—On Wednesday September 6, the DC council will reconvene a hearing on DCPS food contracts. Recall back in August, council chair Phil Mendelson cancelled the hearing’s first iteration when DCPS didn’t provide the contracts (despite being legally required to do so). It is unclear whether the council has the contracts in hand now—and whether the council is willing to have (new) public witnesses sign up.

–The deputy mayor for education (DME) will hold town halls for the boundaries process on Tuesday September 26 (12 pm) and Wednesday September 27 (6 pm). More information on both is here, where it states that participants “will review the landscape of DCPS boundaries and student assignment analysis, provide feedback on potential policy tools, and receive an introduction to the online web tool.”

While I am unclear what, specifically, any of that means, it is helpful to recall that the boundaries advisory committee in June pushed back against holding these town halls in July, as the DME initially wanted. The committee noted (correctly) that many issues were not yet well formulated and that those presented for the proposed July town halls were clearly generated only by the DME’s office (not by, or even with, the advisory committee).

Now, because the advisory committee didn’t meet in August, what exactly will be discussed at this month’s boundary town halls may hinge on what the advisory committee discusses when they next meet, on Thursday September 14.

Or not—as the DME’s office seems adept at keeping the public, including its own boundaries advisory committee, out of the loop.

Consider that a decade ago, when school boundaries were last revised, the then-boundaries advisory committee started meeting at the end of October 2013 and continued into July 2014. Materials from early April 2014, created for public consumption by the (then) DME’s office, made clear what the various boundaries scenarios being considered were, with an explanation of what each would mean practically for DCPS first and charters (very) secondarily. The materials included maps of current and proposed boundaries, with a clear and direct focus on DCPS.

By contrast, the current boundaries advisory committee has already met for nearly 6 months, and no one at the DME’s office has given a hint to anyone (not even its own advisory committee!) what it is considering for possible changes to boundaries. The most anyone has gotten publicly out of the DME’s office is pushback on any suggestion of strengthening DCPS schools of right, with a threat of “harder conversations.”

Then, too, there is the purposeful disconnect by the DME of the boundaries advisory committee from the other, related, major project the DME is handling, the master facilities plan (MFP). Consider that at the July advisory committee meeting, planner Patrick Davis revealed that draft recommendations for the MFP would be released this month, in September, ahead of public town halls for the MFP on October 4 and 5 (see here for more information and to register) and before the boundaries advisory committee could weigh in.

So expect disabled chats at the upcoming town halls and no love for schools of right (even as a formerly unloved one just hosted our country’s president).

–DC’s buses to transport students with special needs are (again) late. Among the problems are lack of communication of delays and an apparent shortage of bus drivers (which is apparently not limited to DC). Parents of affected students are once again stretched thin.

–Despite legislation mandating a full-time nurse in every publicly funded school starting on August 1, 2018, DC is once again rationing school nurses. Almost exactly five years after that legislative deadline, DC officials held a town hall where they revealed that in SY23-24, schools would be grouped in geographically close clusters of four. Each cluster would have two nurses and two health technicians, with each school in the cluster assigned either a nurse or health technician. The reason cited for the rationing was a persistent shortage of nurses. Here are school assignments for the coming weeks as well as those for last week, courtesy of the charter board, which published this information in its August 30 Wednesday bulletin (which is, as of this blog post, not yet online at its website). I tried to find this information at DC Health’s website—and didn’t succeed, despite DC Health running the school nurse program.

–Terrible traffic issues around DC’s publicly funded schools are persisting this school year (see here and here, with a little relief here). Ironically, this is occurring while Kids Ride Free cards are inaccessible for all, with documentation that schools are running out. Contact this email (school.transit@dc.gov) if you suspect your school needs cards.

–Speaking of difficulties getting to school: DCPS’s new MacArthur high school in Ward 3 is miles away from the nearest metro station—but after the $100 million+ DC is pouring into it, at least it will have a cafeteria and many honors and AP classes. So yay for people outside Ward 3 commuting long distances so Ward 3 schools can have diversity. (No word on the diversity of the rest of DCPS.)

—Starting in June, Ward 4 council member Janeese Lewis George toured about a dozen DCPS facilities and reported back. The conclusion: nothing much has changed with needed repairs and lagging work on them. (See here and here for some examples from the first week of school.) The W4 council member could have added to her list of perennial problems shoddy work on past renovations. Case in point from the first week of school: peeling flashing at Watkins elementary, which rendered the main entrance of the school (renovated <10 years ago) unusable.

–After a very fast announcement of a public meeting, DC officials discussed the release of recent test scores in DC’s publicly funded schools. Read here for a good summary, while parent and education researcher Betsy Wolf unpacks what this means in the larger context (see also here and here for more excellent takes)—and contemplate what the modest gains mean in light of decades of education “reform.”

–A vice principal at KIPP DC’s college prep high school on Brentwood Parkway made a student lift her shirt because of an issue with the school’s metal detectors. (This story identifies the vice principal.)

—On June 7, BASIS DC made a presentation to an ANC6C committee about locating a new elementary school in the ANC. The presentation did not reveal exactly where the school would be, but the presenter said the school has 50 families in the ANC and was looking at 300 I NE, behind the Giant grocery.

This is not BASIS DC’s first attempt at an elementary school. Back in 2016, the school applied with the charter board to create a new elementary, but its unusual demographics for DC (hardly any students with disabilities, at risk, etc.) was noticed by the charter board and, shortly thereafter, the school withdrew its application.

That demographic issue is still present, as shown here in the most recent DC school report card. The school’s presentation at the ANC was long on how it is intended for “nerds,” while the head of the committee (who also is the chair of the ANC) opined that the “chief” concern is transportation. 

Fascinatingly, I put the information above in the chat for the ANC6C meeting, noting that the proposed location is also close to two DCPS elementaries. Shortly thereafter, I was barred from posting more in the chat. As of this blogpost today, the charter board website has no notice of BASIS DC’s intentions.