Not sure what announcements will be made this week other than city giving a long-term lease on the closed Keene Elementary School to DC Bilingual Public Charter School. Must be why they chose this location for the event.
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 29, 2017
CONTACT:
Susana Castillo (EOM) – (202) 727-5011; susana.castillo@dc.gov
Shayne Wells (DME) – (202) 215-8384; shayne.wells@dc.gov
Mayor Bowser to Kick Off Education Week, Announce Change to DC’s School Lottery System
(WASHINGTON, DC) – On Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Deputy Mayor for Education Jennifer Niles will kick off Education Week in Washington, DC. The week will be marked by a series of events that highlight how the Bowser Administration is accelerating the pace of school reform in DC.
At Monday’s event, Mayor Bowser will announce a change to DC’s school lottery system for the 2018-2019 school year, as well as make a series of policy announcements.
WHEN:
Monday, January 30, at 10:30 a.m.
WHO:
Mayor Muriel Bowser
Jennifer Niles, Deputy Mayor for Education
Scott Pearson, Executive Director of DC Public Charter School Board
WHERE:
DC Bilingual Public Charter School
33 Riggs Road, NE
*Closest Metro: Fort Totten Metro Station*
*Bus Lines: 60, 64, E4, K2, K6, R1, R2*
educationdc 
According to the press release dated today, January 30, the policy announcements made at the event announced above all concern the expansion of charter schools.
— A “walkability preference” is to be given in the school lottery that will “enable a public charter elementary school to offer a preference in admission to families living within a half mile of the charter school and more than a half a mile away from their DCPS-zoned school.” It would be optional and go into effect in the 2018-2019 SY.
–a 2.2% annual increase to charter schools facilities allotment
–the Keene school will be “awarded” to the charter school in Ward 4 where the announcements were made
–P.R.Harris will go the the charter school incubator initiative to be developed for two charter schools in Ward 8.
— Winston Education Campus and Fletcher-Johnson Middle School, both in Ward 7, will be the subject of community meetings in February about solicitations for them and those solicitations will be available to charter schools.
In addition, the press release mentions Expanding Access to Data and Information. The first of its three points has a link to a document entitled “Fact Sheets-Public Education Supply and Demand for the District of Columbia.
The whole is at dc.gov/mayor but even the above is enough to show a decided preference on the mayor’s part for a particular kind of school and one that follows in former mayor Gray’s footsteps with his charter school DME and their infamous IFF study that talked endlessly in the language of “supply and demand” and “high quality seats” and that it doesn’t matter if they are DCPS or charter schools, only that a neighborhood cluster has enough of them.
Is this the acceleration of school reform? Yes, according to the mayor’s definition of school reform, but it is undoubtedly not what the parents of students in DCPS have in mind at all!
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