Reply to Charter school funding gap in FY27 budget

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DCPS is stuck with its buildings for the long term and has to plan for long term needs and deal with long term maintenance and compliance in 100+ year old buildings. It was a huge struggle for our school just to get the bathrooms made non-awful. GDS takes forever to fix anything. Being part of a larger system has really significant down sides.

Have you been inside Yu Ying, or the new Latin Cooper building? They're as nice as any, certainly way nicer than our Ward 5 Title I.

And of course, why invest in charter buildings when everyone, including the PCSB, is saying the sector is going to contract?[/quote]

Yes, those buildings are nice--and cost the schools specifcally money to build.

Have you been the Lafayette Elementary? Dorothy Heights? Both absolutely stunning.

Seen the giant project that Whittier is getting for their temporary campus during their remodel? Millions and millions of dollars so those kids don't have to ride a bus to a flex space.

DCPS schools are getting tons spent on their remodels. [/quote]

To add to your list: Burroughs and Bunker Hill too. Swing space is great. Remodel for Burroughs looks amazing.

And Brookland Middle might not be a great school, but it’s got a lovely building.  [/quote]

The new remodels are amazing. Those kids deserve those better buildings. If you've been here in DC a while, you know just how bad the buildings were (and in some places still are). The charter kids deserve decent facilities too. The people who hate charters (most who don't even have kids in schools) have made the issues into DCPS versus charters. When it should be here's what it takes to educate kids adequately and then make it fair across DCPS and charters.[/quote]

Yes I totally agree!

One thing I was thinking about after I posted that is whether the outcomes for DC kids are actually best served by looking at the budget going to schools. I've been really struck by the fact that schools here don't seem under-resourced. It's that there's a huge portion of kids whose home lives are difficult - because their parents are working three jobs and don't have time or energy to parent on top of that; because their housing situations aren't safe (a five year old was playing on the street yesterday afternoon and got shot...), etc. The schools (and particularly the teachers) then have to bear all of that, but their job should be to educate, not to correct for all of these other failures that have accumulated before the kid even opens the door.

My son and I were walking past a middle school the other day where this mother was just laying into her kid because she had to pick him up early. Screaming and swearing. He was barely even trying to defend himself by the end. My 3 year old started crying and snuggled up to me, looking for reassurance. Meanwhile, that poor middle school kid isn't going to trust his mom to take care of him or call her when he needs help; and she's probably totally frazzled because she's had to leave work early and doesn't know how she's going to pay the bills. I'm projecting, obviously, but I just wonder how much thought is given to how we serve DC kids outside of schools, and whether actually the budget and policies that would most impact school performance really have anything to do with schools at all.

Sorry... that was a long one. Just feeling a little heartbroken for kids here and for the way the discourse seems to play out on this platform of presumably well-meaning parents who want the best for DC. [/quote]

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