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WHAT HAPPENED?
Chancellor Ferebee shared his goal of making the DCPS budget more transparent and equitable and commitment to making sure families and communities understand how DCPS dollars are spent.
Here’s an overview of DCPS’s plan:
- Check out the Family and Community Guide to the DC Public Schools Budget where you can find:
- All school funding sources
- School-specific explanations of changes to school budgets
- Information about how central office funds are spent
- DCPS hosted two community budget forums last month and will continue to host Local School Advisory Team (LSAT) roundtables to get community input
- Throughout the winter and spring, the DCPS team is also evaluating their budget model to increase transparency, equitable, and sustainability of their budget by:
- Diving into what’s worked and what hasn’t - both in DC and nationwide
- Engaging all stakeholders in conversations to share their priorities on how DCPS should allocate their funds
- Creating a new budget model to be shared with the community in spring 2020 and implemented in Fiscal Year 2022
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WHAT WE STILL NEED
Families and communities should be at the center of all conversations about school funding at both DCPS central office and each individual school - with complete and accurate information available including program costs, private funding sources, and staff professional development.
We look forward to supporting DCPS as they engage with families and hope they continue to share robust and complete information about how school funding is spent and meaningfully incorporate community feedback to make school funding more equitable for all.
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Public Charter School Board (PCSB) Updates
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WHAT HAPPENED?
This past spring, PCSB announced their new School Transparency Policy to improve families’ access to information on DC public charter schools. The policy includes:
- More accessible information: Requirements for public charter schools to post a great deal of information on their websites including but not limited to:
- Charter school board meeting calendar and approved meeting minutes
- Student/family policies
- School budgets
- Description of at-risk funding plans
- Note: previously, this was not required for schools to complete!
- Uniform budgets: PCSB committed to working with OSSE and other stakeholders to develop a common chart of accounts (aka budget framework!) that will be required for when schools submit their budgets beginning with the 2020-21 school year.
They also introduced the Transparency Hub that houses school profiles, school financial information, school improvement plans, and more.
To provide families with more information about school contracts, PCSB created a searchable database of all contracts that are greater the $25,000. You can search by and see the school, vendor name, service provided, etc.
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WHAT WE STILL NEED
PCSB should work with families to carry out their commitment to create a common chart of accounts for all schools help inform what that framework should look like.
Additionally, as with all DCPS schools, we must push all of our public charter schools to include parent voice throughout their budget development process and include complete and accurate information about how they spend their funds!
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WHAT HAPPENED?
The Deputy Mayor of Education’s (DME) Office is studying the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) and the weights included to inform recommendations about what funding would be necessary to truly support our students at school.
**The results will likely be shared in very soon - so be on the lookout!**
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#ParentProrities Included in Proposed Legislation!
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WHAT HAPPENED?
Councilmember David Grosso introduced the “School Financial Transparency Amendment Act” which was unanimously co-sponsored by the Council.
The bill includes many of the priorities outlined in PAVE parents’ Statement of Beliefs:
- Uniform budget reporting format for all DCPS and public charter schools
- More detailed budget information (including more information about at-risk funding and school programs)
- Requiring meetings to inform the public
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WHAT WE STILL NEED
Even though a hearing was held on the bill over the summer, Chairman Mendelson, who controls what the Committee of the Whole will vote on, has not yet brought the bill to a Committee of the Whole meeting.
This means there hasn’t been a Council vote on whether or not to pass the bill into law.
We need your help to get a vote scheduled!! Click on Today's Action Item below to tell Chairman Mendelson you want him to schedule a vote.
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TODAY'S ACTION ITEM
Want to take action TODAY? Tweet at Chairman Mendelson to ask him to schedule a vote on the School Financial Transparency Amendment Act - legislation that was largely informed by parent leaders!!
**Click HERE to tweet NOW!!**
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Keep in touch! Sign up to join the PAVE listserv.
Do you have events and opportunities to share with PAVE?
Email us at info@dcpave.org.
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PAVE (Parents Amplifying Voices in Education) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that connects, informs, and empowers parent leaders to give families in DC a voice and a choice in the vision for education in our city. PAVE's goal is to create an education system in which parents are partners in developing a diversity of safe, nurturing, and great schools for every child in every ward and community.
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