At some point while listening to the February 9 PACE Act hearing, it occurred to me that although DGS and DCPS appeared to care less about the public trust in DC’s school buildings than, I don’t know, carrots in Idaho, they were not alone. 

For me, the tell was at the 1:50:55 mark of the hearing video, when Patrick Ashley—DCPS’s deputy chancellor of finance and operations—said that the closed DCPS school Winston in Ward 7 was no longer in the DCPS portfolio and “not one of our schools.”

The chair of the hearing and council, Phil Mendelson, appeared gobsmacked. After all, this was the facility that Ward 7 advocates had literally been hounding him about for a decade to re-open as a DCPS school. They were not the only ones envisioning a different fate for that long-closed building. For instance, recommendation 17 (on p. 26) of the March 2024 boundary report specified that DCPS should examine using Winston for an IB program, to help achieve parity in specialized DCPS programming EOTR. The next year, the FY26 budget support act specifically outlined how Winston could be considered for middle school dual language programming and delineated a feasibility study to be conducted on that topic for wards 7 and 8 by the deputy mayor for education (DME).

But there was little mention of any of that at the February 9 hearing. Nor was it mentioned that the draft of that dual language feasibility study was apparently never sent out to the public for comment nor a finalized version sent to the council (despite a due date for the latter of January 2026; still waiting as of this blog post). Nor was it mentioned that Winston itself silently disappeared from the DCPS portfolio sometime between February 2023 (when the 2022 supplement to the master facility plan came out and showed it as part of DCPS) and a year later, in March 2024 (when the latest 2023 MFP came out and listed Winston as part of DGS).

That February 9 hearing was ostensibly to review the PACE Act, which governs creation of a master facilities plan (MFP) and renovation prioritization in DCPS, and to consider new legislation that would include in that prioritization DCPS schools that had more rudimentary renovations (so-called phase 1 renovations and work done by the Army Corps). 

The PACE Act came about a decade after DC embarked on a plan to modernize DCPS buildings, many of which were frankly decrepit by the turn of the 21st century. Today, many of those renovated facilities are lovely, with better designed and healthier spaces. The idea of the PACE Act was to ensure some measure of equity in those renovations, which to that point were demonstrably inequitable. Updating the PACE Act now is a good idea, too, as its implementation has not always been equitable (see here, too) nor has it ensured a truly fulsome MFP.

But at that February 9 hearing, public witness testimony as well as council questioning of DCPS and DGS government witnesses made clear that DGS and DCPS do not appear to prioritize providing for the public healthy, safe, and well-constructed buildings, much less good value and recordkeeping about them. 

For instance, public witnesses testified about lack of temperature control, and poor design and quality, in modernized DCPS facilities—and, at CHEC, missing stair treads, broken door handles and stair rails, exposed wires, windows that do not work, and lack of bathroom stall locks. Then there are the DCPS schools subjected to Army Corps work even further back in time, which has had numerous issues. That Army Corps work has not been included in the PACE Act nor are apparently the earliest modernizations of this century, omissions that the new legislation aims to correct. 

Then, too, DGS is required to do facility condition assessments for all charter school facilities. As many charters occupy former DCPS buildings owned by DC and leased to those charters by DGS, this is (theoretically, at least) easy peasy. But DGS doesn’t do this. When asked about that lack of action (at the 2:30:20 mark of the video), the DGS representative had no good answer but promised to follow up. Despite numerous inquiries, as of this blog post I have gotten exactly nothing from council staff with any DGS response. 

None of this is a little thing: Almost 50% of DC school kids are in charter buildings for at least 6 hours of each of the school year’s 180 days. The condition of those buildings matters a great deal for a lot of people. As it is, all DC charter buildings are provided via DC taxpayers, by way of the facilities allowance each charter gets and the fact that at least 30 charter buildings are owned by DC and leased to those charters by DGS. But as at large council member Christina Henderson pointed out (at the 1:03:10 mark of the hearing), charters do not want DGS in their buildings. So charter facilities are for the most part officially ignored, apparently in a bid to appease the nonprofits occupying those buildings—even when the law and public interest demand otherwise.

To be clear, none of this uncaring is new. Whether with covid, HVAC, lead, door locks, and other hazards, DGS has a long and often appalling record of stewardship of DC public school facilities (for instance, see here and here and here and here). But if one were to identify a common denominator here, it might be incomprehensibly bad recordkeeping.

For instance, a substantial portion of government witness time on February 9 was devoted to an accounting of which DCPS schools had Army Corps work and which schools never had full modernizations. It remains unclear if anyone in DC has such an accounting. As it is, DGS has not kept fulsome (or possibly any) records of modernization credits or tracked down revenue charters owe it for subletting DC-owned facilities. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, documents recently produced by DGS in response to council 2026 performance oversight questions—one of DC-owned buildings (Q60) and one showing rental income and $0 leases (Q64)—leave off several publicly owned school buildings. 

For instance, on the tab “total income” on the Q64 spreadsheet, I could not find PR Harris (leased to Ingenuity Prep); Keene (leased to DC Bilingual); or Wilkinson (leased to DC Prep). While one could infer from this that those charter schools are not paying any rent for their DC-owned buildings, on the “$0 rent leases” tab of the Q64 spreadsheet I could not find either Keene or Wilkinson, and PR Harris appeared to have $0 rent only for a dumpster and utilities. By contrast, a 2024 FOIA production I received revealed that DC Bilingual had a $0 lease for Keene, and several FOIA productions I got in 2025 and 2026 revealed 100% abatement of rent for PR Harris (naturally, without any indication of what DC was getting for those rent credits). In keeping with this general disregard for the public, Winston was left off altogether. 

Regardless of how you want to parse this, at its root is erasure of the public in DC’s public school facilities–including nearly all DC school-age kids. But while none of this is new, the saga of Winston illuminates one of its apparent goals: moving public property to private hands.

Disappearing Winston

What prompted discussion of the closed DCPS school Winston at the February 9 hearing was council chair Phil Mendelson asking (at the 1 hour, 50 minute mark) about reports of it being not secured. Mendelson requested from DGS an assessment of its condition and assurance of it being locked. Seconds later, and without any prompting, DCPS’s Patrick Ashley disavowed DCPS involvement with the building. 

A few weeks after that on February 26, during a Ward 7 education council meeting, Chancellor Ferebee confirmed Ashley’s statement (see the video starting at minute 54). Ferebee noted that Winston’s transfer from DCPS to DGS may have come about because of vandalism.

But a week later, on March 5, at DGS’s performance oversight hearing (see the video here), confusion again reigned about who actually controlled Winston. 

For instance, at the 4:34:48 mark of the hearing, the chair of the facilities committee, Ward 4 council member Janeese Lewis George, asked whether Winston is in the DGS or DCPS portfolio. The head of DGS, Delano Hunter, said Winston was “technically a DCPS school” while noting security issues due to its vacancy. Then he noted that “there is a desire to surplus that property”—which would legally allow it to be offered to charters. 

(Remember, this statement occurred a full MONTH after 1. the chair of the council appeared confused about who controlled Winston and asked for more information about its security and condition; 2. DCPS disavowed involvement with Winston; and 3. DGS promised the council more information about Winston that has, to date, apparently never been provided.)

Lewis George went on to note that she had met with Ward 7 residents who said Winston was not secure and asked the DGS head for assurances of its security going forward. But literally within a minute of that request, the DGS director said that he wanted to “correct” his prior statement, with his “correction” being a note that the deputy mayor for education (DME) was conducting a dual language feasibility study that involved Winston.

So: Who got to Delano Hunter in a space of a minute during a live hearing? 

And, more importantly, why? 

An answer may be found a few days before the DGS director waffled about Winston at that March 5 hearing. 

Specifically on March 2, the DME held a hastily announced town hall on that dual language feasibility study (see the video here). The purpose of the study was to see how to create middle school pathways for dual language programming in wards 7 and 8. While the study itself has not yet been released, that town hall made clear that a number of things appeared to not be included in its analysis–despite statutory language outlining the study’s parameters (including the role of Winston). 

For instance, no one at the DME’s office apparently talked with ANY parent or teacher actually at DCPS’s three Ward 7 middle schools (Sousa, Kelly Miller, and Eliot-Hine). They did speak with “administration” at Kelly Miller and decided there was no room at that inn for a dual language program (so end of story for all Ward 7 DCPS middle schools). In addition, no one spoke with DCPS about having a dual language middle school specifically at Winston. And no one apparently made any attempt to specifically talk with anyone in Ward 8—no parents, no administrators, no teachers, no schools, nothing. 

By contrast, the DME’s people apparently spoke at length on this subject with Global Citizens and Stokes East End—two elementary charter schools with dual language EOTR in Ward 7, one of which (Global) just got approved on March 23 to relocate to the old Eagle Academy space at 1900 Half Street SW (notably, not EOTR). Despite the fact that the only entity with any experience running a middle school in this conversation is DCPS, and that residents had long asked for a DCPS middle school option EOTR for Houston’s dual language programming, the DME omitted that from the outline of options it considered. 

But wait–there’s more!

While the DME additionally omitted any discussion of DCPS’s experience at the middle school level with dual language (oh hey, MacFarland, CHEC, Oyster-Adams), the DME also did not show

—where kids attending the three dual language elementary programs in Ward 7 (Houston, Global Citizens, and Stokes East End) live and where they go to school after 5th grade;
—what dual language programs outside wards 7 and 8 are attended by those who live in those wards (not a small number, as there are currently more than 1600 such students preK through grade 8, per the DME’s data);
—feedback from parents whose children currently attend middle schools in wards 7 and 8; and
—any conversation with DCPS about having a dual language middle school at Winston by right with out of bounds seats for anyone elsewhere who wanted to join.

After ignoring all of that, the DME’s March 2 presentation concluded that the only way for a dual language middle school at Winston to take shape was—wait for it–as a charter school. (I’m shocked, shocked!) 

Notably, the DME’s point person for this presentation, Jennifer Comey, opined (at the 37 minute mark as well as at 58:30) on the deplorable physical condition of Winston (ie a “teardown”). This is astonishing, given that none of the materials the DME publishes about DC school buildings (and which Comey herself is directly responsible for) ever mentioned this! Now, to be fair, those materials barely even mentioned Winston at all—and as we saw from the oversight documents, DGS left it off altogether. But with Winston removed from DCPS’s inventory and under DGS control, giving it to a charter is easier to achieve—and if you rule out DCPS entirely in one way or another from this effort, it’s practically a done deal.

Now who did that removal of Winston from DCPS—and when and why—remains a mystery. 

At one point in late 2021 or early 2022, the mayor provided funds to demolish Winston and create a STEM center operated by DCPS (see the chancellor’s letter). A year later, in February 2023, the DME still listed Winston as part of DCPS (in the 2022 MFP supplement). But a year after that, in March 2024, the DME listed it as not part of DCPS (in the 2023 MFP). 

But this was not the only disappearing act of Winston in DME materials. For instance, what is linked on the website for the 2024 MFP supplement (released in August 2025) as Appendix 3 is actually a PDF document titled Appendix 1 “Designations of DCPS Facilities Currently Not in Educational Use” (See it here.) Notably, this PDF appendix does NOT list Winston–additional evidence that by August 2025, Winston had indeed been removed from DCPS.

Anyhoo, I tried to obtain by FOIA documents from DCPS between January 1, 2023 and February 2026 that might elucidate what happened to Winston in that critical interval. But not only did DCPS extend the deadline for that production, but the production I received showed only a few emails from 2025 and, incredibly, no information whatsoever about Winston. The production was almost entirely about one parent’s tireless effort to get a middle school dual language feeder for Chisholm (which notably is NOT in wards 7 or 8). 

That said, the production had (see p. 6 and p. 33) July 2025 communications from a DCPS spokesperson who referenced DCPS reaching out in fall 2025 to people EOTR about dual language pathways there. However, someone in Ward 7 told me that DCPS apparently met only briefly with Houston and Stokes—and nothing came of it. 

In the end, vandalism may have been a concern around Winston–but no vandals have ever accomplished using public funds to sideline a public building for private use completely out of the public eye. That kind of theft takes political might—and for that, DC leaders deliver. 

All In On Leveraging Public Property For Private Gain

At some point in the February 9 PACE Act hearing, at large council member Christina Henderson wondered aloud whether anyone on the council’s facilities committee was listening. This made sense on one level, given that oversight of school facilities is technically the purview of that committee and *not* the purview of the committee of the whole, which was holding the February 9 hearing.

But it also underscored the sheer vapidity with which oversight of DC school buildings is conducted. After all, both Henderson and Ward 3 council member Matt Frumin—among the few council members attending that February 9 hearing—together constitute HALF the facilities committee. Do the members of the committees not talk to one another about common issues? More importantly, the committee of the whole undertakes *all* oversight of DC’s public education, so the idea that another committee could (or should) have siloed school facilities is absurd.

In truth, that lack of coordination/conversation (caring?) allows a lot of bad stuff to happen at public expense–specifically, DC officials leveraging public school buildings for private gain under the auspices of planning.

Winston is hardly the first. Recall that public officials planned in private how to subvert the law to spirit away from DCPS the closed Kenilworth school to a charter. This is not theory—it happened, though you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in DC government who admits to knowing about it. 

The irony is that we know the Kenilworth offer happened only because the charter operator spilled the beans in public. The ostensible reason for the Kenilworth offer was to give a carrot to a charter to align its grades with a DCPS feeder, thus avoiding the ugly grade mismatch for middle school between charters and DCPS. It is not a coincidence that one of the people behind that carrot now serves on the DC charter board—and that absolutely no one involved who received a check from DC was ever admonished. 

In truth, if DC planners wanted to solve that charter/DCPS middle school grade mismatch, they could have done it decades ago or today—without involving any building! Similarly, if DC wanted to really support DCPS, it would not remove its buildings from its portfolio without informing the public ahead of time. Removing Winston now, and in this manner, ensures that if DCPS decides to try for a dual language middle school in Ward 7, it would likely have to compete with a charter to use what had been its own property. And what is the likelihood of DCPS doing that? 

In truth, this playing field is not just tilted, but so very well designed that every single DC official can swear on whatever holy book you have that it is NOT tilted–and no one in power will stand up to that lie. (Not for nothing did a DC school advocate once opine to me that DC’s mayor was just “Donald Trump in a skirt.”)

To be clear, DC does not lack for sensible, rational planning ideas for our school facilities. Here, for instance, is the February 9 testimony of a former council staffer with deep experience in school facilities. Everything he notes is sensible, publicly oriented, necessary, and achievable without any real cost to DC. 

Will any of it get done? History shows that the actions and instincts of DC officials around DC’s publicly owned and funded school facilities do not appear to prioritize public interest in that manner. If anything, they appear to do exactly the opposite. 

To wit:

1. The DME appears to be in the process of radically changing capacities for DCPS schools. Consider that Stuart-Hobson Middle School went from 450 (per the 2019 MFP) to 676 (2022) to 612 (the most recent MFP supplement). Never mind that the school cannot hold more than 500 students comfortably because of stairwell; hallway; and classroom limitations. And never mind that nothing has changed in any of that since fall 2015, when its renovation was finished, while no substantial work has ensued since.

So why the dramatic capacity change? 

Because increasing capacity without any hope of increasing enrollment commensurately pushes utilization down. Do that enough, and suddenly more buildings are available for closure and charter use.  

2. In response to my repeated questions over weeks to a variety of officials as to who does capacity assessments for DCPS; how these assessments are calculated (and what DCPS gives to DME for this purpose); and how often this process is repeated for DCPS schools, I have gotten absolutely nothing. 

Such obfuscation and nondisclosure permit a variety of actions that do not benefit the public, but can (and often do) benefit private actors.

3. In response to my repeated requests over weeks for information about the future of DCPS’s swing space and non-school buildings, I got run-arounds and, in the end, no good answers. To be clear, this is not a large list. 

Moreover, despite all the public hearings with DCPS and DGS personnel so far this year, what remained unspoken was the cost of future work and renovations of already renovated schools. It was as if no one wanted to even ideate about a future where DCPS would need swing spaces—even though renovations of schools with the earliest round of modernizations will occur in the next decade. As it is, information about what schools will use swing spaces remains unnecessarily controversial and restricted–and can be easily remedied as recommendation #4 of this testimony outlines.

Ensuring the public has only incomplete information around the future of empty and swing space buildings makes it easier to remove them from the public sphere, a la Kenilworth, Winston, and others (including Wilkinson).

4. Public money around DC’s school facilities is a huge portion of the annual budget and consistently handled in a manner against the public interest. 

For instance, the council recently refused to freeze increases in the charter facilities allowance, despite real budget pressures and no idea where the nearly $200 million DC gives charters annually for facilities goes. Likewise, on February 10 the mayor shared a slide presentation with the DC council that outlined expected reductions in the budget. It included (on p. 4) a statement that “moving all fixed costs out of DCPS and into DGS means a $32 million cut to charter schools.” 

On the one hand, this statement seems reasonable. But assuming that this represents an effective cut in both sectors is not reasonable, because DC agencies and leaders have no actual reporting to show what charters are spending on facilities annually—and thus no verification that this cut means charters are going without, well, anything. 

Moreover, if you look at this through how much overpayment charters receive for facilities (about $20 million/year), what the mayor outlined is not as much a cut as it is potentially $12 million less than DC charters are otherwise expected to receive AND spend in 1 year on their facilities. 

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that a government deeply committed to obfuscating about a very known and finite number of school facilities has never really embraced the reality of DCPS’s fundamentally different role from charters in public education. In the end, DGS and DCPS are hardly alone in erasing the public from DC school facilities.

(It takes a village, indeed.)