DC SHAPPE: Council Hearing on the Schools First Budgeting Amendment Act and the Schools Full Budgeting Amendment Act of 2021
/Cathy Reilly – Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I am the director of SHAPPE and the facilitator for the Ward 4 Ed Alliance and C4DC.
I support the intent to ensure that DCPS schools are stable, able to expand programming and meet the needs of their students and families. I acknowledge the Council is working to solve a problem that has been persistent.
The first issue before the Council, not dealt with yet, is the way we fund public education effective, efficient and fair? We have policy that does not limit the number of schools, incentivizes families to exit rather than invest and in the name of neutrality does not prioritize its own DCPS system of right.
Today, considering the Schools First Budgeting Amendment Act, It is premature for us to recommend changes of the magnitude recommended without knowing more about the DCPS budgets for this year and thus as proposed in these bills for perpetuity.
I am concerned that DCPS school stability actually depends on all three categories – school budgets, school supports and central office. They all have to work in support of the students in the schools. I am apprehensive about possibly transferring more responsibility to the schools, even with some funding and then holding them responsible. For example, we have asked schools to be the Dept. of Health this year.
I am in favor of continuing to use average salaries in the school budgets and against the provision in the bill specifying actual funding as I currently understand its ramifications. Using average salaries allows decisions to be made based on program and classroom needs at the school level and should help with retaining our more experienced teachers.
This said, there should be adequate funding so that Schools do not absorb the cost of inflation and salary increases into static budgets. These increases in cost should have an automatic increase in funds added to the school budget. This has been one of the main drivers of schools with constant enrollment having to cut staff.
In terms of a formula for increases and decreases in enrollment, the current provisions in the bill are elementary driven and may have some issues there. For secondary schools we would look at a requirement that planning periods be incorporated into the formula and that class size be set to allow for electives and advanced classes along with adequate staffing for ELL and SPED. Currently DCPS more or less divides enrollment by 25 and that is the number of teachers and then extras are awarded. It does not accurately take into account the fact that up to 25% of the teachers in a 4 by 4 schedule will not be teaching. They will be in their contract protected planning period. Class size used to be 22 versus the current 25.This gives you some idea of the complexity of getting any formula right.
Finally, this proposal appears to remove the At risk provision currently in code for DCPS. Thus, it eliminates requiring annual reporting on the use of at-risk funds which directs that funds are to supplement not supplant other funds, as well as the requirement that 90% be allocated to schools.
Stability is one of a number of lenses we need to look at budgeting through. For this year, however, I hope you will prioritize ensuring that the new DCPS budget model allows schools to recover and grow. We will be back in March. Thank you.