The council seems to be rather, uh, slow in scheduling hearings this fall, but here’s what I know about as of this blog post:

October 8, 10:30 am: Out of service elevators in DCPS

This hearing is for invited witnesses only, but the public can submit written testimony. From the council write-up:

“At the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year, a number of school communities reached out to Council expressing frustration and concern about non-operable elevators in their school buildings. Functioning elevators are not just a convenience; they are a matter of access. Students with disabilities’ civil rights are violated when they cannot access their legally mandated free and appropriate education due to broken elevators. The Committee is deeply concerned that the Department of General Services (DGS) and District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) have not been able to ensure a basic and critical service such as elevator maintenance. For many schools, the broken elevators were not a surprise, as the schools had notified DGS and DCPS months, if not years, before the school year began. The purpose of this Joint Hearing is to address widespread elevator failures in public schools, understand how, if at all, DGS and DCPS prioritize repairs, why elevators remain out-of-service, and to identify next steps to ensure this issue does not continue.”

(No word on dysfunctional elevators in charters because magic.)

October 9, 10 am: Tech in schools roundtable

Per the council, this hearing was scheduled on September 18. That was a few weeks after a September 1 DCPS webinar for parents on safety with tech—and less than a month after DCPS held an August 19 teacher training session on tech.

Below is the council write-up of this hearing:

“Over the past few years, there has been a growing concern regarding the increasing use of technology and screen time in schools across the District of Columbia. Parents, educators, and policymakers alike are raising questions about how digital tools are being integrated into classrooms and what impact this may have on students’ learning and well‑being. The Committee of the Whole is particularly interested in understanding how schools are utilizing technology to educate students in the district, as well as how screen time is being monitored, managed, and balanced with other instructional practices. While the foregoing concerns both sectors, this hearing is also an opportunity for testimony commenting on the annual District of Columbia Public Schools’ Technology Plan as well as the use of online student assessment tools (e.g., i-Ready).”

Note the speed and urgency with which all of these recent events have taken place. Then consider that Digital Equity in DC Education started nearly a decade ago with parents demanding digital equity across DCPS: access to wifi, laptops, tech, and digital skills that all students need. The problem remains acute in some areas of DC, leaving students bereft of the tech and skills needed not only to learn, but also to take the tests that their schools are rated on.

But while we (still) do not have digital equity across DC schools, the fact that we now have a hearing devoted to “growing concern regarding the increasing use of technology and screen time in schools” represents a triumph of sorts for an anti-tech movement that is finding a home at the highest levels.

The group that appears to be behind DC’s effort is Schools Beyond Screens, which started in 2025 in California. At the June state board of education meeting, local members of the group testified in large numbers about the problems of tech, in the wake of trying to get DCPS’s contract for iReady defeated. (They scored a disapproval–but iReady was ultimately approved, with former chancellor Lewis Ferebee issuing a statement in the wake of the kerfuffle.)

For any group to get such quick responsiveness from DC government is rather extraordinary–but then nothing about this appears to be typical. Just in the last week, for instance, I counted nearly 30 printed posters for Schools Beyond Screens around my neighborhood of Capitol Hill. The posters featured the following phrases: Teachers Over Big Tech; Fund Textbooks Over Edtech Games; Teachers Over AI Tutors; and Let Kids Think. Pause AI In Schools. The majority of posters I saw were at or near three DCPS schools with fairly high percentages of white students. At the same time, I went around more than a dozen DCPS and charter schools in Ward 5 and saw no signs. (Yeah.)

Noticing that this conversation (such as it is) seemed to be ignoring EOTR families, a variety of people and groups (notably, not Schools Beyond Screens) sponsored a September 22 public meeting at Bard HS on ed tech for Ward 7 and Ward 8 families and community members. Attendees made clear that equity was a prime concern (see a write-up here from PAVE) along with tech access, privacy (including safety concerns), and digital literacy. Those conclusions echo polling elsewhere.

Buckle up for a long and bumpy hearing.

October 21, 2:30 pm: Advanced Technical Centers and Career and Technical Education

Here is the council write-up:

“The Committee of the Whole is interested in whether, when, and how to expand education in skilled trades such as construction, plumbing, and HVAC, as well as what obstacles complicate skilled trades pathways (e.g., full-time employment, school credits, promotion opportunities). Related, the Office of the State Superintendent operates two Advanced Technical Centers (ATCs) focused on healthcare and cybersecurity, allowing students to earn college credits through college-level coursework and hands-on, professional training. A few local education agencies offer secondary education in skilled trades. The Committee is interested in testimony about the ATCs—their strengths and weaknesses and how they can be improved.”

November 4, 9:30 am: OSSE’s transportation (invited witnesses only, but the public can submit testimony)

Here is the council write-up:

“The Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s Division of Student Transportation (OSSE-DOT) is responsible for providing safe, reliable, and efficient transportation services for nearly 4,000 eligible District students with disabilities. During the 2025-2026 school year, the Committee of the Whole held one public oversight hearing and convened two roundtables on OSSE-DOT to understand the division’s ongoing challenges, and its efforts to address them. In summer 2026, OSSE-DOT piloted a new bus tracking system (“Busware”) that equips each bus with a GPS-enabled tablet and provides families with immediate information. OSSE-DOT projects a full rollout of the Busware system before January 2027. This roundtable will examine Busware’s implementation and the division’s ongoing efforts to address operational challenges and improve transportation services for students with disabilities.”

November 5 (not yet on the council calendar as of this blog post): Hearing on the federal presence in DC schools, chaired by Ward 2 council member Brooke Pinto

In news that isn’t new, menacing groups of National Guard, FBI, and/or ICE agents have been patrolling DC school perimeters during school hours. Schools affected in the last few weeks include Wheatley, Tubman, Watkins, Bruce-Monroe, Bard, and Malcolm X.

After public pressure, Pinto agreed to have a hearing. Here is her press release about it, which as of this blog post has not yet been posted in the council calendar.

November 12, 10 am: Chronic absenteeism & truancy

This is a perennial topic for DC education—and with federal officials now putting DCPS under the microscope (and charters not doing well either), expect a not-lovely view.

And now a brief note on what the council is doing specifically around DCPS:

There are currently two working groups/task forces on school issues that the council is overseeing. What is notable about both is that after more than a decade of our current mayor having broad authority over DCPS, the work of these new groups represents a check of the incoming mayor before she even takes office.

The irony here is that DC already has a group of citizens who not only have knowledge of DC schools but hold elected office specifically to advise on those schools!

Yeah, it’s our elected state board of education, which has been trying to convince the council for years just to have some more authority pretty much anywhere. The council could, of course, vote to empower the state board more to ensure closer scrutiny of DCPS.

But that’s not the object here, apparently. Instead, the council seems to be intent on proving its power over a new mayor via DCPS—which given declining enrollment and the very real possibility of closures is not exactly a public service. (But yay for sour grapes?)

Community Schools Task Force (see page 29 here and see page 152 here)

The idea is to create recommendations toward DC-wide community schools programming. The task force is set to submit a report to the mayor and council by the end of February 2027, ahead of the mayor’s budget. Fascinatingly, on September 22, the council approved an “emergency” resolution to broaden membership of the group to include non-DC residents.

While theoretically this resolution is a nice way to include teachers and administrators who do not live in DC but nonetheless work in DC schools, there is nothing in the resolution to prevent people outside DC who do not work in any public schools from joining the group. Now, this may not be an issue for truly academic researchers, whose bread and butter is literally university business. But given the plethora of influential ed reform organizations that have research arms to support their business interests in public schools, this opens the door to considerable meddling in something that should be very organically DC.

DCPS Educator Evaluation and Performance Working Group (see page 156 here)

The idea here is to revise the DCPS educator performance evaluation system by November 2027. The working group must convene by November 2026. This is about as subtle as impeaching the incoming mayor and (as yet unselected) chancellor on their first day in office. Good luck to all.