Reply to Empower DC Releases Internal DCPS School Closure Emails

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[quote=Anonymous]Hello this is Daniel from Empower DC, we are a grassroots organizing group that has been working in the District for over 10 years now, our Education campaign focuses on working with DCPS parents to save and improve Public Education here in DC, we work primarily with parents of DCPS students (however many of the parents we work with have children in both public and charter)and one big piece of our work has been working to stop school closures, so as mentioned in the initial post we filed a lawsuit in 2013 to stop the school closures then Mayor Gray and Chancellor Henderson eventually carried out.

[b]Why are we releasing the emails? [/b] We are releasing these emails so folks can get a really good glimpse of how the school closure process worked internally at the DCPS central office.  We are clear that our traditional matter of right neighborhood public schools are under attack by external privatization forces and through these emails we have found what we believe to be proof that this is true.  But as someone on this thread said "make of it what you will", review them for yourselves.  I am aware that the amount of emails is daunting but there are many conversations in these emails that at the very least raise many a question.

If you have questions or would like to share anything you find as you read through them please feel free to contact me at Daniel@empowerdc.org or call 202-234-9119 xt. 104

One of the many emails we had questions about is email number 001352 (note that each email exchange is an individual PDF titled with a Bates number in this case 001352)- an exchange between Peter Weber (DCPS Chief of Strategy)and Catherine Townsend former ED of the DC Public Education Fund, who's subject line is Donor Briefing Agenda - on the second page of this email document we saw one of the non-public reasons for closing schools:

WTU Contract
? As you all know, DCPS has reached the end of the latest WTU contract. While we are engaging in negotiations
with WTU, the contract will remain in place.
? Over the life of the contract, we learned a great deal and made significant improvements.
? For example:
o We made significant modifications to IMPACT prior to the start of school this year. These improvements
respond to teacher concerns without reducing the quality of IMPACT as an evaluation tool.
o We have made investments in the career ladder for teachers first with LIFT and more recently through a
Teacher Incentive Fund grant.
[b]o We have absorbed the cost of the WTU contract into our local budget. Closing schools and improving
our strategic use of resources as mentioned previously will help us continue to fund these investments.[/b]

[/quote]

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