As you possibly did (not) hear, last week 3 DCPS parents (including me ;-), 2 DCPS students, and 1 DCPS teacher filed a lawsuit to ensure the mayor follows the law in her search for the next DCPS chancellor by including actual DCPS stakeholders in her advisory panel, as the spirit (and letter!) of the law require.

That is, DC law requires that the DCPS chancellor search be conducted through “a review panel of teachers, including representatives of the Washington Teachers Union, parents, and students (‘panel’) to aid the mayor in his or her selection of the chancellor.”

Having delayed the chancellor search until after the primary, the mayor appointed at the end of June a 14-member review panel that includes only four participants labeled as “parents” (and only one named a “DCPS parent”), one DCPS student, and one DCPS teacher. On what is supposed to be a panel OF teachers, parents and students, less than a majority fall within those categories. The panel even includes a charter school government relations specialist.

The D.C. Superior Court case number is 2018 CA 005755 B; a hearing on a temporary restraining order has been scheduled for September 4, 2018, at 11 AM.

In the meantime, C4DC has been urging the council to seek feedback from DCPS stakeholders, which has resulted in good ideas from the public. And there are scheduled public listening sessions as well.

But as nice (and necessary) as those things are, it’s not quite the same thing as the law states, wherein those people most affected by the chancellor–DCPS parents, teachers, and students–constitute the panel, which then reviews resumes and advises the mayor directly.

(That didn’t happen the last time–and we know how that turned out.)

To be sure, the lawsuit could end any time: all the mayor has to do is reconstitute the panel according to the law while ensuring that the panel does what the law says (i.e., review all resumes and meet with the mayor).

Stay tuned.