Since 2015 C4DC has published a web tool to help understand DCPS local school budgets. The tool now has initial budget data by DCPS school covering the 2014-15, 2015-16, 2017-18, 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

HOW THE C4DC SCHOOL BUDGET TOOL WORKS

This FY21 budget tool gives us a slice of information on how DCPS schools are currently funded looking at per pupil funding. You can compare schools or look in more depth at each school. An exploration of the data will show that no two schools receive the same amount per pupil. This is not surprising. DCPS operates many small schools.  This is largely a function of having so many schools in the city competing for students.  Small schools cost more and they also have advantages like smaller class size.  Large schools cost less with an economy of scale and have advantages as well like being able to offer more courses.  As a school’s population grows, which is the goal for DCPS, the per pupil spending will go down. You can see this most dramatically when new schools like Ida B Wells and Bard add students, the school is then larger, spreading resources more efficiently( for example they still have only one principal). Looking at Total Budgets, school budgets vary because of large differences in the numbers of students who qualify for SPED, ELL, and At Risk funding as noted below. 

The front page of the C4DC Budget Tool shows General Education funding, which includes enrollment based, specialty, per pupil minimum and stabilization funds that are proposed for the coming school year FY21, for this year, FY20 and also the two years compared.

When you look at the Total Budget, the tool shows both the general education amounts noted above and the funding for the English Language Learner, Special Education, At Risk, Federal Grant Funds, After School Programs, Evening Credit Recovery funds, and Security funds - the combination of all funding on a per pupil basis. One caution is that these additional funds are allocated specifically for these particular populations. Two schools may get very different Total Budget per pupil amounts because they have different numbers of students within these categories. The width of the bands shown on the total funds table gives a relative indication of the magnitude of the populations in those categories at each of the schools.

While individual school budgets account for roughly82% of total educational expenditures in the DCPS school system, they do not cover everything. Central office, textbooks, athletics, some special education related services, utilities, food service and maintenance all fall outside the individual school budgets and are not shown on the tool. 

We are very grateful to Coalition members 21st Century School Fund, S.H.A.P.P.E., Matthew Frumin and the Dean of DCPS data – Mary Levy and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute– for their work on this project, to DCPS for its cooperation throughout and to Code for DC for its extraordinary and generous work developing this tool.