain about money but refuse to implement the solutions that DCPS has to use.

Nope- you said No, you said "You can lower your quality to DCPS levels-- honestly, that's a big part of the difference." You can literally read it in your pp.

And I am hugely supportive of DCPS- I send one of my kids there, volunteer on the LSAT, and show up for DCPS hearings/groups, etc.

You are so wrong to think that charters don't use trailers, or divide across multiple buildings. The occupancy study across all schools found that DCPS has major underutilization (esp. at the high school level).

Unfortunately, I don't think you are very in to backing up your statements with any data (and you don't seem to know much about the charter sector's very real challenges with facilities, staffing, and all of the other challenges DCPS faces). I find it stunning that people are so intrenched in a political point of view that you would want the teachers and children in those schools to get less funding....mind blowing.

NP and I’m glad you are a supporter of DCPS but I would guess you are a supporter of a ward 3 school or your kid is in PK or K. My guess is you don’t see the real challenges many DCPS schools face in terms of student population.

Welp- you would be wrong My kid attends a W4 school and previously one in W5- had kids in DCPS since 2009. I am also a volunteer at a W5 and W8 school and financially give to schools in both sectors. I have my flaws, but I have generally put my money where my mouth is when it comes to avoiding the W3 education cluster bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how much people argue over pennies in the budget.

Let the charter teachers get paid. Teaching is not easy, doesnt matter where you are.

+1 charter teachers are responsible for teaching almost 50% of the kids in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how much people argue over pennies in the budget.

Let the charter teachers get paid. Teaching is not easy, doesnt matter where you are.

+1 charter teachers are responsible for teaching almost 50% of the kids in DC.

+1000 and a majority of those kids are low income…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how much people argue over pennies in the budget.

Let the charter teachers get paid. Teaching is not easy, doesnt matter where you are.

+1 charter teachers are responsible for teaching almost 50% of the kids in DC.

+1000 and a majority of those kids are low income…

Charter teachers can organize and demand better pay and hours. DCPS teachers pay dues out of each paycheck to have the union negotiate on their behalf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing how much people argue over pennies in the budget.

Let the charter teachers get paid. Teaching is not easy, doesnt matter where you are.

+1 charter teachers are responsible for teaching almost 50% of the kids in DC.

This is misleading. To get to the “almost 50%” number you have to include adult ed, where the charter sector dominates. People enrolled in adult ed are not “kids.”