Bethune Issues

[Anonymous]

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/20987453/different-regulations-govern-dcs-publicly-funded-prek-programs quotes 2 parents who removed kids from Bethune this year.

Not really addressed in the article is the fact that not all the kids in PK3 at Bethune are 3 years old, at least not early in the year. I bet a pretty high percentage are in fact older 2s because Bethune is the only place that will take them (I know a family that used to go there who only entered the lottery for Bethune, and then entered the lottery for a second year of free PK3 the following year). So a private day care would have had to have an even lower ratio than the story mentions for 3 year olds.

It doesn't seem that the PCSB is going to do anything about this--either require discipline for the teacher, require Bethune to stop taking kids younger than any other charter for PK3, or impose ratios.

[Anonymous]

Part of me thinks that anyone who enrolls their child in Bethune, which is notoriously weak on the administrative side, should not be surprised.

Hopefully the parents bothered to complain to the Bethune Board in writing and cc'd the PCSB. The 5 year charter review is the point of leverage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of me thinks that anyone who enrolls their child in Bethune, which is notoriously weak on the administrative side, should not be surprised.

Hopefully the parents bothered to complain to the Bethune Board in writing and cc'd the PCSB. The 5 year charter review is the point of leverage.

The article says: In an email sent to the charter’s board of directors, as well as the DC Public Charter School Board, [one of the parents] wrote that “the level of neglect, lack of safety, and disregard by all others needs to be addressed at the highest level.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of me thinks that anyone who enrolls their child in Bethune, which is notoriously weak on the administrative side, should not be surprised.

Hopefully the parents bothered to complain to the Bethune Board in writing and cc'd the PCSB. The 5 year charter review is the point of leverage.

Simply by following on this board, I tend to agree...however, if the public has that sort of overall opinion about a charter school you has to ask about quality control of the charter board.

[Anonymous]

Bethune is a low Tier 2 school (scored 39% out of 100 in 2017 and a middling Tier 2 before that.

Its QSR was also weak.
http://www.dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/report/MMBethune%20QSR%20Fall2014-signed_Redacted.pdf

The data is readily available, but too few bother to look in their excitement over "free" PK3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of me thinks that anyone who enrolls their child in Bethune, which is notoriously weak on the administrative side, should not be surprised.

Hopefully the parents bothered to complain to the Bethune Board in writing and cc'd the PCSB. The 5 year charter review is the point of leverage.

Simply by following on this board, I tend to agree...however, if the public has that sort of overall opinion about a charter school you has to ask about quality control of the charter board.

That isn't the role of the charter board. They explicitly don't have that power -- perhaps they should, but that would require legislative change and more resources.

The PCSB has oversight of charter school's finances and does periodic qualitative reviews (including the PMF reviews yearly and the QSRs -- which are more frequent for Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools). But the charter law gives the quality control power to each school's board.

[Anonymous]

The charter school board does not care about the ages of the kids in their PK3 class. I know, I asked.