Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Has anyone seen this bonkers newsletter from Eric Goulet, the Ward 3 SBOE rep? It’s a very lengthy piece about how DCPS is now throwing people out of of kindergarten following a Ward wide age audit? Doesn’t seem like DCPS would have its act together to pull something like that off. Are the Lafayette moms behind this? Newsletter was posted on the CC Listseve, which is sort of tabloid like on a good day.
Yes, it was on the Tenleytown one too. Here it is for those interested:
This edition of the Ward 3 DC State Board of Education (SBOE) newsletter focuses on troubling actions by Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and DC Public School (DCPS) leadership that are needlessly traumatizing DC families who just want to send their children to kindergarten next fall. DCPS has abruptly changed policy regarding kindergarten age of enrollment without notice, informed families their children must skip kindergarten and go directly to first grade, and has retaliated against families who pushed back by reporting them to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect. If any family, who has not already been working with me on this issue, has been impacted by these actions, please reach out to me at
eric.goulet@dc.gov.
BACKGROUND ON DC KINDERGARTEN ENROLLMENT
The District of Columbia has one of the youngest ages in the country at which a child is eligible for kindergarten enrollment. In DC, a child is required to turn five on or before September 30th to be eligible to attend kindergarten. With such a young eligibility age, for decades, some parents with youth who have summer birthdays have decided it was necessary to defer kindergarten enrollment due to academic delays or maturity issues.
Maryland and Virginia, which have age cutoffs of September 1st and September 30th, allow a parent to delay kindergarten enrollment for up to one year with a written request for a maturity exception. A Maryland deferral request requires enrollment in a childcare or pre-K program, while a Virginia parent’s deferral request just needs to include documentation supporting enrollment delay. In the District of Columbia, prior to this year, principals have always utilized the discretion provided in the DC Municipal Regulations (2201.6) to ensure students who are not proficient or who have developmental delays in physical, social or emotional maturity are placed in the appropriate grade level, thus allowing children completing Pre-K4 to progress to kindergarten.
Due to school overcrowding, Ward 3 is the only ward in the District of Columbia that has no DCPS Pre-K3, and it has very limited public options through one charter school and community-based pre-k. Thus, many families are forced to enroll students in private or parochial pre-kindergarten programs. Historically, many of these facilities simply have aligned enrollment based upon the child’s age at the start of the school year, and have applied for licenses that are consistent with serving 3- and 4-year-olds in Pre-K 3 and serving 4- and 5-year-olds in Pre-K4. Thus, a student would need to turn three before starting Pre-K3 at a private school, whereas they often needs to turn three by September 30th to enroll in public Pre-K3. This one-month enrollment misalignment has never been an issue, prior to this year, because a Pre-K4 graduate was always just allowed to advance to kindergarten as the next logical step in their education.
Lastly, I know of an example, where a family moved into DC from a state with a kindergarten age cutoff of September 1st. Since the child has a mid-September birthday, this child was unable to register for kindergarten in the state from which they moved. Historically, upon moving to DC, this family would have been offered the choice of whether they wanted to attend first grade in DC (since DC has a September 30 age cutoff) or whether they wanted the opportunity to attend kindergarten.
Again, there was never a problem with kindergarten enrollment prior to this year. Principals were allowed to exercise their discretion to place children in the appropriate grade based on the child’s academic progress and development.
DCPS LEADERSHIP ABUSES ITS DISCRETION AND INTIMIDATES AND TRAUMATIZES DC FAMILIES
The unfortunate situation at issue began at Lafayette Elementary School with Principal Katie Prall. Some may remember this principal for restricting outdoor recess this past December after alleging the play area was “slippery”. Principal Prall did not utilize the guidance in DC regulations regarding proficiency and physical, social or emotional development to base her decisions. She refused to allow students with birthdays before October 1st to advance from Pre-K4 to Kindergarten, and instead said these students must skip kindergarten and enroll in first grade. Cinthia Ruiz, DCPS Chief Integrity Officer; Andria Caruthers, DCPS Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 4; and Chancellor Lewis Ferebee then became involved.
Parents explained that the guidance in DC Regulations has always been used by principals across DC for decades to place children graduating from Pre-K4 into kindergarten. Unfortunately, rather than understanding that these children should not be forced to skip kindergarten due to an abrupt DCPS policy shift, DCPS decided to escalate matters.
(1) DCPS ordered an age audit of all Ward 3 elementary schools and began disenrolling children that had already previously been enrolled in kindergarten.
(2) Chancellor Ferebee and his staff ordered families to pull their children from the 5-day-a-week Pre-K programs they were attending, with two months left in the school year, and to enroll in DCPS kindergarten. When parents refused, DCPS retaliated by reporting the parents to the DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) for child neglect due to purported truancy.
(3) DCPS refused to allow families moving in from other states, whose children could not previously attend kindergarten, to be able to attend this year.
(4) Chancellor Ferebee voided enrollment deferrals, which were already approved by DCPS in School Year 2024-2025 to allow students with developmental delays to attend Pre-K4 instead of kindergarten. Even though these students were found, by DCPS, to not be developmentally ready for kindergarten this year, the Chancellor is now forcing these children to skip kindergarten, despite clear evidence that these children are not academically proficient or developmentally prepared to attend 1st grade. Once a developmental waiver to hold a student back a year is approved by DCPS, it should never be rescinded, forcing the child to skip a grade.
(5) Chancellor Ferebee has refused to assess academic proficiency or physical, social or emotional development before voiding prior age-waivers already granted by DCPS or to even provide assessments this spring. The Chancellor’s position is that he will assess the children in the fall as first graders, after they are forced to skip kindergarten, and if they struggle, then DCPS says it will consider demoting the children to kindergarten.
Some families just received notices of kindergarten disenrollment last week. Parents are understandably confused, panicked, and traumatized. None of these actions by DCPS are in the best interests of these children. This is intentional cruelty and retaliation by Chancellor Ferebee and DCPS leadership against parents who advocated for the best interests of their children. For months, parents have tried to work with the Chancellor, and all he has done is escalate his retaliation to harm more families. The Chancellor’s decision to report families with five-year-old-children attending five-day-a-week Pre-K4 to DC’s child protective service for neglect is unnecessary, chilling, and indefensible.
If a drastic change in DCPS kindergarten enrollment policy was contemplated, DCPS should have provided advance notice to pre-k facilities and to parents. Some impacted parents testified at our State Board of Education meeting that if they had any idea that DCPS was going to remove the enrollment discretion from its principals that had existed for decades, then they would have enrolled their children in kindergarten this year, instead of enrolling in Pre-K4.
SOLUTIONS
There is a very straightforward short-term solution to this, and I have drafted emergency legislation that will solve the immediate problem. None of these families have done anything wrong, and their children should not be victims of DCPS’s poor planning, lack of notice, and sudden policy change. Every one of these children should be allowed to attend kindergarten in School Year 2025-2026. Further, since students have already enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs for next school year, children completing Pre-K4 in 2026 should also be allowed to next attend kindergarten in the 2026-2027 school year. The DC State Board of Education can approve the transmission of this legislation to the DC Council, and then it will be up to the Council to approve the legislation on an emergency basis. SBOE will vote on the transmission of the bill either this week or the following week. The legislation also provides that no family can be reported by DCPS for child neglect, while their child is attending a pre-k program.
There must also be a long-term fix to prevent further confusion and trauma in School Year 2027-2028 and beyond. DC should either align enrollment dates between private and public pre-k providers, or at least provide clear guidance to parents. DC must have a fair and reliable process for families with children who have developmental delays to request waivers. This solution should be developed in a thoughtful manner over the next six months and should include early childhood development experts. After a policy is set for School Year 2027-2028, there should be clear communication with private and parochial pre-k schools and parents. In some cases, pre-k facilities may want to change their licensure to also become licensed to serve 2-year-olds with September birthdays in Pre-K3.
REMINDER TO AFFECTED FAMILIES
I’d like to reiterate what I said at the beginning. If you are a family who has been told your child must skip kindergarten, or who DCPS has reported to CFSA for truancy and educational child neglect, please reach out to me at
eric.goulet@dc.gov. I can only imagine how scared and frustrated you must be, but there are still people who want help ensure your child gets to attend kindergarten this coming fall.
Lastly, on Memorial Day, I want to express my gratitude and remember those who gave their lives to serve our nation. My sincere condolences to the friends and family of fallen heroes.
Sincerely,
Eric Goulet
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