Committee of the Whole, Public Roundtable, Phil Mendelson, Chairman

I'm calling to order this hearing or roundtable. This is a public roundtable being held by the committee of the whole. I'm phil mendelson, chair of the council and chair of the committee of the whole.

Today is friday April 2nd,

2021, the time is 9:48 in the morning. And this hearing is being

conducted live via the zoom video conference broadcast platform.

It is also available, I believe,

streaming live on the Chairman's

website www.Chairmanmendelson.Com/live. And the D.C. Council's website

which is www.Dccouncil.Us.

On council channel 13, cable television. And the subject of this hearing

or roundtable is dcps initial school level budget. I'm going to first read from the hearing notice.

Each year the district of columbia public schools publicizes the initial budgets

for each of its 118 schools.

Ahead of the release of the mayor's final budget.

And each year we hear from many school communities that the budgets are being reduced significantly and schools are

being forced to reduce critical staff and programs to accommodate the budget cuts.

The purpose of this hearing or

roundtable is to examine how the initial school budgets are impacting critical decisions for the upcoming school year.

To understand how cutting schools' budgets, some of which

May be restored in the final budget, promotes school

stability and to hear from the

dcps chancellor lewis ferebee,

the justification for reducing initial school budgets.

This hearing will be three hours in length and, therefore, we have invited certain public witnesses and then we will hear from the chancellor.

I want to add to those remarks, although I should say the record

for this hearing will close in two weeks, that is it will close

at 5:00 P.M. On April 16th.

In my view, there are two things that are important for education

to be successful with students.

Parental involvement and good

healthy robust school community.

And a robust school community embodies active parents, a

stable budget and long-term employees.

Once again, schools, 46 schools

have been told that they will receive cuts in their budgets.

This is probably fixable, probably some of those cuts will

be made whole by the chancellor or the council will make them whole when we get the budget

But nevertheless, many of these

46 schools are in turmoil. Parents are upset, faculty are fighting for positions and even some faculty are looking to leave.

In my view, schools need stable funding.

Schools are not like a typical

government agency where what we see year after year and I

believe is appropriate -- that the mayor gives the agency a mark, usually a mark that says what will you do if your budget

is cut by 3%, 5%, 1%. But schools are not like those agencies and should not be like those agencies. Schools should instead be able

to rely on stable funding.

I just don't understand how we

can expect a business to succeed

if every year it is faced with budget cuts and no reason why the analogy of a business doesn't apply to a school.

It is a community. It is an entity.

It is a business unto itself. And I don't see how they will succeed if every year they have

to fight to restore cuts that

are being proposed for their agency. And not just the instability for

the school itself, but for the parents whom we want to be involved and we want to support their school. I give up. I'm going to go to another school. I'm going to move to the suburbs, why not? Because it's easier there -- or I think it's easier there. Regardless, schools shouldn't be going through this instability

and this threat to their

community and their ability to grow and build on their educational accomplishments from

one year to the next.

Some 20 years ago, the council tried through the budget to hard

wire funding for the schools.

Schools would get so much money.

And what we saw was dcps shifted some costs that they were paying

school support from central budget to the schools, so they

didn't get cut but they have higher expenses. A number of years ago the council legislated that schools cannot have their budgets reduced by more than 5%. that sound of sounds okay. But if you think about it, if

there's a budget of $1 million,

$2 million for a school, 5% is

several positions in that school. We need to reexamine that. Regardless of that 5% cut or

limit, rather, in a reduction,

we still see that dcps shifts expenses like last year I believe it was security.

A few years ago it was eliminating the extended year

for some schools which didn't mean eliminating any faculty positions, but when the budget was cut, then the schools did

have to eliminate faculty positions. The chancellor has admitted for

at least a year now -- if not a couple of years, that the comprehensive staffing model is not a good way of funding schools.

And yet it persists in how we budget for the schools. This process is broken and it needs to be fixed. We will be having hearings on

the mayor's proposed budget for the schools either later in

April or early May. I don't recall offhand the date for that hearing. But we are having this hearing

today because we want to examine

how the school system thinks

that this idea of initial

budgets to cut schools is a good

way of promoting parent involvement and a stable robust school community.

With that, I'm going to recognize colleagues who are on this call for opening statements

and then we will turn to witnesses. I believe there's at least one

witness who has to teach so I

will call that witness first

after the opening statements. Councilmember nadeau. >> thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I cosign on everything you just said on that opening statement. I am so thrilled that we are having this hearing today. You know, I have been a

councilmember now for seven years. And I like to think that over that time I have learned a bit

about how we budget and how all of this works.

But every time this year, every time -- this time of year every year I feel like we have the same conversation about how the

math is not adding up at certain schools.

And first I thought it was me in a learning curve. But year after year, I realized

that it just doesn't make any sense.

We have parents who don't understand why their schools are getting cut. We have teachers who don't understand why their positions are being eliminated. And we have principals who are

trying to make everything work. But at this point, there just isn't enough money going to

I fully agree with you that we have to look at why we are still

using this same funding system.

And I could go on about the

issue theoretically, but I do want to get more specific about how this is impacting

specifically our high schools in ward 1. So a majority of english

language learners attend schools in ward 1 even though they come

from all across the city.

And yet ela positions are among those being cut at a time when

dcps should be really striving

to make equitable decisions,

they are really missing the mark

for ward 1 schools, not just high schools are going to have

budget cuts ranging from

$223,000 to $437,000. And I'd like to talk about the columbia heights education

campus which is part of the ward 1 theater pattern but serves students all across the district.

It serves a majority of english language learners, economically disadvantaged and special education students. And it consistently receives the

lowest amount of discretionary funding.

I met with the lsat for check

this week and Dr. Ducava confirmed it is losing staff and a reduction in the budget cycle,

that includes the librarian, that includes classroom teachers, it includes support staff. Some of those are positions that

are mandated by dcps, but not additionally funded. And even though they get additional funds for english

language learners and at-risk students, the per pupil amount

that they get at baseline is

significantly lower than other schools.

So adding in those extra funds doesn't even make them whole. But that's not even what they

The per-pupil funding should be on par with other schools.

And then at-risk and english

learning funds should be a

surplus, a bonus on top of that

Cardozo high school has a

budgetary loss of $437,000. Cardozo serves a student population of more than 80 ption

at-risk students and is set to increase student population in

the fall while maintaining operations. This is a substantial funding decrease. How does any of this make sense?

How is any of this equitable?

These are schools that are serving predominantly students of color, not just ward 1 students. Students from all across the

district of columbia. I strongly urge dcps to make use of the upcoming federal dollars from the american rescue plan to support, maintain and even increase staff.

invest boldly in education by

increasing the per student funding formula the at-risk weight and the english language learning rate but we also have to figure out why this isn't working when we're doing those things. And before I close, I want to

mention, we expect to welcome unaccompanied minors to the district of columbia in great

numbers this year. Many of those students will come to ward 1 because they will be

hosted by families living in

ward 1. And that means in addition to all these budget cuts, there are going to be more students with

more trauma and more needs. Alongside the students that

already have trauma and language needs.

So we got to get this right. for all the students who are there now, for all the students who are coming. Thank you, Chairman, for holding this hearing today.

I'm hoping we get some answers. >> thank you, councilmember nadeau. Councilmember robert white. >> thank you very much, Chairman, and I do really want

to thank you for holding this hearing.

This is monroe, he will be my second dcps student in about a year.

This hearing is so important

because at a time when we are

seeing incredible learning loss,

unprecedented amounts of mental

health issues, such varied experiences, stunt by student this -- student by student this year with some students trying to figure out distance learning

on their own, some having help, some tutor, some pods, some went to other schools for the year,

at this time, somehow we are still seeing that some schools

May have their budgets cut in a

time where they need more than

ever to have the, not just the funding they had last year but additional funding. So councilmembers across the

board are hearing from our

constituents, our inboxes are flooded after

every day by constituents because they are frustrated because they are hearing their school budgets are going down in a time where they need more resources than ever. I also want to note that I will

ask some questions today about in-person learning for quarter 4 because that starts in just over

a week, and still there is very little known about what is happening, and we know only that there will be expanded opportunities.

So I will ask a couple questions on that today.

But I want to note a few specific concerns that I have

and also want to put this into context. So when schools are saying we're going to lose funding, we should realize that the funding they're

losing from last year was aural far behind where we determined

years ago funding needed to be.

So we're going from behind the

eightball to way behind the eightball, including things like the at-risk weight which have not gone up proportional to the

So schools are really treading water at this time.

We have heard, and I can't make sense of this and hope to get some information, that there are no plans to increase the number

of mental health professionals this year.

However, I also understand that

dcps is planning to invest

$33 million in academic and socioemotional supports for students.

So I hope to be able to make sense of that.

I also want to note that dcps

could lose more than 90 teacher

positions including 57 teachers who instruct english language learners as councilmember nadeau pointed out some of that in her opening statement. I think Chairman Mendelson did as well. So there is just so much that

does not make sense.

There is so much frustration, and I do believe that educating

our young people is the most

important thing that we do as a government. At some point, we have to develop a budgeting mechanism

that makes sense to real people,

and one that keeps up with the cost of educating our young people. That is something that we have

failed to do, but if ever there was a time that we get on the right track with this, now is that time. So Chairman, again, thank you for holding this important hearing. I do have a number of questions,

and look forward to hearing from

our government witnesses in particular.

thank you, councilmember. Councilmember cheh.

>> thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this roundtable as my

colleagues have said. This is vital, this is the most important service that we

provide, and it's the one that

will have, affects year after year after year.

And we find ourselves in this

situation where we've had this unprecedented learning loss due to the public health emergency. We've had extraordinary social

and emotional means that have

occurred as a result of this. And now at this very time where we need to provide our students

with robust supports and services, where it's greater than ever, both in terms of the

number of the students who need these supports and the extent of

the need, now we're seeing that

the money is being cut the

budget is being cut.

Now, the growth in school

budgets does not keep pace as it

is with the rising cost of schools, and that is a by-product of the way we fund

our schools and also the

council's ability to kind of

navigate this opaque system we're presented with every year, and I hope to learn about how we put this -- I know it's an initial budget, but I'd like to know how we put it together.

Who put it together? For example, there was a change brought to my attention about how dcps codes if you will

school librarians in the budget. While these positions were

previously required for each school, I understand that now they're coded as something

flexible with petition.

Meaning they can be removed while they're encouraged they're

not required, and recognizing budgetary constraints you're under, many schools May opt to cut school librarians. We know librarians play an essential role in education with

research, writing skills, et cetera.

These positions shouldn't be flexible, and there are other

issues in this budget overall

that we have to attend to. So like my colleagues, I'll be

interested to see how the

chancellor and dcps explains why in these times where the need is greatest and we were already

having needs that weren't being

fully met, why we don't have

more, and instead we have less. So again, thank you,

Mr. Chairman, and thanks to my colleagues. I look forward to our discussion today.

thank you, cowboy councilmember cheh. Councilmember mendelson. >> if good morning Mr. Chairman. I will be brief because I know we had a number of witness whose wanted to testify this morning. It's kind of interesting we're having this hearing today on the day that lottery results have

been posted. Lots of text messages and things like that happening for families

who are anxious and excited and have anxiety and all of these different things and yet for

some reason I also feel a little deja vu about this conversation just for some background, for

some folks I worked for dcps in 2012. I then spent four years at the council, two of which as the committee director for the committee on education back in

the day, so I feel like we keep having these same conversations every year.

And the same schools every year.

To the families of amidon-bowen

who have been feel -- filling my

inbox with your e-mails about budget cuts, I hate that it is a

fight for your families I hate that our students feel like they have to fight. I have a number of e-mails from students of school without walls who are also e-mailing concerned about their school budgets, concerned about the cuts that are being made at a time where they feel like they need resources the most.

And I recognize that the way we do school budgets is not an

ideal process. Where dcps does release initial budget numbers prior to other things that might happen. So we have initial school budget

numbers before we knew what we were going to get from federal funding, before we kind of knew where things were in terms of the revenue estimates and all of these different things and I

hope that in the future we can

find better ways to do this, but

I should also say we find as a priority in this particular year, no one should have cuts, and we should make that a priority across our government to ensure that our students have what they need to be successful,

that our families have what they

need to feel confident to invest in schools for the long-term

because I fear we're having this conversation at the same time that families are getting excited that they got a slot at a school that they were

interested in, and now they wonder, is their student going to have what they need to be successful there. So I have some questions this morning. I look forward to learning about how dcps has assessed the needs, how they will address any existing gaps as it pertains to

learning loss, digital divide. But also what are the plans to use the federal dollars because we know that the federal money

doesn't have to be expended by September 30, 2021, we have some time to use this money and so

are we thinking about how we

invest across the long-term or

long-termish the next few years to provide a base so that we don't have to see these dangerous cuts happen across our school district at this particular time.

thank you, Mr. Chairman,.

thank you, councilmember. So I'm trying to figure out how to do this. I'm going to call the first eight witnesses. I'm going to let michael grier testify first. He's ward 8.

I believe he has a teaching, he

has to teach a class at 10:45 so

we will let him go first and we will do all 8 and we should be

done by 10:30 and then I will think about how we handle this.

At any rate, alexandra simbana,

ward 1 education council.

Sandra moscosco, treasurer, ward

2 education council, melody molinoff, ward 3 wilson feeder

Cathy reilly, ward 4 education

alliance, brianna Mcgowan, ward 5 education equity committee. Valerie jablow, ward 6 public schools parent organization. Marla dean, representing the ward 7 education council, and

michael grier who is with the ward 8 education council. If we had opened this hearing up, which we're limiting to three hours, to everyone who wanted to testify on budgets, we would probably be here for a

another eight hours listening to parents, which is important testimony but my hope was that these representatives from each

of the ward education councils

will be able to summarize what's

going on with schools in their ward.

So let's begin with michael grier from ward 8. I will be looking at the clock,

so when we get to 10:30, if I think what I'll do is just turn to colleagues to see if they have questions for you so you can excuse yourself. But why don't you begin with

your testimony, Mr. Grier. >> good morning, thank you all for having us here.

Again, my naic is -- name is michael grier and I want to share my testimony. I took off for a couple hours in

the early morning to share my

testimony, and what is being

So here I am with my five minutes of fame. [Laughter]

As I represent ward 8, ward 8 community, teachers, administrators, and staff across

ward 8 schools, I have heard and

seen officials review, research, and even speak to our community

members across the district for

their insight on the educational

budget for D.C. Public schools.

To come back again with some of

the same concerns before the pandemic, we raised concerns

surrounding budget cuts and how they would impact our schools east of the river.

Schools across ward 8 have experienced major challenges

after student count day to increase student -- sorry, due to increasing student population.

Again, after student count day. I want you all to make sure -- I

want to make sure you all hear that because after student count

day, that's where mose of ward 8 schools experience their challenges. So instead of sharing examples

of data or examples or data on

how ward 8 schools continue to

make progress with increasing challenges, pres pre-and post-pandemic, some middle and

high school teachers go from 20

students to 33 students with no support. From a teacher assistance that

is not promote -- that is not promoting equity nor maximizing learning.

Schools with over 50% at-risk student population, budgets are

not effectively meeting the

school needs for mental health services, iep services, counseling, and student, and

support staff. Some elementary, middle and high school special education teachers teach multiple grade

levels, scheduling conflicts due to increasing number of students

with IEPs and services needed. Special education programs need

to effectively reflect the principle of promoting equity

and maximizing learning.

Principals in lsac teams

continue being creative with

their budget -- budget cuts in areas that result in focusing on math, ela, social studies and science courses. The dsmed for social work -- demand for social workers, therapists, librarians, and counselors for ward 8 schools are being met, are not being met due to the budget restraints at some schools.

I am asking the council and D.C. Public schools officials to

reflect on their planning

principles for reopening schools in person and virtually because

on the school web site D.C. Public schools states that

they're planning principles for reopening schools is focusing on maximizing learning and promoting equity. two areas that conflict with

school budgets across the district. Promoting equity and maximizing

learning is not taken away from a school budget and leaving schools with the highest poverty

and at-risk population to remove support staff and programs that

would engage students and

In ward 8 we're asking D.C.

Public schools to invest in on-site parent involvement opportunities and programs to

engage parents before, during, and after school. Our students in ward 8 are

seeking middle and high schools across the river due to the lack of engaging and real life

elective experiences.

For example, we need computer application and science courses,

home economics, hospitality,

entrepreneurship, rotc, agculture, business management, fine arts, visual arts, cpr courses and more life skill courses. Our teachers want our students

to feel welcome in entering orbuildings with technology

opportunities in the school. This past school year and at the start of the pandemic, lot of our schools east of the river experience getting technology from schools across the river

after they have already used them.

And that's not equity. Provide our students with on-site outreach programs,

mental health services, and behavioral services to interrupt the risk of violence after

school and during the summer.

In closing, I say to the council

and D.C. Officials -- D.C. public schools officials, I'm an educator who live and work in

southeast D.C. I see some of the same traumatizing experiences our students encounter. Show our students why black lives matter.

With providing them with true equity and from the school budget. Provide our students with a true

budget to promote academic

learning without restraints and conflicts.

thank you, Mr. Grier.

As I said, about 10:30 I'll I

guess I will interrupt, I won't interrupt a witness, but see if members have any questions for

you, but the time since usually we go through the entire panel and then have questions. Alexandra sim

Ms. Simbana? >> hi. Good morning. Chairman And councilmembers, my

name is alexandra simbana I'm a

parent of a third grader at cleveland elementary a member of my school's lsat and a member of

the ward 1 education council. As always schools are in flex

and in a state of uncertainty

from term 3 to term 4 dividing

time and resources to their

enimown -- unknown future. This year is a burden to schools, staff, and families should not need to balance. When so much federal funding is

available to help stabilize the overwhelming needs which only worsen during the pandemic. The city must allow dcps schools to use federal and other pandemic special funding on staff. By not doing so, we are asking schools to cut school-based

staff who already have strong relationships with students

while hiring for temporary programs which are less effective, all in the hope of making up for the loss of school-based staff on top of the

trauma caused by the pandemic. As one community member states, we don't know exactly what we will lose in this budget cycle. And schools try to retain staff. But that comes at the cost of other resources like professional development,

classroom materials, and extra curricular programming.

Dcps can claim budgets are rising when functionally they are not due to increased costs. While all our ward 1 schools are unique and they have varying needs, each community has significantly varied ability to cover school priorities outside of the school budget allotments. The financial costs of what is

needed to supply additional personnel support is too much

for any school pto or pta to cover on their own. And that approach would only

continue the inequities between schools who have funds and ones who don't. In ward 1 four of our schools will experience a loss of

funding ranging from $223,000 to 437,000 437,000. Most of our schools are known

for their high concentration of english language learning students in their city. The pandemic has hit their community particularly hard, and all our schools anticipate a

greater need to service these students. Given the populations at our schools, most will not be able to mitigate even a fraction of the losses to their school budgets to help support the students who will require more assistance when returning to class in the fall. And yet we hear reports of funding cuts across the city to e ll positions. Given the vulnerability of this

community as it's extremely irresponsible and inequitable to remove the support they will need.

We are -- we all have experienced in past once positions are removed from school budges they are very rarely returned the next year.

Cardozo which is set to lose $437,000 this budget cycle, this school serves as a combined and middle school and high school in

addition to their international academy.

And as an 80% at-risk population. Cardoza is also a school who will more than likely see the number of additional students rise next year because of the population and programming they offer. How can we realistically expect these schools to service their

students with such high impact changes. For all our ward 1 schools maintaining staff positions for janitorial staff, security personnel and support staff positions will be critical in any phased in reopening plan which will require more staff

coverage for smaller cohort units. Ensuring adherence to safety

protocols and mandatory cleaning -- to ensure pandemic protocols are follow followed as more students return to in-person learning in the coming months.

Just as important to make -- fiscal health is to provide emotional support and resources which is why we ask the school staff to be kept whole at all

-- will lose $265,000 in this

budget cycle. We know that the great concern of the check budget is because they're losing four positions

and their funding is the lowest

per pupil base on enrollment in the city. The at-risk funds are being

designated for general education purposes. There are many questions for

criteria and method used for the -- funding allotments. During the education hearings dcps was asked if for this information and no response was ever provided. Our students are paying attention and they see how the

system is not prioritizing their needs. Our student leader says why do the decisions about the budget have to lead to schools having to cut staff? We all know that next year it

would be all about recovery.

Since we'll need every support accessible to them to feel welcome, to feel like they belong, feel supported and have someone to talk to, feel less stressed and just recover. we can't justify our save that the summer activities are going

You can't cut off staff and say you've been given another choice

to give a psychologist, therapist. We can't say we want the best

for our students when we know they need every resource available and have the transition to a smooth and supported as possible and

continue to do the opposite. Our school budgets must reflect

our value of the work schools

As the mechanism become members

Unless we prioritize federal and

surface funds -- we are giving

lip service to the idea that

education matters -- thank you.

thank you, Ms. Sim Ms. Simbana. Sandra moscosco. >> hi, good morning, Chairman And councilmembers.

I'm sandra maws scawsko a parent of two students at school without walls high school. I'm here to ask you to support funding our schools so they are

able to maintain current staffing levels, and also to

invest in more in schools hardest hit by the current crisis.

Dcps is forcing schools to cut staff for the fiscal 22 school year.

The first year of recovery after more than a year of disrupted learning due to covid-19. Education councils in wards 2,

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and anc commissioners and community

leaders initiated a petition to support keeping our school

staffing and budgets whole.

in many cases we found school

level staffing cuts we are facing can int be explained by

lower enrollment -- and these

cuts are set to happen while the

D.C. Is set to receive from the

american rescue plan $277 million in stimulus funding. These funds can be used for and I I quote activities necessary

to maintain the operation of and

continuity of services and to

employ existing staff. Dcps could serve these purpose for 2024 including to fund staff and to develop a multiyear

staffing plan, but dcps chooses not to do so. Schools need more staff, not

less to address learning needs. Schools with fewer staff cannot provide the same level of

targeted supports when the academic need of some students have increased.

Schools will need more staff to adhere to health and safety guidelines to offer in person

learning to more students while

toifning -- continuing to provide virtual options for those who need it. And schools need additional support to address whole child needs. Mental health supports for students continue to be the most highly demanded request in the city, and the pandemic has exacerbated this.

In our citywide petition, we ask school communities to share the

impact of these cuts, and here's

what we heard from ward 2.

At duke ellington, serving a majority african-american body from all eight wards reports a serious underallocation and seeks pay parity for its teachers. This year's budget for ellington

pays for just 31 of the 58 full-time dual curriculum positions. Teachers are underpaid and the school seeks simply to bring

their compensation to standard dcps salary levels.

Which is critical for teacher retention.

At ross elementary, a school

with a 20% ell population, and a

mile-long waitlist, is being

forced to cut all their art, music, world languages, and

library positions to part-time.

School without walls high school

despite no loss in enrollment and D.C.'s highest performing high school serving families in

all eight wards must cut a

teacher and educational supplies across science, art, and music. This on the heels of a year where the school sacrificed a librarian and two other staff.

For schools like, walls, dcps should at least do no harm. Maintain the status quo to help

them serve the same number of students.

And at thompson elementary, a

title 1 school with a 50% hispanic population, has

suffered great, which has suffered greatly due to the pandemic. The school which counts teacher stability and retention as a strength is losing an el, all teacher and a first grade teacher. Cutting one of thompson's classroom teachers will have ripple effects for years.

Thompson simply asked to be held

harmless in a staffing budget. And if you've been through the last eight years of budgets and many of you have said this

today, you see a pattern of defunding our schools.

A pattern that does not change

even in the face of a pandemic.

We looked outside of dcps at what experts are saying, and their recommendations recommendations for recovery are focused on investing in schools, in school day activities, and strengthening relationships between home and school and I think the Chairman Said a lot of this today too.

We have the opportunity to do this, all we need is the

We want to thank councilmember pinto for including restoring

teacher positions among her budget priorities, and while I

am here speaking on behalf of ward 2 schools, it's important

to note that families across all wards enroll their children here

of the now 915 I think at this morning's count individuals who

signed the petition, so far 85%

of the signatories link to ward 2 schools, identified their home

ward, as something other than ward 2.

So we hope to see the support

for keeping our schools whole across every councilmember's budget priorities.

Thank you for the opportunity to

melody. >> I'm chair of the ward 3 wilson peter parent education and the parent of two dcps students. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

When you look at dcps's initial

budget allocations for fy 22, this story is much the same as any other year. Schools are being asked to do more with less. During a time when schools, teachers, and students will need

more support than ever, we find

ourselves in exactly the same conversations we have every year. Allocations are essentially

based on projected enrollment and special populations of students.

As a result, collectively, fy 22 allocations show many schools

are losing money due to pandemic

related declines in enrollment that are likely temporary and schools are losing or gaining

staff based on expected changes in special education and ell students and importantly just

like other years, budget

allocationerize not keeping pace with pace are rising staffing costs. Many staffs are facing outright budget decreases but even though schools are nominal increases

mask the actual loss of spending power in real terms.

As we continue to emerge and recover from this historic

pandemic, the academic and social emotional needs of our school communities are greater

It turns typical budget techniqueinize to guess work with consequences for the well-being of our schools and our children.

The mayor's office itself in its 2020 updates to the master

facilities plan recognizes the

impracticality of using enrollment from this school year for planning purposes. The specific examples of school budgets that I'm going to share with you are from ward 3 but the story is the same and in many

cases worse in other parts of the city. Dcps projects a loss of enrollment in 12 of the 15 schools in the wilson feeder

With ensuing effects onbaget allocations. For the sake of time I will share with you specifically from deal middle school which educates students from the

Our fy 22 budget allocation was

negatively affected by a pandemic related decline of 44 students.

Dl expects to be fully enrolled at 1500 students in the fall, and

deal will lose three to four existing positions including a business manager and a custodian who are essential for deal to be able to return to in-person

learning in the fall.

To preserve academic and social emotional positions, we were forced to reallocate funds from

within the budget as a result, deal lost all of its

discretionary funds for fy 22. No school should be losing staff following this pandemic. Given the more robust than expected local budget situation, coupled with federal stim ylsz

funds, the city -- stimulus funds the silty should be adding staff and resources to our schools at a bare minimum all schools should be held harmless from a budgetary standpoint

going into fy 22 and special attention should be given to

those school communities most

seriously affected by the pandemic. One might hope that stimulus funds will suffice to compensate

for inadequate initial budget allocations. Dcps and the dme have already stated clearly that schools will

not be allowed to use federal

stimulus funds to hire staff.

Thus, we urge the council not to assume that the additional

academic and mental health supports students will require during the coming academic year

will be provided outside of the

dcps initial budget allocations.

Every year dcps schools are asked to do more with less. During this highly unusual time

that is less acceptable than ever.

A business' usual approach to dcps budgets and staffing is simply insufficient and ultimately it is the city's

children who will pay the price.

It is really encouraged I will just say finally by your comments at the beginning, and thank you so much for digging

into this issue and for really understanding what we go through

thank you, Ms. Molinoff. I think this is what I'm going to do. Mr. Grier, do you absolutely have to leave at 10:45 because if I give every member four minutes to ask questions of the

four who've testified so far,

that'll be about 10:50. >> yeah, my class, yeah, they starts at 10:45. >> it starts at 10:45. >> yes. >> okay. Well then let me ask you a few questions and then I will see if colleagues have questions for you and then we'll just -- the

So Mr. Grier, I appreciate that you gave time this morning since we have to run. I have three questions for you.

First of all, did I hear you say that schools east of the river

are getting digital equipment used digital equipment from west of the river schools. >> yes, yes, there are a number

of cases where and I can speak

for my school where we can tell that a lot of the technology devices that we're sent especially at the start of the pandemic, they were not new devices.

They were some devices that came from schools from the other side

And you could tell it was used previously. And then we got some new

equipment towards the end of the

school year of rast school year.

second question. You ended your statement saying if one school east of the river

has over 50% at-risk population

while another school has below 50% at-risk population but

receiving more money, that's not equity.

You were referring to specific schools? >> yeah, yes, because my concern

is is that when we look at the,

look at the at-risk dollars,

which I as I always say I do not understand how where the formula

comes from for this, there are

schools that are at-risk in ward

8 for D.C. Public schools that get say for example they will get $50,000 for at-risk but then when you see another school that

don't, that make barely pushing 30% at-risk population they will

get maybe $100,000 for their,

for their budget for at-risk or to for additional funds and it

makes you wonder, okay, how, where is this formula?

How is it, how is it come? But then one thing that's always brought to our attention is that, oh, they have more

students than you all do. So just because they have more

students than we do, so that

that the reason why their at-risk funding is more?

When we have more at-riffing -- at-risk students.

mindful of time I'm going to push to my third

question which is are there ward

8 schools that are seeing, that have been told they're going to

get cuts, budget cuts?

>> yes, from ballou to and from

ballou all the way to anacostia high.

And from excel public charter

school, I'm sorry, excel academy, I don't know -- charter schools, excel academy, number

of schools in ward 8 yes, have experienced that. And where mose of them, as I

said earlier are trying to be creative because I sit on the lsac team at my school where we

try to be creative with positions to make sure we keep

as many people as possible.

thank you. You have to leave in five minutes, councilmember nadeau,

do you have any questions for

Mr. Grier? I'm not hearing from councilmember nadeau.

Councilmember white?

>> yes, thank you, just a couple in the, for the sake of time and I really want to thank you for

being here, Mr. Grier. You said something in your

testimony, you said the biggest

impact to, to dcps schools is after count day.

What did you mean by that? >> because, and my -- we experience this every year,

councilmember white.

That we are -- the school year

prior, we are projected to get 100 -- we'll say, I'll use an example where you're projected

to get 175 students.

Now, on count day, you have

close to that 175 students and

your budget reflects 175 students.

But let's just say by the month

of October or November, you're

at 212 students. Your budget don't reflect 212 students.

Your budget still reflects that 175. And the experience that I have

had at my school where it takes too long, the school year is almost over by the time we

receive that extra teacher or the funds that are needed to help because some, those

students that are coming, that increases our student services

that are needed for IEPs, it increases. Everything increases.

The services that are needed for those students, the, some

students are coming with, with backgrounds of needing mental health services.

Some students are coming with

504 plans and some students are coming needing transportation to

the school because of their iep so there are a lot of things

that are, that come into play after student count day.

And the budget does not move

fast enough. >> I appreciate that clarification because I did know

they did an adjusted budget after count day. What you're saying is it just takes too long, the impact is already felt and you can't adjust for it quickly enough after count day.

And I'm looking into how our counts historically, how

accurate they are historically. Finally, roughly how many teachers would you say leave

your school each year? Either because of budget cuts or

because they decide to move on.

>> ooh, well, at my school, at

my school, the teachers, we haven't experienced teachers

leaving due to budget cuts or well I'm sorry we haven't had teachers leave due to the environment because at my

school, my principal, our administrator -- administration they really work hard to engage us and keep us there. But across the district, there

are teachers that, you know, in teacher different teacher chats that I'm involved in, they are

leaving due to the overwhelming unrealistic stress that has been

put across all of us. Even I myself have thought about, you know what?

Let me sit next year out in D.C. Public schools because I can't because I left montgomery county public schools to come back to

D.C. Public schools, and again I

sit and say wow, I didn't have to do this before I came back. So a lot of teachers across the district are really looking into their retirement and see how they can buy into their

retirement early because of the

cuts and also not having the

supports that they need. >> thank you very much. In the interest of time, I will conclude there. But thank you very much, Mr. Grier. Thank you for sharing that. >> yes, sir.

councilmember cheh, do you have any questions for Mr. Grier. >> no, Mr. Grier, I understand you're under a time constraint, but thank you very much for making the time to talk to us. Thank you. >> yes, ma'am.

councilmember henderson, do you have any

questions? I believe she May have dropped

off. Mr. Grier, thank you. So what we're going to do is we're going to continue with the testimony from the other representatives and then have

another round of questions for members for the seven who are still here. Mr. Grier, thank you again. >> thank you all.

next on the list was cathy reilly. >> thank you. Can you hear me? >> yes. >> great. Thank you, especially for all your opening remarks. From each of the councilmembers that spoke. My name is cathy reilly and I'm here testifying on behalf of the

ward 4 education alliance, and also shape.

I'm a member of c for D.C. We're strong proponents of stable staffing and equity always but especially now. Along with inflation and

supplanting of at-risk dollars, enrollment projections affect

the local school budgets.

For 2020, for -- fy 22 they were difficult to make these

projections and dcps was quite conservative. The -- understaffed when additional students arrived is great. Being sort social workers and teachers for students coming back to school or arriving in this country is just irresponsible. In this time. Hiring strong staff in the fall

However, the gain is exponentially positive if there are more staff than the student-teacher ratios require. It might result in having smaller class sizes or being

able to pivot to serving some

in-person and some virtually. Ward 4 dcps schools have a high

number of ell families, and the projections are down at most of our schools. Our schools will not be adequately prepared to provide

the educational opportunities these students potentially come nothing to our schools de -- coming to our schools deserve.

All told, 20 ell teachers have

been cut from the ward 4 budgets as well as 14 general ed positions. The number of children and families at the border verifyathize need for us to plan. While many have been able to keep bilingual staff, it has come at some cost to other areas. this is an example of the

staffing cuts that are not sustainable.

The schools primarily in wards 4 and 1 serve a high proportion of these students have actually needed more bilingual staff throughout the pandemic.

The skill sets at these staff members are incredibly difficult

Powell, Mcfarland, cardozo have the additional challenge of staffing bilingual programs. Tacoma also saw cuts which will affect its ability to provide the integrated arts program they they have been building.

Check has basically maintained

its enrollment but is seeing its budget cut. Whittier, tacoma, brightwood and

lasalle are transitioning to elementary azida b. Wells takes in a full middle school.

These schools receive stabilization funds but also saw cuts that will make it difficult

to sustain services at pre-k 3-5th graders. For dorothy height losing a

swipg space and losing close to $400 million. West element raeis pleased and excited to enter their new bidding in the fall.

However as they welcome two new self-contained special education classrooms they are also projected to lose ell students and staff.

They are projected to gain 11 students which from all our past experiences seems far too low from a brand new modernized school. And west is actually losing

funds for the coming year.

The funds are six extended day

programs were moved to stimulus which limits them in terms of hiring staff.

These funds and funds for enrichment should be built into

the budgets as students return. Truesdale has expressed the need many feel for expanded outdoor

learning, and more opportunities

for enrichment not fewer. And that's, they express that on behalf of most schools. For the dcps high schools, these will be high lighted as part of the ward testimonies but to maintain our dcps infrastructure, we have to invest in a grow the

neighborhood feeder patterns.

Neighborhood high schools

woodson, anacostia and cardozo received stabilization funds but these need to be continued and expanded with long-term planning in those areas.

As you noted, Chairman. While the balance between large and small schools is tough to strike, dcps has to do better.

Wilson and check each saw significant cuts losing crucial

long-term staff. The american rescue plan funds are for three years. This is an opportunity for dcps

to build in as crucial. The capital issues in ward 4 have to be noted as part of the budget deliberations.

The crowding at roosevelt needs a solution. Stay's a strong vital

opportunity academy especially,

since dcps closed washington met, it needs its own building in this part of down.

The crowding at ida b. Wells needs a solution.

Their cafeteria is only

-- sixth period day will not account for those kids using the cafeteria. And our issue with our phase 1

elementary schools have only grown whittier truesdale and

lasalle have made a compelling

case for true modifications,

whittier and truesdale are not ada compliant which is against the law and haven't been for years. Paul is slated for hvac work and all of our schools have had significant terrible quality control issues with the work of dgs so the restoration of the funding for these positions that were cut and immediate work on our school buildings is paramount.

Thank you so much for your time. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify at today's hearing. My name is brianna Mcgowan.

I am a ward 5 resident in the communications office for ward 5 education equity committee.

My testimony's informed by our organization's communication to the state board of education President And ward 5 representative zachary parker,

local budget experts like mary levy and the school advisory teams, parents, and school

leaders at ward 5's 14 dcps campuses. In ward 5 we heard from several schools that are facing staff cuts. Even if overall budgets

increase, buying power,

particularly for personnel has decreased. Some of these schools have lowered enrollment projections compared to last year but given

the disruptions, associated with covid, it would be appropriate this year to hold school budgets

harmless for enrollment fluctuation. In conversation with members at

the local school advisory teams for some of these schools, it is clear that staff cuts will be painful.

At langry a director of strategy

and logistics who played a vital role in -- will be lost as the school makes up for the budget shortfall by changing the position to a lesser paid manager of strategy and logistics. Meanwhile, brown E.C. Will have

to take a full-time language instructor down to half time and

lose a paraeducator likely a

reading specialist and a

behavior tech outright.

Dunbar high school enrolled 665 students last year and despite

multiple years of growth and anticipated growth next year, the school's budget projection

count was lower than last year's

enrollments meaning less buyer

Even still, with the school's

budget projection, dunbar has to

make difficult decisions. As a result, dunbar is slated to

only have four math teachers on average 165 students per feature

when they need five or 6.

Langley has some also rather dire facility needs. They have problems with hot water in bathrooms, core ventilation a lack of working bathrooms on one level.

Dcps has made some short-term fixes particularly in the context of covid mitigation

permanent fixes are greatly preferrable. We have also heard several concerns about budget process

from lsat members and school leaders.

L sats have only a few days to

review, process, convene, and

sign off on school budgets. L sats are not getting information they need from dcps

to show how their actual expenditures compare to their projection and thereby make

accurate projections for the following year. L sats are also needed to be able to itemize covid related

costs such as ppe, quarantine

areas, deep school cleanings and incorporate them over several years. They also need to be able to negotiate discounts on covid-related spending by

contracting with other schools. Lsats need more transparency and detailed information from dcps on the budget, not just high

level information. Many of these issues were

heightened due to additional planning associated with covid mitigation and distance learning, amid auncertainty about additional federal funds that might be coming and how those funds could and could not be used.

Therefore, we recommend the following. Appropriately account for

inflation and salary increases and budget projections to ensure that schools are adequately funded. Yes, schools look like they are receiving nor money next year

but because as you know because of inflation and rising salaries many schools have less buying power. Please consult school principals

to ensure alignment and projection numbers published on dcps's web site and those received at the school level as has been widely reported there appears to be two sets of books and some of these numbers

provided in D.H.S. -- dcps's publish seem to defer from

whatware hearing from school leaders. Create an emergency facilities fund to provide schools like

langley and langdon and others the necessary building updates to ensure students are comfortable and safe as they

return to school buildings. Ensure that dcps allows schools to use american rescue plan act funds for all authorized purposes including to prevent layoffs and staff cuts.

Ensure that dcps makes mow further cuts to certified librarians which has been the trend in recent years since dcps

has allowed principals to excess these positions in fact like

nurses we recommend that the council require schools have a set number of librarians. And finally the pandemic has

impacted school communities un -- heightening existing inequities, equity not equality must be the guiding principle for a budget, and the expenditure of supplemental federal funds.

In short the proposed dcps

budgets are insufficient, will translate to our community schools receiving less at a time

when our students need so much more. Ward 5 neighbors are calling on the council to intervene. Thank you for the opportunity to advocate on behalf of ward 5's

public schools, students, and families.

thank you, Ms. Mcgowan. Valerie jablow. >> I'm valerie jablow, ward 6 resident and dcps parent testifying on behalf of the ward 6 public school parents association -- organization. As you know, dcps is forcing

schools to cut staff and make impossible budget choices for the 21-22 school year the first

year of recovery after more than one year of disrupted learning due to covid.

Budget analyst mary levy aniloused the budget allocations and found 51% of schools have

lost staff for the 21-22 school

year relative to pre-pandemic budgets. These staff cuts cannot be

explained by lower student enrollments.

Local school advisory teams LSATAs have been asked to choose between academic and emotional support in a time of increased not decreased needs.

Here's what this looks like nain in a

few ward 6 dcps schools. -- losing a social worker and at least one teacher.

Seton elementary, 36% black, 38% latino using a science teacher

and esl teacher while the english language learners are 38% of the body. Ludlow elementary frub%

Miner elementary 79% black, 61% at-risk experiencing budget cuts including losing its librarian. Walker jones education campus,

92% black, 81% at-risk is continuing its historical understaffing while losing its librarian.

Amidon bowen elementary 79%

black, 65% at-risk is losing two full-time positions.

To see the ramifications of this disaster budgeting let us look at amidon.

Amidon has had two full-time interventions, neither has ever been included in the school's initial budget allocations.

This year the principal requested two interventionists and got funds for one.

The lsat chose between a part-time reading and part-time math interventionists. This means students behind great levels will only get half the intervention time they received before the pandemic even though some have fallen further behind during the pandemic. Amidon-bowen also currently laz laz -- has a specials teacher

who serves as a part-time pe. E. Teacher and part-time science teacher but in its initial

budget allocation amidon-bowen lost this teacher yet the school

is adding a classroom this year which also cuts the possible

special rotations next school year. Not to mention fewer staff to address the challenges of social distancing requirements. And all this at a school that

has not lost any enrollment for years runling. And used to have full-time

spanish and science teachers.

Beyond amidon four other ward 6 schools, brent, minor, van ness, and walker jones will have no librarian nengs next year.

We know that having a fumtime

certified librarian media specialist supports literacy development. What are we saying to the children who attend those schools by cutting their librarians?

And at a time of trauma. Yet dcps is directing federal

stimulus funds for new programs or additional supports for the summer, even though paying vendors to provide services is not an adequate substitute for keeping staff who know students and their school communities are needed now. Worse, these dcps budget cuts have -- terrible urgency because staff were told their positions

are no longer funded will soon find employment elsewhere. If dcps waits until late spring to restore these positions, it May be too late to get back staff or hire the best new staff. And worst of all, the

experiences of ward 6 schools

show explitly who these cuts

will hurt the most, black and brown children, many of whose parents have already been devastated by the pandemic. It doesn't need to be this way,

and you can change it with the

$500 million surplus in 2020

our -- D.C. Can and should

invest for recovery now, this means no school budget and staff

cuts for school years 21-22. Investment in regular school day staff with federal stimulus funds which can and should be used for that purpose by dcps

which is expected to receive

more than well I put

$100 million but in fact almost $300 million. Targeted investments in school mental health staff whose services are desperately needed for full pandemic recovery, investment in staffing to help with virtual learning at each school, and to adhere to health and safety guidelines, creation of digital infrastructure for

equitable distance learning.

With a one to one device ratio, internet for all, and readily available tech support for all schools, and understanding that funds for tutoring, summer school and after-school programming are not replacements for instructional staff in

regular school days. We do not lack money to do all of this for all of our schools right now. We only lack political will.

In this time of great need, with achievement gaps only growing, D.C. Needs to invest in our schools and children for recovery, not disaster.

thank you, Ms. Jablow.

Marla dean, ward 7 education

council. >> good morning, Chairman Mendelson, councilmembers and

council staff. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you this morning.

I'm Dr. Marla m. Dean, E.D.,

C.E.O. Of bright beginnings inc. A D.C. Nonprofit that operates children and family learning

centers serving those largely

located in wards 7 and 8 and who

the mayor has stated are farthest away from opportunity but today I come before you in

my current capacity as the

legislative chair of the ward 7

education council while also the incoming chair of the ward 7 education council. The ward 7 education council

supports the petition being currently circulated through the

action network that calls for

more funding to schools and no cuts. I am positive in this era of

recovery after suffering the worst moments of the covid-19 pandemic we can all coalesce around the idea of no cuts to schools.

But the more important question

is will schools receive

increased funding to support the whole child and the impact on families and communities.

This is the question that I hope to elucidate this morning.

Number 1, last night the ward 7 education council met and we learned about our schools

receiving reduced initial budgets.

Many LSATs and principals have successfully petitioned the district to recoup some of their funding cuts but no school has escaped impact.

Schools have had to cut FTEs, reduce some staff to part-time

or plan to dismantle important programming in order to balance

their budgets. No schools are in a place to

bring on innovative programming to help mitigate the experience

of the last year. One school has a new principal and thought it was vital to have a vice principal to support the new leadership. To make this happen, this school

reduced some staff to part-time. For some schools to retain staff they were left with the reality they could do nothing else while other schools are simply losing ftes. Vital programs like before and after-care have been impacted. Schools are at-risk of not

having librarians, music, art,

or P.E. Instructors. Schools have had to eliminate funding for digital learning

software and student licensing

funds for college tours, funds

for specialal learning off campus, funds for computer devices for teachers and students, and funds for student

and teacher celebrations and recognitions. After the experience of covid-19 and the unknown traumas that will most certainly reveal

itself over time, losing staff or cutting program ensures that

every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and

challenged cannot be our way

forward. We must employ a whole child approach.

Number 2, we must plan for the future and the inevitable. Special education sports are already an -- supports are already a concern before the pandemic, and we know that the

need will undoubtedly increase

as schools come fully online and students return to the building.

We can anticipate that more students will need to be referred for services. We have -- we already have an

indicator for this emerging need as violent crime has increased among youth.

Before the pandemic, many schools did not have special education coordinators who did

not have teaching loads. Special education coordinators

do exactly what their title

coordinate vital services.

But they also serve as crisis interveners, liaisons with

parents and advocates for our students. Every school should have a special education coordinator

who is duty free from any and

all teaching responsibilities.

This is a minimum need that is mandated by law for our students. Number 3, we must not overrely on community-based organizations

and contractors to fill the gaps that we know many of our students will have when they

This new term high dosage

tutoring is one that gives me great pause.

If we employ a deficit lens to addressing this issue, we will

surely disenfranchise our most vulnerable and marginalized students. The way forward must be

investing in high expertise

teaching, staff that is in schools daily have the best

student to build respect and rapport between staff and students.

There can be no supplanting of full-time staff to meet this need. We have heard that schools have been told they should not

increase staffing because of the cliffing effect. This is in reference to the anticipated federal funding that is scheduled to arrive in the

near future. The reality is that community-based organizations or contractors will experience that

same cliffing effect over time because their funding will also sunset so we cannot use community-based organizations to supplant the needed staffing of our schools.

I am a leader of a community-based organization. They play a vital role but their role is to supplement not

Again, staff that are with our students day in and day out and for the full day are our best

hope for recovery from this devastating experience our children have endured.

And finally, there is a movement

afoot to convert to student based budgeting to a student-based budgeting staffing model. I am a proponent for

student-based budgeting, but not in D.C. Where schools are small

and there are over 60LIAs

60 le -- lea and where there can be no economies of scale employed. We need a strong, comprehensive staff modeling that ensures all

schools have a baseline of staff

and programming or we will see

more and more students disengaged from learning.

This is a topic for a future day

but it's one to watch for and

ask questions about before it is implemented.

Thank you for your time and your

thank you, Ms. Dean and thank you to all the witnesses. We will have a five-minute round for each of the councilmembers. I have several questions. I'm going to begin with Ms. Reilly.

In your statement, you talked

among other things about west.

And said that west is actually losing funds for the coming year. Now I looked at the table that we were provided at the oversight hearing by mary levy and on that table it looks to me like west is getting more money. The reason why I'm asking this question is because it does speak to the transparency that is how well we can understand

what the figures are. Cow can you speak to what is

happening at west and what mary levy has on her table?

>> it is complicated.

It's a combination of positions coming in at higher cost, that doesn't show up. In other words tcosts you more money to buy each position.

And they're gaining two special ed classrooms which are expensive so they will get extra money for that. So that's, when you look at the table, you see the additional money for the special -- there

is self-contained special ed classrooms but they lost a lot of money for the ell but that wasn't the same amount of money because the self-contained

classrooms are more money. So I'm not looking at the table that mary gave you but I'm getting a lot of notes from them that they cut position that they

actually lost so I'm not on that lsat, I'm on another lsat but when I looked at the budget I saw that complexity. The additional money for

for the special ed masked the loss for

Ms. Mcgowan, I'm looking at -- I have a similar question about dunbar. I believe dunbar is getting more money but in your statement you said dunbar has to make difficult decisions between keeping culture and climate

staff and teaching personnel as a result dunbar is cited to only have four math teachers when

they need five or six.

So they're getting more money

but they're short. Can you say more? I'm assuming it's a similar

answer to what cathy reilly gave. >> it is similar. It's the fact that projected count means they're anticipating

more growth but less buying power because of staff and salary inflation.

I mean, staff salary inflation.

thank you. The third thing I wanted to bring up because was really in response

to what Ms. Jablow testified about. In your -- I'm not sure I have a question here, but more I'm just

going to make a statement.

In your statement you say dcps budget cuts have a terrible urgency because staff were told their positions were no longer funded will soon find employment elsewhere. If dcps waits until late spring to restore these positions it May be too late to get back

staff or hire the best new staff. You went on, Ms. Jablow in your testimony to talk about how we

can use some of the recovery

money from the federal government to fund what we need in education. And I think that's what we're

going to do the reason we're having this hearing, is because we have a budget process you

know, and however that process

ends up jiem fairly confident we will be able -- I'm fairly confident we will be able to restore money to schools and get more money to schools, we're going through this trauma right now of schools being told they

have to cut. And an important point is what

you said, Ms. Jablow, which is

that there are employees at the schools who have to make decisions now. I think you said there were a

couple librarians who are told they won't be around next year and maybe we can save their positions but we, they have to

make employment decisions now. So you make the point about the federal money. This is going to sound harsh and I don't mean it that way. That's kind of irrelevant to the purpose of this hearing, which is about where we are with the

budgeting right now and why this

is promoting stability in schools when the schools are being told right now that they

have to have -- have to cut, and

there's the possibility probability the faculty is going to be lost now before we can

make any of this up with the american recovery funny -- money

later. I can see you want to say something, Ms. Jablow. >> I just want to say briefly that it looks like it's not related but in fact it is intimately related.

More than 50% of dcps teachers

will leave after three years. The federal recovery funds will

be around longer than more than

50% of dcps teachers.

thank you. Let me turn to colleagues. Councilmember nadeau. >> thank you.

wow, that's a pretty astounding statistic I have to say.

Thank you for sharing that, Ms. Jablow. Thank you, every, for your testimony. I mean, I think you're really

hitting home the points that we are trying to make in our opening statements but perhaps less specificity so thank you

for that. I want to touch base with my ward 1 councilmember.

So in ward 1 we know we have 4

schools that are getting major

cuts. Cleveland, car

, and all of those have more than $2,000 worth of cuts. These are not minor cuts, these

are not things you can cut back

on some supplies for a year and try to make up for this.

I mean we're talking about cutting teachers in some cases, right?

>> teachers, support staff, behavioral technicians, all the

positions are positions that would service your neediest child no matter which school

And especially given our high

population of black and brown students, you're talking about

just piling on additional trauma and less resources to more and

more students, and I think

everyone here and all of our fellow wards we could all say

the same thing. We're a small city and this is why it's so crittal

so critical and we we they

take this so personally we know these families whether they're in our school or not I hear my colleagues in the other wards, i know what they're talking about, and I know that they feel what

we're saying as well.

So it's -- we've been doing with

We just can't, you know, give anymore. Our families can't give anymore and especially now, you know,

they need us more than ever and

we all need to just step up to

the plate and correct what

needed correcting many years ago ago. >> then we're also talking about classroom teacher cuts which means larger class sizes. >> yes. >> right? So that's the thing that, that parents who otherwise don't know anything else that's going on with the staffing structure in a school and don't know what all the great work that all the

support staffs do, parents generally understand the implications of larger class sizes, right? It's a statistic that matters to parents because they know that means their child is going to get less attention so we're

coming back hopefully, you know,

to in-person learning in a learning gap and kids are going to be competing even more for

the attention of their teachers.

>> yes, ma'am. >> and I think especially over,

it's going to hit all teachers

but especially hard own our english language learners as you know as I said in my testimony we have a lot of them housed in our ward 1 schools from all over the city. But they're also spread out

throughout the city. And so supporting especially

those who are struggling to learn an additional language, you know, no matter what their

home language May be, we have to provide those supports.

Otherwise there is no way these children will succeed.

And you know, it's just an

added, an added level. We we need those classroom supports and especially as we look to reopening, you know, there are going to be -- the metrics keep changing, right? Like you need now where you just need one teacher before, you're

To supervise. Lsats are looking at how we do respond to our communities individually and how do we step

up with that when we're being asked to cut positions.

>> I heard from a family last month that moved to the united

states in November of 2019, a rough time not knowing the

pandemic was coming, but

enrolled in school and the oldest daughter not speaking any

english has been doing ell exclusively remotely.

And I just, I sat with that

information for a little while

and just, ell is hard enough in person, we now have students

who've spent a year learning exclusively online not in their own language with limited supports and they're going to be

coming into a new school

thank you. Councilmember robert white. >> thank you very much. Thank you to everyone who testified.

Let me start, Dr. Dean raised something in her testimony but others May have a take on this.

You mentioned petitioning for ward -- once the school's budget is cut. How does that work? What does that petition look

like and what are the types of the arguments schools make to get an increase in their budgets?

>> so I want to clarify it's not an increase in their budget.

It's a restoration of the budget

that monies they had last year. Okay? So not an increase. But the way it goes you get your

initial budget, then your lsat and your principal can work

together to submit a petition to

have some of the funding restored.

Some of that has happened already.

But it has none of our schools

in ward 7 have been made whole. So you submit paperwork and some

of the arguments that you use

are like covid at-risk numbers,

the fact that you are often

given lower projections that actually happen.

And so you show the trend of

each year, you're given a projected enrollment of 150 but each year you actually have a projected enrollment of 180.

And so you show those type of database trends and some times

you get some of the money

restored during this proces. >> I appreciate that. I mean, I'm glad that there is

some sort of a, we'll call it an appeals process but also concerning because the needs of a school are the needs of a school so the projections should

be accurate in the various needs that, you know, our understanding what we're told

every year is that schools are

funded with this strict and

robust calculation, but if you need to appeal that then there

is obviously some level of subjectivity in that which is a

bit concerning. >> so councilmember white, could

I just add one little thing to

that. >> please. >> sometimes you have new

principals or l SATs that are not as skill or communities that

try to make lemonades out of lemons so often I feel afraid that the communities that might

need a lot are actually not equipped to engage in that

process where they get more. And I think that's just a problem even in all of our testimony and everything that I,

I have been struck in ward 4. It's a grup of people that

always try to make things work. And sometimes the people that do

that are underrepresented.

And a lot of what we do so in

your deliberations of what you look at and what all of you have said, I really appreciate the concern about equity and making sure even people who don't speak

up are getting what they need.

>> I appreciate you mentioning that. That's something that I digested and should've articulated.

I'm really glad you added that. It relates somewhat to the question that I asked the teacher earlier, which is in, and I really appreciate his explanation because from a budgeting standpoint, my

understanding is that we do adjust our budgets after the

count and so to some extent we make schools whole but to his point and I thought it was a very apt point from somebody who's on the ground, is that the money May come in but it's also too late. Those teachers have left us as

you all have said. The needs for that student started the day they arrived and it May be I don't know if it's weeks or months before that funding gets there and maybe you need to hire someone you don't

know what that market looks like like.

So it May not actually help but

do you agree thet this issue persists with the delay in funding that it does cause a substantive problem, and are any

of you seeing consistent

problems with school projections?

At H.D. Woodson, so we are told

that projections are made over a three-year trend.

For the last two years, H.D. Woodson has exceeded this projection, yet this year but

every year they always start off

with lower projections yet

already demonstrating and

training to work higher enrollment and exceeding their projections. We don't understand. We can't reconcile that how if it's over a three-year average

if you're seeing consistent upward enrollment trend, how each year you always have less than you started with the previous year. So that just doesn't make a lot of sense to us. So we need a etber understanding of -- a better understanding of that as an example of what we see.

And then when the children show up, it's the compound effect of the time it takes for that

funding to catch up if it ever comes.

And then we get teachers, we don't have the opportunity to go out to the marketplace and get the best teachers, the most

innovative teachers, and it's a ongoing cycle. And some of the most marginalized schools that we

experience this. >> thank you for that. One thing I'm looking into is how the budget projections line up for school by school year by year so I can understand that there's a problem there but the impact of that problem is something I'm understanding much better so thank you all, thank you, Chairman. >> thank you, councilmember. Councilmember cheh, do you have questions? >> yes, I'll try to to be brief and to follow up on councilmember white's line here.

I wanted to ask our witnesses and you know whoever feels best

able to respond, it's been my experience looking at ward 3 schools that these projections

are always off, and never to the

benefit particularly of our schools.

So we have to figure out how

we're making these projections but more fundamentally is a projection of the numbers the

best way to consider funding? Because there are things that

schools need no matter what, and

there are it seems to me better ways to figure out what those

needs are and to fund them other

than I think it's rather a blunt instrument you know to do it on

the basis of enrollment but I'd like to get the experience of people who are, you know,

working every day looking at this.

And cathy, you know, you've been

talking about these things for so long.

And others as well but since I didn't direct it to anybody, I

guess I'll put you on the spot.

>> Councilman, I also have an answer. >> oh, good. Thank you, Dr. Dean. >> thank you.

I think it's an element but you know the way we do it now, they

do it in bands also. I mean you need to know how many teachers you need for how many students. But you're absolutely right,

there is a base that every school needs that should be automatic. And schools get in the position

of those being flexible. Petitions are submitted like can you submit out of a librarian so

you can get a classroom teacher.

So you are right, that it is a more complicated process, and that we need a better system,

and that providing a -- the

floor we're providing is not adequate.

And you know, our, it's also our

experience in ward 4, that dcps

is very conservative and they all get like matt truman has gone into great detail about this.

Dcps takes in way more students in the course of a year, so that is not accounted for.

And it should be accounted for at the beginning, and it should

be built into the local school budgets. Downtown central gets some

accounting of that extra money that's going it

to come because we should get extra students but that often doesn't get to the schools so I don't know if that

gets to your question but I'll

let somebody else get at it too. >> Dr. Dean, did you want to join this? >> I did. In a former life I used to be a principal and I had the experience of student-based budgeted and I'm actually a

proponent of it if you have a certain number of students. What happens when you have small schools, there is no way that

you can make it make sense. So you end up making hard choices like between the librarian or the special

education teacher, or between a

behavior tech and the art teacher or this programming or that.

And so the problem is it gives principals more control over

their staffing, but it also in a situation where there is only

poor choices to choose from, it gives the system a way to say,

well, you made the choice, so hands off. And so I think we need to be

cautious about moving -- based budgeting and many of of our

schools in dcps because we have smaller numbers.

I was a principal in maryland

where schools are larger, and

numbers and it makes much more sense chicago has put out a study about their experience

with student-based budgeting and they're pulling back from that.

you need to review that study to

see the impact they had there.

It's complicated but it's something we need to pursue cautiously.

Every school should have a

baseline of staffing and a

programming and it should not be

one that has a narrowing of the curriculum where children are

not exposed to the breadth of knowledge that's out there and the experiences that they so rightfully deserve.

>> right and so enrollment is

not irrelevant in fact it should be a factor but it should not be the controlling factor necessarily, and then second, the other thing I was pointing out is that whether these enroll

lt projections are even reliable.

And especially now given that

you know in this pandemic era, I just, well, we'll have to talk

to the chancellor and see how

they figured this out. Councilmember, if I could offer two things. Wardz to the budgeting, the deals that go back and forth between the lsat and really the

principal and dcps is what

breeds the lack of transparency because we don't know what happens there, and you know, and it, it's just very hard to

continue the budget that way. Sometimes you're making, you know, between a bad choice and a

worse choice, even though we've petitioned for a change, it

doesn't mean that the need that

we had to sacrifice goes away.

That's when you see all of us

fundraising like crazy and there are schools that, you know, maybe can only raise $500. We're not raising thousands of

dollars or millions of dollars,

and then you see all the donor

chooses and you know lobbying to

tv shows and celebrities, you

know, this should be based --

everyone should have basic services, and I don't mean basic

like the charter essentials basic.

I mean the, you know, the fast speed you know everything that a child needs. You need a psychologist. We need behavior techs, we need a librarian.

We need art, we need music and

then if you want like four music teachers, then sure, that's a, like additional let's fund-raise for that. But we should have all of these things in all of our schools and

that way every school is a

desirable school to go to.

>> thank you and I'm over my time considerably. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> thank you, councilmember.

I believe that councilmember henderson and councilmember allen are not available right now for questions.

So I'm going to thank each of the witnesses. Your testimony has been very

helpful and it lays a good

context for our questioning the chancellor so I'm going to turb

Chancellor lewis ferebee? Chancellor of the district of

columbia public school system.

>> confirming you can hear me.

yes, I can hear you.

Give me just a second. Chancellor, when you want to spart start, please begin.

And good morning good morning. >> good morning, chairperson mendelson and members of the committee of the whole and staff. I'm Dr. Lewis d. Ferebee, chancellor of the district of columbia public schools. Thank you for the opportunity to

speak before you today on dcps

initial plans for fiscal year 22 school budgets. This year we've seen the way that school communities have led with resilience. While overcoming the challenges

of the global health emergency, dcps remains steadfast in our

goal to provide a safe and supportive learning environment

where all of our students are able to thrive. As we look into the coming

school year, dcps fiscal year 22

budget is anchored in two

learning acceleration, and building resiliency for our students. First I would like to express my gratitude to mayor bowser for

committing an additional $15 million in initial school

budgets compared to last school year. To secure a strong foundation

for our schools road to recovery, even as our student enrollment is a primary driver

for funding, has decreases this school year. We recognize the differing circumstances that families, particularly those of pre-k children and adult learners have

managed during this pandemic.

This investment is designed to stabilize school budgets that reflect our commitment to our

current and future dcps students. We also recognize the urgency to support our students furthest from opportunity by placing

learning and recovery at the forefront.

This is why we are aggressively targeting federal stimulus dollars directly to schools and in supplement supports that are

addressed to academic and social emotional impacts of the covid-19 pandemic.

To date we have committed $33 million in student learning acceleration and social emotional supports in nirely all of these funds have been

allocated directly to schools.

We've also allocated $27 million

in technology including student and educator devices that support directly schools. $10 million in sustained supports and services for

schools, students, and families

and $9 million to initiate in-person learning innovations including outdoor learning.

For the fiscal year 22 dcps is continuing to fund schools using our comprehensive staffing model.

Maintaining our current model has allowed communities to engage with their schools with a strong foundation of understanding. Through this model, schools are

receiving positions and funding required for those positions such as principals, teachers,

and other flexible positions such as business managers and the like. Schools are also receiving funds for programming such as career

and technical education, nonpersonnel items such as arts and custodial supplies. Initial school budget

allocations are the primary

driver and are driven by two

enrollment and unique student need.

For example, a change in overall enrollment or in the number of

students expected to receive special education or language learner services May result in a

shift in staff allocated. Based on these factors, we do

expect to see changes in school budgets year over year. As part of the budget development process, local school advisory teams comprised of both school staff and family members work together to guide

key budget-based decisions on school level priorities. It is important to note that

budget development process is ongoing. I repeat. It is ongoing. After initial allocationerize provided to schools, dcps support schools with specialized needs in three ways.

First, schools are provided with

flexible ability to petition for

positions that are different by school and are allocated based

on the needs of their student

population and school program.

Individual schools requests are considered based on student need and the overall improvement plan

and each unique context for the school. And finally, third, we also continue to monitor enrollment through the spring and the summer and provide additional

teacher and associated funding and staff as needed.

As required by law, dcps reserves additional funds referred to as our enrollment reserve to address the needs within the school year if enrollment increases and there

is a need for additional staffing.

As noted earlier, we're also leveraging federal stimulus funds to ensure that schools

have sufficient student devices and enhanced technology support

as we continue to implement our

empowered learners initiative. As well as refresh our teacher

devices across our system. Additionally, schools have received a projected allocation

of stimulus funding to support targeted academic acceleration

and social emotional development. These funds are being provided

in addition to the initial school allocation and are based on each school's enrollment and

population of students identified as at risk. I am proud to share that our

schools have already begun developing tailored learning recovery plans for the summer

and beyond through a grassroot engagement prooses engagement -- approach with their teachers, staff, families, and communities.

School will begin outreach to nearly 12,000 families inviting

them to participate in our academ acceleration academies this summer.

The school-based programs are designed to serve a targeted group of students to support their social emotional

development and also accelerate

academics for next school year. District-wide dcps is also

offering up to 7,000 in-person

and virtual seats in extended summer learning programming and

opportunities such as our

literacy enrichment elementary acceleration for students and credit recovery for our secondary students. Thank you again for the

opportunity to speak today about

dcps initial fiscal year 22 budget allocation. The appreciate the council's partnership at dcps remains committing to ensuring that we

have the resources they need to facilitate student engagement and accelerate learning.

As we remain focused on shaping the road to recovery, we

continue to evaluate additional investments aligned with these priorities even as more federal stimulus dollars become available. I'm happy to answer any

questions you May have at this

thank you, chancellor.

We will have at least one 10-minute round for members to ask questions. Chancellor, I want to thank you for your being here and your testimony today and I just want

to put on the record that you were notified of this hearing on monday, so this is one week,

less than one week of response

In the genesis of this hearing

was as follows, that each year when we get the, when we go

through the budget process, when we go through the budget

process, what the council sees

is that schools and parents tell us that the initial allocations

aren't right, that there are adjustments made by the

chancellor that the mayor will

probably increase the upsff funding for the schools and the council will get a stab at the

budget and we will probably

increase funding and in the end, most of the schools are made whole or at least the situation

is made better. I thought to myself, that's the process. But then I thought over the

weekend, we've gotten a lot of communications from parents that this just isn't right.

It isn't right that so many

schools and so many parents and

so many employees of the D.C.

Public schools system are right now fighting for just to try to keep even with where they are in the current year. So this hearing is about one

aspect of the development budget process.

The initial allocations. And that 46 schools were informed that therapy going to receive -- they were going to receive reductions and that based on the testimony we've gotten today it's clear that there are other schools are getting increases but in fact

are seeing cuts because of a

loss in purchasing power. I want to begin by asking about school without walls.

There's no change in projected enrollment and yet they're seeing a cut in their initial budget.

Why? >>> okay so it's important to know that there have been

additional dollars allocated to

schools based on what's been publicly available in schools'

initial budgets so for example,

the initial budget is not include some modifications that have been made to budgets to school so for example, 41 schools are receiving modifications to their initial

budget totaling $3.2 million,

and in addition to that, we've

had schools petition for additional funds.

We have 48 schools petition for budget assistance, and we've

allocated a total of $6 million in additional budget assistance.

So what that means is the 46 schools that you've reference earlier that May have had reductions in their initial

budget is not true today.

In fact that number is down to

36, and one of the reasons for

those reductions are obviously enrollment that I mentioned

earlier or programmatic shifts but one other reason which is impacting the school without

walls high school is there is budget assistance that is one time needed is provided to schools that doesn't carry over year over year.

So school without walls received over $300,000 in budget assistance and previous years,

and had not received that total amount to this school year so they received some budget assistance but that budget assistance received to date is

not the same amount as it was

do the LSATs know that a $6 million additional money has been restored? >> so that information has been communicated directly to schools.

We have not communicated that

directly to lsat members.

And one of the reasons -- >> when was it communicated to the schools? >> so schools would've received

that probably about a week after all of the submissions were made

for budget assistance.

>> which means this week? >> wouldn't have been this week. >> okay but now you haven't

answered my question. If there was no enrollment change projected for school

without walls, why did they get

an initial allocation of $300,000 less?

>> yeah so the difference is in their budget assistance year

over year. They have requested additional assistance this year and last year and the amount allocated is not the same.

okay, let me move on.

I have to be mindful of the

>> they are going to receive a reduction of about three positions and in fact I'm

looking at testimony from Ms. Moscosco, the school which counts teacher retention and stability as a strength is losing an ell teacher and a first grade teacher. Is it likely they will have

their funding restored? >> can you repeat the school name? I didn't hear the school name? >> thompson elementary.

>> thompson elementary.

So as noted in the testimony

provided earlier, we are seeing reduction in the of students

that are eligible for language learning services.

As a result of that, there are

some reductions in the number of

positions associated with

serving language learners.

So if schools have less of that

population, it could impact their budget. So that is one of the reasons

why we're seeing that across the board, and one of the reasons

for that is we're seeing less of those students in our population

giving some of the change in the

economy and job loss. So that would be the reason for

the language learner shifts.

but my question is is it likely thompson will see the funding restored? >> I think they could definitely be restorations across the district.

There has been several people

who reference our recovery funds that we are slated to receive. It's important to note that we have not received those funds to date.

We're scheduled to receive those funds within the calendar year.

That definitely gives us an opportunity to provide

additional funds to stabilize

budgets, and it also gives us

ability to plan for recovery and

acceleration not only for the 21-22 school year but beyond

so I need to move on.

So there was testimony eastern

high school 95% black 67% at risk is losing a social worker

at least one teacher.

Seton elementary, 36% black, 38% latinos is losing science

teacher and an esl teacher.

While the school's immigrant

population consists 67% of its

student body and its english language learner minor

elementary 79% black 71% at risk-is experiencing budget cuts including losing its librarian. Walker jones education campus 92% black 81% at risk is continuing its historical unders

staffing while losing a

librarian. And langley at langley director of strategy and logistics who played a vital role in the school's implementation of distance learning and covid mitigation will be lost as the school makes up for their budget shortfall by changing the position to a lesser paid

manager of strategy and logistics, meanwhile brown education campus will have to take a full-time language instructor down to halftime and lose a paraeducator.

Likely a reading specialist and

a behavior tech outright.

Several witnesses made the point

that these dcps budget cuts have a terrible urgency because staff were told their positions are no longer funded will soon find

employment elsewhere. If dcps waits until late spring to restore these positions it May be too late to get the staff

back or hire the best new staffers.

So how is this positive for the schools? >> I want to go back to one of

your, your questions earlier

about when notices were given on budget assistance.

That date was March 1st.

As I mentioned earlier, we are in an ongoing budget development process.

One of the reasons why we don't communicate to staff and until

June about any excessing or reductions directly is because we know that this is a very fluid process.

It's also important to note that

the mayor has not yet produced her final budget.

The council as well which has implications for school budgets. The priority reasons for shifts in the 36 schools that I referenced earlier that have a

decrease in their funding again

is enrollment so you mentioned eastern high school. Eastern high school is projected

to have a decrease in enrollment which is impacting their budget and their allocation. The other reason is shift in programming which would be special education services and language learner services and

then finally, we have one school as you mentioned school without walls high school their shift is

as as a result of reduced amount of budget assistance that was allocated this year compared to last year. >> so chancellor, so you said one of the reasons primary reason is enrollment but let me see, school without walls,

there's no change in enrollment. Amidon-bowen no change in enrollment so it's other factors. And you've cited other factors. That there was additional money given to school without walls last year and I guess the year before and the year before and the year before that so there

are reasons for all of these cuts.

But you didn't really answer my question. How is it positive that all of these schools right now are looking at these cuts?

Is it not reasonable that the

librarian who's told that his or her position isn't going to be

funded next year is looking now

for a job in some other school system?

Or at another school within dcps. Is that not reasonable?

So my question was, how is this positive? >> so we don't communicate

directly to staff members about their employment status while we

are still processing initial budgets. As I mentioned earlier, that is communicated much later in the

school year once we have a final picture. So we don't communicate to

create a false sense of employment status or not. At this time because we know

that we're still in mix of this process. My point earlier about what drives school budgets is highlighting the majority. And the amajority of the schools

would be impacted by enrollment.

There are a few schools that are impacted by program shifts which are associated with special

education and language learners and then there is the unique situation with the school

without walls that we discussed

earlier. They are not in a situation where they are realizing a decrease. However as noted in some of the testimony, they made a request

for budget assistance and we have responded with a portion of

the amount that they requested. >> I'm out of time this round. Councilmember nadeau, do you

>> I do, thank you. Thanks for all of that,

Chairman, and chancellor. So chancellor, I'm just going to be really direct. Do you do you think the comprehensive

planning model of funding is working? >> so the comprehensive staffing

model from my vantage point definitely is under review and

I think I talked to -- made some great points around the some of

the benefits of having baseline funding.

Some of the benefits of a student-based budgeting process,

so I think the right recipe for dcps is in process.

We were projecting to have a new budgeting model for fiscal year 22. However, due to the health emergency, we didn't believe we

had the appropriate time for

engagement and the ability to

successfully take on the transition during this time but

however we're still actively

engaged in a budget model that

we can introduce in fiscal year 23.

Addressing the challenge that we

public commenters referenced

>> so not to be snarky, but I'm

pleased to hear that dcps wants

to engage community on this particular plan when we've

definitely had a lot of issues

with deep dcps engagement on other plans recently.

But I mean, this one's urgent. I don't know if we can wait another fiscal year. We've got to close these gaps. You told the Chairman There are still 36 schools getting cuts.

I can talk about the ones in ward 1 in particular.

And I want to ask about why certain schools are treated differently.

So when we look at education campuses, some of them are being treated like they have two

student populations and some are not. Roosevelt for example is treated like it has two student

populations and gets two

librarians lots where check which also has a middle and a high school only gets one.

Why do we see differences like that?

>> so the education campus model

varies by campus, and so we have

the pre-k-8th grade model of

education campus, and then we

have the 6th through 12 model,

some of the schools have a combined campus between the

middle grades and the secondary

students, or the middle grades and elementary students. It's important to note that we

are transitioning away from the education campus model where we have both combined elementary and middle grade students. In terms of the secondary schools, it would really depend

on the way that the school program is being administered. So that does look different if

you look at a campus like Mckinley or you compare it to

a campus like cardozo or clum -- columbia heights education campus.

>> so what's the difference? >> the difference is -- >> when we're looking at roosevelt and check, what's the difference.

>> so with roosevelt, roosevelt and mac farland have two

different administrative teams.

And they are two different

campuses from an academic and programming standpoint, they

don't share the same staff. >> okay, I guess on paper that

makes sense but when you walk

into columbia heights education office you have lincoln's admip

office on one side and bells on the other hand. so for all intents and purposes

it seals like the same thing for anybody visiting the stools. It doesn't make a ton of sense

that one school is getting fewer resources.

I'm also curious about the

analysis done by mary levy, I'm not sure if you have seen it,

base line per pupil funding is $7,000 whereas some schools have

9 to 14,000 for students.

How does that happen? >> I think either your screen froze or my screen froze. I didn't hear you last question. >> okay. Let me ask again. Can you hear me okay? >> yes, I can hear you now. >> okay. So I want to also ask about disparities in per pupil funding, some analysis done by

mary levy indicated that a

school -- check for example gets $7,000 per pupil whereas some

schools most schools range from

9,000 to 14,000 per pupil.

What accounts for that disparity?

>> yes, so the mary levy study

has a very unique and different

methodology than what we utilize. There are a couple of areas that

are not as valid as I would think there would need to be to

have a fair apples to apples comparison. >> like what? >> so for example in this study that they did, they double counted for the chancellor's

fiscal year 22 initial budget assistance. And the analysis of the year

over year changes between 21 and 22. They also reported inaccurate year over year budget

differences due to error including inconsistent rounding

or reporting differences in positive numbers with actual differences where it would actually negative numbers.

So I just want to be clear that

we, we should not use that as an

apple to apples comparison of what actually happening with school budgets.

>> okay, well let me ask this then. With columbia heights education campus, they are telling me

their per pupil funding based

funding is $7,000 per student.

Is that what other schools are getting. >> so the comprehensive staff

model is not based on a per pupil funding amount. It's based on positions allocated to the school based on the level of the school and the

number of students within that population. And the types of services provided to students within our population. >> all right, well let's try something else. Columbia heights education

campus is losing $265,000 in the this year's budget which means their

they're going to lose six positions, and they're going to

be welcoming unaccompanied minors throughout the year as

they always do, as will cardozo

which is losing $437,000 in this budget. How are these schools going to operate? This is not okay. This has to be fixed before this budget gets to council. >> yes, so, again, I think you highlight a great difference between what was in the preliminary initial budgets and what's actually in the budget now.

>> well, I had a meeting on thursday where this was still

the case with chec's budget.

>> yeah so with the budget

assistance, chec's per pupil is actually $14,277. They were --

>> does that include ell and at risk or are those dollars on top of that? >> that includes all of their funding from the comprehensive staffing model and budget assistance.

So their initial budget, they

were reduced by $265,337.

And that was primarily due to enrollment and shifts in their language learner population.

Since then, we've provided additional budget assistance to

the school, and so now that

difference is a negative $40,199. And again, their enrollment is

slated to decrease in again also a decrease in the english language learner population and

we're seeing that across the

city where we're seeing less of a population of language learners.

We do also proactively plan for these types of shifts that we

May see, so for example, we have

our enrollment reserve, so if there is a need to provide

additional staffing, as enrollment shifts, we're able to allocate staffing for those

schools as well. >> are there staff available when that happens? Because we heard testimony today that there are people who have to go places and get jobs and make a decision when there is no funding for their jobs.

>> yeah, so we proactively provide the reserve dollars in many cases even prior to the start of the school year so principals and school leaders are able to hire as needed. >> so I'm going to follow up with you on a couple of these things. I know we've reached out this week about doing a meeting.

But here's the thing. So after hearing from everybody today and still after talking to you, a big question in my mind

is honestly what's the point of mayoral control if y'all can't just fix these things when they need to be fixed?

Like, you know there's a

problem, you have identified you want to change it. It's being pushed out to the next fiscal year after being

pushed to this fiscal year, and the reason being given is you

wanted to do more community engagement. Which we all appreciate, but that's almost never the case when you all want to do something that you really want

to do. So I know that if this hearing had been more open to the public as the Chairman Said at the beginning we had we would've had hundreds of people testifying about the school budgets because we're getting all the e-mails. >> yeah. >> you have the power. >> but I think we're in an atypical year.

I think we would all agree where there has been the health emergency that has -- >> yeah. >> -- implications for our budgets. >> and these schools need the money more than ever. >> yeah so I think this is a year where wrea definitely want

to strategically invest the federal dollars that we have

received and we have, we've allocated additional $33 million of most of which has gone to schools for academic acceleration and social emotional development.

The $27 million for technology,

and again, in a year where we

see a decrease of enrollment and we see a decrease in students

identified as at-risk, we're still allocating on initial

budgets an additional $15 million and it doesn't include additional resources

that can infrom the last round of recovery dollars which have been approved. >> which is good but there are still 36 schools being cut. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. I'm sure some other members will get into this. Thank you, chancellor. >> thank you.

thank you, councilmember nadeau. You know, chancellor, you've just said this is an atypical

year, but every year is unique.

I remember two years ago that

there were 31 schools getting cuts, 23 of which were east of the river.

This isn't unique at all. Or rather this is not atypical

Councilmember robert white.

>>> thank you, very much, Chairman.

thank you, chancellor, for being here.

So let me start with, there is also to the Chairman's point,

there is also confusion every year, so the budget numbers that

councilmember nadeau cited from mary levy are very different

than the numbers that you cited.

Mary levy, most of us would

agree is a budget expert so how

is it that she is so far off from the number that you gave? What do you think is the reason those numbers are off, chancellor? >> yeah, I think it wouldn't be

productive for me to try to

explain or you know, predict how

mary levy's going to do her analysis year over year. All I can do is share those differences.

We do collaborate often with c

for D.C., mary levy on our

trends for enrollment but there

are unique nuances they May not be familiar with as they develop

their analysis and we try to collaborate with them as much as possible but I can't speak to

how they do their analysis versus what we actually produce that goes to schools.

>> I guess what I'm trying to

raise is the budget is wildly

not transparent. Because the way the budget is

laid out changes at different points of the year. And often the concerns that we

hear expressed from schools, we

bring to you, and then in these hearings you say no, those numbers are wrong.

And everybody is left confused. And this is something that we have to figure out. I mean, there just has to be a

way toilate off this -- toilate to lay out this budget in a way that makes sense to school communities and the the council and dcps. So I hope that's something we can work on. In your testimony, you mentioned, you testified that

the mayor committed $15 million more for schools this year than last year.

Does that include federal relief funding? >> no, that doesn't include federal relief funding. So as I mentioned earlier, the

federal dollars are showing up in different places.

So for example, we're allocating additional dollars to schools for academic acceleration and social emotional development and learning. That's occurring most of that work is occurring over the summer. That amount was $33 million.

We also allocated in federal dollars additional $9 million for innovations in outdoor

learning and in $27 million for technology and that is for student devices and also educator devices and in addition to that tech support.

We also have received a -- >> well, I don't want to go too far down this road because I wanted to let you finish but that wasn't the question I was asking. I don't mean to be rude. I just want to make sure I can stay on track. >> yeah, the $15 million that I

referenced earlier is for the initial school budgets, and so

that is $15 million more compared to last year. >> okay.

>> even though we, we had a

decrease in enrollment this year, and I think it's important to note, you know, there is a lot of conversation and testimony about -- >> chancellor, I'm sorry, I got to make sure I get through questions that, you did lay that out in your testimony. I just want tad clarify that one small point.

How accurate would you say dcps

student projections are? >> dcps student projections have been relatively accurate.

I think there have been atypical years.

For example, for the 21 school year, the 20-21 school year that we're in now, what I was trying

to explain earlier is even

everybody though we realize a reduction in enrollment this

school year, by and large, we

didn't shift staffing so there are many years where there's for

some schools, lessen

than projected and dcps hasn't taken any resources from thoars schools.

>> when the enrollment is higher

than projected enroll many, when can schools receive those funds? >> it can vary t depends on the situation of the schools.

We set aside our enrollment reserve to provide additional dollars to schools when there's

an increase in enroll, sometimes

that curves in the spring or summer.

A school May have an unusual impact in the fall that --

>> I'm sorry, but when enrollment numbers change after

the count day, when do schools see those funds?

>> yeah, so we typically reconcile earlier in the school

so it's important to hire people

as early as we can, but the bulk of the additional dollars comes

over the summer, spring and early fall.

>> so when there's a student enrollment projection that changes after the October count date, when do schools receive

the additional funding?

>> it is not typical that we

could see significant shifts in school budgets after the October

date, so typically, the schools have received the bulk of their

funding and resources up until that time point.

>> so if they do see an increase in funding after the count da

tarks if they see an in increase in

enrollment after the date, they do more funds or not? >> that's not typical.

We don't see dramatic increases after the date, but we make sure that their needs are met finance

there's a need for addition nalt

resources, we respond

accordingly. >> >> you mentioned a few minutes ago that you have not identified positions to be cut for next school year, is that right?

>> yeah, we haven't communicated to staff about reductions to their positions or changes to their employment, and we typically don't do that until we've completed the budget process.

>> so how do we reck nile the testimonies that we heard about

schools losing art teachers, librarians, science teachers,

how do we reconcile that with

>> so they are making those

statements based on initial lotments or initial allotments and budgets that they receive,

but that's not complete at this

The mayor has not released her budget and there's usually implications when the budget is released. >> so schools believe specific positions that are on the

chopping block are at this point

incorrect? >> well, they're basing it on their initial budget allocations, which would not be a good idea to gauge what final picture will be because there's

often shifts and there could be a shift as we go through the entire budget season. >> how would they identify --

people are not saying we're losing $200,000, some are, but some are saying we are going to lose our librarian, we are losing a science teacher.

How are they getting there. >>

?>> yes, this he could get there

through the enrollment decreases. If you have less sixth grade students, you May have less

sixth grade positions in your allocation.

If you previously had a self-contained artistic

classroom, you May have that classroom move to another school so you don't have those positions or staffing associated with that particular program.

But if a school population goes down, they will understand, we will lose something, but what

they're saying to us is we're losing this specific teacher. What I'm getting at, how are they getting there? >> I don't know. That's a great question, councilmember white.

Like, I don't know how they would identify a specific teacher at this point. That would not be recommended or

best practice at this time because no individual teacher has been identified, unless

there's a specific teacher with an instructional program and that instructional program has been reduced or moved to another site.

>> just in case there's not

another round, quarter four starts in just over a week, some parents still don't know if their student also have an opportunity for in person

learning and don't know what in person learning May mean.

It mae mean one day a week, five

days a week, four hours. Quarter fourth starts in just over a week.

When will all parents know if they'll have an opportunity for in person learning and what in person learning will mean for their child?

>> yeah, so quarter four starts

on April 19th after spring break, and schools have already

started to offer seats based on their particular capacity and

demand for in person learning for term four.

Most was based on the previous health guidance. As you May know, the cdc

released updated health guidance

and dc health has also released

updated health guidance and dcps has established new protocols

for schools for term four, and schools will be offering additional seats to families

based on that new health guidance. >> okay.

I do understand schools have started reaching out to give preliminary information, but I'm asking something more specific, which is when will all parents who are interested in in person learning know, when will all of

them know whether they have an

opportunity and what exactly in person learning will mean for their child?

>> yeah, so that will vary by

school and their plan and we're

expecting all plans for quarter

four to be closed in term four. Families should be receiving

outreach about their interest in in person learnings and offerings, that started this

week and that will be rolling

until we complete our spring break period and going into

April 19th of term four. >> thank you, chancellor. Thank you, Chairman.

thank you, councilmember. Councilmember cheh for questions?

>> thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, chancellor.

A couple of times these are

initial budget indications and allocations and

things will change, and this is the first cut.

A couple of things. Folks have said, despite the numbers have changed, hopefully more money will be made available.

It nevertheless, creates

uncertainty, anxiety, I guess frustration especially if there are things, for example, like the librarians. Librarians as I understand it

have been shifted to something that's regarded as a flexible

with petition, so that principals can petition to use some librarian money for something else if they have a

This might cause, I believe, certainly uncertainty.

Do you think that this first budget, despite the fact that things might change, do you

think it really has none of

these real effects, these buy product affects

buyproduct duct effects on schools and staff? >> yeah, I think it's good for initial planning.

We remind the school smunt that

these are initial budgets, but you have to have a starting

point to begin the process. There's a provision that the superintendent reviews so make

sure we maintain integrity to of

their media services and we have

seen the number of school

librarians maintain relatively

consistent year-over-year, and based on initial budgets, I

believe the total shift is 2.5

FTEs in school librarians positions year-over-year right now currently. >> but I guess what I was asking, I'll just leave it

there, is the fact why the school librarian is put into a flexible position? But going back to the budget, are the assumptions in the

budget that we have now based upon the status quo right now, so that, for example, councilmember nadeau was talking

about this potential influx of

students who are coming into the

united states and there May be

other issues that change those

numbers considerably. so what is the basis for the

numbers now, the enrollment figures and aren't they skewed

in any event by the whole affect of the pandemic?

In other words, what kind of

confidence can we have in these

enrollment figures on which the budgeting is base inside.

>> so we did -- great question, councilmember cheh, and we did make some adjustments to account for the health emergency and

what May be a shift in enrollment for this school year,

specifically, that shift took

place with pre-k thee and pre-k

four, which is where we saw the biggest change in role many. For example, compared to

previous years, rather than incorporating any major

enrollments in pre-k 3 and pre-k 4, we had some safeguards in their protections to ensure that

we're able to serve as many

students as possible in those

grades for early childhood

We've also increased the rising kindergarten class by assuming some of those students May

return this year going into first grade.

We know that we saw some reductions in kindergarten, so

most of that is taking place in

the early grades where we saw some shifts.

In addition to that, while we know that kindergarten enrollment was smaller in this

current 20-21 school year, we

had strong trends in 19-20 that we have baked into our progresses

projections for our kindergarten

and first grade classrooms, and

also going into our first grade.

We know that this is a unique

year and we're using projections

based on a two-year linear trend, so it allows us to not only think about consistently

where we were in 2021, but also what the trends were in the 1u9d 20

19-20 school year. >> so based on what you said to councilmember white about the need to enhance budgets after

the counted, that really that's dominiums, and based upon what

you're saying now, you're saying we have, despite it being a pandemic year, despite the fact

that there might be an influx of

students from across the border

and that sort of thing, you have great cfs in the enrollment numbers thank you?

>> I have great cfs in the enrollment projections that we

made for the 20-21 school year.

Actually, I think in many cases, there's enhancements.

>> and there can be these enhancements, one portion of which or a major portion of

which might be these petitions

to ask for more money.

Well, what if schools are not on top of their game per se or even

if they are, you believe that

they haven't made a persuasive case.

How much difference united differentiation can

seep into that in terms of how well schools do? In other words, some schools might do much, of better because they put together a better package. Are you able to see that, that happens?

>> I am closely monitoring that

and one of the strategies that I have employed is what I called the chancellor budget assistance. so this is an opportunity for me

to collaborate with our central

service team to identify gaps

where I think there needs to be investments and this is an investment that schools don't

have to ask for that goes on top of the school's budget.

For example, this year's budget, 29 schools received chancellor budget assistance. >> can I interrupt for one second? >> sure. >> what I'm asking is, there's

going to be variation and

variation in persuasiveness and

the requests that's put together. Are you able to, after these

petitions are filed, be able to

figure out schools that might be

given greater deference because their package was not put together well?

In other words, there must be

wide variations in the packages comes to you; that correct? >> there is variations.

I wanted to say that there's

chancellor assistance for additional programming, and 29 schools received it. There's certainly a level of

review to ensure equity in the traditional budget assistance request as well, so I've ensured

there's a thorough review twenty

superintendent budget and equity. [Unintelligible]

>> okay, getting back to this

issue making librarians in this flexible category. Why was that done?

In other words, isn't that kind of a need that should be

anchored and stable over years?

>> yeah, so the level two status

of the librarian positions have

been in the dcps comprehensive staffing model for sometime.

When this concern was raised in the previous budget year, we

made sure we tightened controls

of review, so they reviewed carefully proposals to make modifications for library and

media services, and as I

mentioned earlier, we maintain a

steady core of staffing to ensure that schools have the appropriate supports.

>> but let me just, you know,

I'll give you a hypothetical,

but let's say high school,

relarge high school that May be geographically located in ward

three, just hypothetically, they have two librarians, then the principal taking this global

look at all of the needs of the

students in that school now knows it May be necessary in her judgment to take one of those principal positions and allocate

it to some other position.

If we squeeze the schools in that way or if it's left to them

and they have to make these

judgments, then he have

inevitably it May mean that the librarians

that are needed might be sacrificed ssm .

Is that a possible scenario here? >> I don't think that's the

scenario as I think about high

schools in the area that you've

described, a decrease in funding

year-over-year, so I don't see a scenario in which there's a

squeeze that you're reference to make such a decision.

>> and then, kind of a final question.

councilmember? >> oh.

I'm over, okay, I'm sorry. Never mind. My question is final. I'm done. Thank you very much, chair.

we'll have another round.

>> I have two site visits that I have to go so I won't be here for those.

then ask your last question. >> then my last question is simply this, chancellor much at the outset of this process, through the mayor's office or

from the mayor, mayoral control

and all of that, are you given a mark about where you ought to be in terms of the budget that you're putting together?

>> we have not received any

final numbers on the budget from the mayor's office.

>> are you given a guidance or mark about where you ought to winds up with these numbers or not?

>> so we use a projection year-over-year based on enrollment to determine what our initial school budgets are and

that's not a marked process used to do that.

>> thank you, Mr. Chairman.

thank you, councilmember cheh. Chancellor, I don't think you answered her question.

In the budget development by the

city administrator in the budget

office, is dcps given a mark? >> dcps is given a projection of

what the overall city revenue is

and we use that to make our projection for initial school budgets.

and when you were given that?

>> it's the public information

that's available to everyone.

and that still doesn't answer my question.

I believe November/december, every agency is given a mark s your agency given a mark?

>> yeah, I'm not familiar with

what you're referencing, a November/december mark. Councilmember henderson, do you have any questions? >> yes, I do. Good afternoon, chancellor. How are you today? >> I'm well. How are you, councilmember henderson? >> good, good. I'm going to try to be quick here as I can.

I want to ask a question about school security on the budgets

for this upcoming school year. You know, it's my first year

back after a while and sort of

dealing in the school budget realm.

When did school security go from being something that central office handled in terms of a central budget office item to an individual school's budget line item?

>> I believe that was reflected

on schools budget for a greater sense of transparency because there was some questions about,

you know, how much a school is

receiving, why they're receiving specific amount.

I believe that shift took place in fiscal year '20, if I remember correctly. >> okay.

So who does this entail in terms of school security?

Are these SROs, are these

school officers, are they cameras and detecters? what does school security entail?

>> so school security entails

primarily our cracking guards for schools. >>

contracting guardsfor schools.

>> so the private personnel? >> correct. Want to be clear. They're not school resource officers.

School resource officers are a

separate entity from our contracted guards, but we

previously had a contract with mpd where they manage our

cracking guards, and now that process has shifted to dcps.

>> right, but it is possible

that a school could have SROs and private security officers at the same time, meaning we're

double paying for school security, right?

>> it is possible that a school

would have a allocated resource for a school resource officer

and they would also have

contracted guards or security staff, but their roles are different, so I I wouldn't describe that as a double pay. >> but the contract in terms of

who is negotiating for the particular vendor, that comes from central office, and then

what we see on initial school budgets are what you allocate as

the per cost for each school, excuse me? >> I'm not sure I'm tracking your question there. >> so you guys have a master

contract with a vendor for a private security. >> correct.

>> then what we see on the

school budget worksheets would be what you estimate the cost is per school? >> that is correct. >> okay.

Is that based on how much personnel is deployed to that particular building? >> correct.

It's primarily based on the personnel allocated to that

building and it does differ, so

for example, allocation is based on square footage of the building, the number of entry

points and exists of the

building, incident data, and if there's a high number of incidents that requires

additional support, then we also consider enrollment.

>> I would encourage you all to be more transparent in this because communications I'm getting, particularly from high school students are e-mailing

why are why is my school having

to decide if we keep a librarian or particular teacher when there's a hundred thousand

dollars in our school security budget and I don't think we

need, it right be and that goes to a larger conversation about

what younger people dawg about what security looks like in schools and what police looks

like in schools, but I think

there's some misassumptions in

terms of if its SROs or not.

>> we work hard to clarify that. It's important to know that we're this school year, we're

piloting a model where several schools are given flexibility

over their school security staff.

We have 18 school engaged in this pilot that we're excited excited about. We look forward to seeing the

results from that, but they can

re-purpose the resources for security staff and other purposes. >> can someone from your office perhaps share that list of those schools? >> sure.

>> I want to switch to talk about federal funding.

I recognize that when you all were putting together the initial school budgets, you didn't yet know what was going to happen with congress in terms

of additional federal funding,

but now we know and dc is slated to get several of millions of

dollars in the education broward county, it does not

bruct,it doesn't even need to be spent

by next school year, so I'm

curious how dcps is taking into account those federal dollars

and how we'll budget that over the period of time before it all has to be expended by? >> thank you for that question because I've heard probably four

or five different numbers on

what amount is from 200 million to 300 million plus.

The number that we have based on the allocation for the district

of columbia, specifically dcps is 193 million so I think we should get clarity on what that dollar amount is. Our two priorities that you heard me speak to in my

testimony will drive how those

resources are allocated than is academic acceleration and

building a strong sense of resiliency for our students and our families.

>> I know, but can some of the dollars be used so we don't cut staff to advance the two

priorities that we just spoke about?

>> definitely could be, that is

one way we could allocate resources.

Would that be the sole way we allocate resources, probably

not, but when we get a clear indication of when we'll receive those dollars, we can communicate to schools of what

that would mean for their 21-22 budget school year. >> I want to acknowledge the fact that there is some pot of money for what they call the

quote unquote governor's fund, sotomayor has some discussion on a little pot of how she can

choose to spend that money.

When do you -- will when we

receive the transmissions that doesn't include the enhances dollars that we just got? >> there's two clear steps in the process that will closeout the budget process for school.

One is the mayor's budget and we

look forward to receiving that

and anticipate great recognition to the need to support our public schools, and secondly,

with he hope to have a clear date of when we should expect to receive the latest round of recovery dollars.

Right now, the language speaks to having the dollars by the end of the calendar year. That doesn't work for us given the school year.

>> the school year would have already started, but also, I

mean, frankly, like what I hear

you say and I apologize for my interrupting but I only have a couple of minutes and I want to get one more thing in.

What I hear you saying, until

you know when exactly you'll get that money, you won't necessarily make the adjustments

to add the additional federal dollars to schools? Correct me if I'm wrong? >> yeah, we're working on a process with osse as we speak on

how we can directly get dollars

to dcps for this latest round. Osse has been a phenomenal

partner in supporting us with our recovery planning and I anticipate we won't have to wait beyond the current budget season that we're in and we're currently in that conversation

right now with osse and we'll certainly keep the council updated as those plans are finalize. >> I hope your agency partners are listening because I will

just say it makes me a little uneasy in the idea that the

council May be forced to consider or approve school

budgets that doesn't include the recent federal money, which could help stem a lot of these

challenges that a lot of these school communities are facing and that they continue to face around potential cuts due to dips in enrollment.

>> I anticipate we'll have a clearer picture as we continue our current discussions.

>> okay. Recently, I saw that D.O.E.S.

Posted around some vacancies for

dcps, some educational aides,

which doesn't exactly include a position description.

It was for long-term educational aides. Basically, it said you needed to have a high school diploma, a

little bit of college, pass a background check and drug test. It doesn't say what they would

be doing, but making $22.50 an hour. Are these forward thinking --

like who are y'all highering? Why are you hiring civil hundred of them? What are they going to be doing? >> thank you for that question.

I know that is something others have been interested in.

That posting is referring to contracted personnel that dcps needed to secure to assist with

our reopening plans for our care classrooms, support for term three.

>> but Mr. Chancellor, the

posting says March 2021 so that

to me says you are hiring right now.

>> that needs to be corrected, that is not accurate.

This was for staffing that we needed to ensure that we can complete our reopening plans due

to the fact that we are honoring accommodations for staff that needed to remain remote during the health emergency. >> okay.

Is there a possibility and I promise, Mr. Chairman, I'm done after this, I just want to wrap this up here. Is it possible for the council

to get a breakdown of how much

money dcps has spent to operate care classrooms over the last

>> I'm certain that we can give

you some idea of what our care expenses have been. I don't know that we would be able to share specifically like how much of that has been

contracted or dcps staff right

now, but as soon as we get more

information and also, we're influx.

We're adding additional students to our in person learning

opportunities for term four, so we'll try to give you a sense of

where we are and give you as much data as possible. >> thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

thank you, councilmember.

Councilmember allen? >> thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chancellor. How are you today? >> good afternoon, councilmember

allen, good to see you.

>> I'm feeling a little depressed after this.

I was hoping in this hearing we were going to hear you come out talking about how you're going

to go down fighting for these schools, how you're going to fight to make sure the budgets are increased, that they're going to have everything that they need in a year like, this

and I'm hearing shrugging off

staff locations, blaming principals for hard choices that

they May have to make, but I don't hear ownership of the destabilizing and frankly demoralizing decisions that are happening in our school

communities, and it's really frustrating as somebody who is talking to our school

communities over and over again.

It's school librarian month. Happy school librarian months for all of the librarians about to get cut.

I had my own kids' librarian let me know that they're being shift into a half time position.

You hear you say, well, but we're not going to let anybody know about decisions or on whether or not they're going to

keep their job or not until

june, which seems pretty late in

the process, but what would the impact be for you, Mr. Chancellor, if the mayor

came in and said, listen, next

year I'm cutting your salary in half.

We're just going to hoff you to a half time position. Now, it might change, so hang in there. Maybe it will change and I'll let you know in June whether or

not you'll have a full-time job

in the fall, but just hang in there with me.

What would that impact be to you or your central staff, if you told your top team, guys, I have to move you to half time, I

might be able to get you back in June? Do you think you would lose some of your staff? >> yeah.

I want to go back -- you used terminology that came from me and respectfully, I want to disagree with you.

I've been a fierce advocate for our school community for

resources, especially around dcps. Dcps was one of the first districts in the region to move

forward with in person learning. Specifically the question you asked around communication with staff.

I think it's inappropriate and I've said it many more times

before the day, to start communicating with staff around initial budgets. That won't be a productive discussion.

>> you mean in terms of like the individual staff members shouldn't find out what the budget is going to look like for next year; that what you mean? >> yeah.

I mean, at this point, the budget is not complete so I think any communication to staff around, you know, your position

or your status for next year is not an appropriate discussion at this time.

>> how would you do that?

If the librarian sees that there's librarian positions being cut, are we supposed to keep that a secret document and

nobody gets to know about it until June, then we tell them, oh, by the way, I know you won't

have a chance to get hired for

next school year, but you're fired. >> I would communicate that the budget process is not complete. >> I think the piece thai feel

the biggest disconnect and I'm sorry, chancellor, I don't hear from you the passion right now

of getting schools what they need but we're hearing so many schools saying they're not getting what they need.

It's like an experts of looking exercise of looking

at a spreadsheet and not looking at the people. There's actual people that don't

know if they're coming back next year. There's actual people that have developed relationships with

these students or with these at risk families that will rip us under and maybe in June, we'll see. They have a life as well.

They've got to make a choice and

they leave because of the uncertainty we just created, all with, hang in there, the budget is not final, then we May get

them back or we've got to go find some librarians or other

people to help fill the gap.

It is -- I think it's incredibly destabilizing. Let me turn to other questions

because I know I'm going to run out of time. How many schools I guess challenge the enrollment projections from this year's initial budget?

>> yeah, so I don't know how

many schools off hand have

challenged the enrollment projections.

I can say we've been very responsive. >> fair point, you May not have that information in front of

you, but is that a knowable

thing in terms that data tells

you school x petitioned or

challenged our enrollment position? >> I think he

we have a good sense of the landscape where there's been principals who have indicated to us that their

enrollment May not be aligned in

their projection for what they

anticipate this year, and in

many cases, we're responsive to that and sometimes, we tell the school that we need to see more

information or more data of -- >> sorry chancellor, but what

I'm asking is do you keep track

to have that? If school x and school y challenge the enroll many

numbers, is that logged somewhere?

I get it, you don't have it immediately in front of you, fair enough.

Would you able to get that back to us and say here are the schools that challenge the reopening

enrollment projections?

>> yes, we can give you. [Overlapping speakers] >> if you could do that by school because I would like to be able to see where we see schools that have the capacity

and wherewithal to challenge.

I think we should ask the same

question for the petitions from

petting back positions to be able to see. This I've heard this referenced several times. We have some school communities that have much greater capacity than others and they're able to

actioner back, fight back, claw back some positions and other

schools simply aren't.

>> that's one of the reasons why --

[Overlapping speakers] >> Mr. Chancellor, I'm sorry, I only have three and a half minutes left,.

[Overlapping speakers]

>> one of the reasons --

[Overlapping speakers]

>> Mr. Chancellor, I'll have to ask one more time if we're going

to keep talking. Mr. Chancellor, I want to be able to shift gears to talk about the federal funding so we can understand the decision point dlz.

My understanding is, you have expresses in previous hearing

and publicly if we used the fund

-- we would face a funding cliff as the federal dollars wined down and we would no longer have federal dollars to support the positions ssm that a fair representation?

>> yes, I raised the flag.

I want to make sure I have time to speak to respond, correct? >> I think you answered the question. it's a fair assessment of that.

How would we -- we sat with the

cfo who walked us through what they believed the economic progresses are

projections are for the next several years. Have you done the projections to

say what would be the increasing revenues that would come into the district non-federal dollars?

The cfo's projections of what a

recovery looks like shows where

we were from a revenue standpoint within a couple of years.

How does that factor into your projections into other years? >> defense time to answer? When you ask a question, I don't

have adequate time to respond s it okay for me to go back to your previous question and respond or do you want to just keep going forward? >> I think the previous question you said yes, that was an assessment.

Do you need to add more to that? >> yeah. So the point I was trying to

make earlier, when we look at

budget assistance requests, we

also insert dollars for the chancellor budget assistance to

ensure that if schools aren't

raising up rizs that we're being

responsive from an equity lense.

In materials of your question about the caution for the funding cliff, it's just a caution. It doesn't mean we shouldn't use dollars to help stabilize school

budgets in the way of utilizing, but we didn't want to utilize all of our funding in that way

and we wanted specifically in

the last round of federal funds

to schools that have dollars to

do acceleration over the summer for small groups support and high dose tutoring.

>> I think what you've laid out of having some of the funds

available for the targeted, kind of shorter term intervention I

think makes sense because you'll have some to be used for that, but when we have federal cuts, they need more money.

I hear you basically defending the school budgets that we have right now and that's the part

that is incredibly frustrating

is when so many schools are

feeling it does so much damage where we don't want to hold

back, with he need to put more in.

That's what I'm struggling to understand how we can defend the

current projections of school budgets and with he need the funds to support these positions moving forward. If we have the numbers that we heard about, also the attrition

of our workforce, it sounds like

you have plenty of reasons here.

The last question I'll ask is,

what would the cost be to restore all the positions that

are currently cut in the fy '22 budget?

>> yeah, I don't have a number to share of what it would take to make that happen because

again, we're still in a preliminary early phase of the

budget process, and I hear you are calling out to have the data

for planning, but also what that planning data represents and some of the concerns as a result. I do want to go back to your point around federal dollars.

So there aren't any federal

reductions, but what is not

reflects on our initial budgets

right now is the latest round of recovery dollars to be received and there's a need to consider how those dollars would be

utilized for academic acceleration building resiliency

because some of that May be additional goals for schools for personnel, but we're still

working with osse on the exact time period we will receive

those resources and when we can allocate those dollars accordingly. >> okay. Well, if you're unable to tell

us what it would take to restore

the positions currently cut in the fy '22 budget, I don't understand how you can understand there's a funding

cliff if federal funds are used to fund staffing positions

because if we don't know fy '22,

we can't know '23, '24, or '25.

There's pain taking place in multd schools in ward six and across this.

I'm glad that there's this chancellor's ben nef lantd benevolent fund,

but it seems like there's not a lense from an oversight perfect

of how they're going tout out to fill the gaps.

The damage is done. We create the damage going through this process.

It's destabilizing, it's demoralizing, the damage is done so even if we came back in May

and June, say guess what, surprise, we have you covered,

the damage has been done. We've lost people, we've lost

confidence, and we've lost the relationships at a time when we need them more than ever. thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chancellor. >> thank you. Mr. Chairman, May I respond to

that last statement?

>> so the budgeted assistance we budget assistance, we know where the dollars goes and the majority has gone to schools in ward seven and warted eight.

In terms of federal dollars for

personnel, we again will

continue to evaluate and determine how much can be dedicated to personnel, but

again, the caution that I was

laying out is, you know,

year-over-year, reductions are

evaluated at the school level of what I had last year of what I have currently, and my fear is,

if there is a significant amount of increase in personnel, there will be a cliff where schools

will look at that and say, I have less than what I had last

year, and so we just need to be mindful and raise the flag that this is one-time money, that

this is not dollars -- these are

not dollars that we will sustain overextended period of time. >> that's what happens every single year.

there will be another round. Mr. Chancellor, one of your

answers to councilmember allen,

if I remember correctly, when he

asked about personnel like like breenlsz who are looking for other work because they're told

they're losing their position,

if I remember you, you said dcps

doesn't notify anybody till June because nobody should accept that they're losing their position until they're notified that they're losing their

position in June, and I'm having -- I'm just having a hard time reconciling that.

So what is the point of this if the faculty in the school aren't to take it seriously with regard to lost positions? >> as I responded to councilmember allen, I think

what he was calling out is this

tension where there's a need for

a school to do planning.

Schools can't do planning for the school year in June and over

the summer, so there's a need to

provide some sense of projection

of enrollment, funding, the types of positions that a school

would have to build their

staffing, but that is preliminary. That is not the final landscape of what the school would have for the school year. I think what has happened is

that, that preliminary allotment

is now being equated as the final and so if a position is

not in the preliminary allocation, there's this sense that the position won't be there

for next school year, and it May or May not.

I think it's just premature to --

let me jump in here because the issue is whether

this is the best way to budget,

whether this is positive.

So I'm looking at testimony,

seton elementary school is

losing a science teacher and esl teacher. Are they not to take that seriously? What's the science teacher

supposed to do? >> these are preliminary allocations and so the school

has to have some basis to plan from.

is 2019 only way to budget, Mr. Ferebee?

>> I don't see how you can give

schools budgets only when it's final, then having to do the planning over the spring and hiring. I don't think there's another

way without giving school a sense of what it will be early in the process.

chancellors fund, you called the benevolence fund, and you've already made up some cuts.

Why couldn't it have been done soon senior. >> I'm not sure I'm following your question.

it was a very simple question.

You have a fund with which you apply additional money to the

schools after the initial preliminary budget. Why couldn't you have done that sooner?

>> so we did that when we gave schools their initial budgets, so I'm not sure how you could

give it to them any sooner.

well, that's not correct. Mr. Chancellor, there was testimony at the last hearing that 49 schools were seeing cuts.

You indicated to me in a pre

hearing answer that it's 46 schools were cut. A half an hour ago, you testified that you have added money to a number of the schools

so it's only 36 schools that are cut.

you've already distributed funds. Why didn't do you that early senior. >> we did do that early every.

What you're tracking 49 didn't

come from dcps, that's actually from the --

>> okay the 46 represents what

was allocated in chancellor assistance in initial allocation. As a result of the --

and that was given to

the schools and the LSATs had to react to that, correct? >> correct.

okay. So that was given.

Why the additional money that

you've since provided, why

didn't you do that earlier so that the lsat was reacting to that? >> so the additional money that was provided to schools is the

dollars from the budget assistance, and so the additional budget assistance,

which takes the schools from the 46 to 36.

haven't answered my question-dispch. >>

-- >> when schools got their initial budgets.

I don't believe you answered my question. The 46 schools that were cut

were informed that those 46

Since then, you have provided additional dollars so it's only 36 schools.

You still have not answered my question.

>> I've answered your question

and the response; when schools receive their initial budgets, they receive the chancellor

assistance with those funds. Once they receive that, apart of

the process is, in the budget development process; they then

engage with their local school's

advisory teams and they can subsequently request budget assistance. Once they request budget assistance, we review is and determine which schools receive budget assistance. Once that process was complete,

we added an additional amount to school budgets based on those

budget assistance request, and

that total amount was 24e7b added to

then addedto schools, which was approximately 6 million. Once that 6 million is added,

the schools receiving a reduction in allocation was

reduced from 46 schools to 36 schools.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chancellor, this is getting

me a bit worked up here because

this exchange is -- I won't characterize it.

Before the hearing I sent you questions.

One of the questions is was is 49 schools being cut. Your answer is it's only 46

schools being cut. Forty-six.

The 46 schools were told that they're being cut.

New your saying it's 36 schools. My question has been repeatedly,

why is it that the additional

dollars that made ten of the

schools whole or better wasn't initially sent to them? And that still has not been answered y were 46 schools told

they were being cut?

And the answer can't be, that they got the complete numbers which are only 36 schools.

I don't know how else to put this. >> the 36 represents dollars

that are received from budget assistance, so we wouldn't know

what the budget assistance

dollars are going be to schools.

because you did it in the past month.

>> we did it in the past month? I'm not sure what you're referencing. That schools received their initial budgets, then

budget assistance. Can we agree to that?

I don't know what to agree to because I hate to say, it your answers have not been clear.

>> again, schools receive their

initial budgets with chancellor assistance.

As a result of that, it takes

into account enrollment programs.

I don't want to hear about that. Schools said they were cut.

Thirty-six schools are being cut.

Why were 46 schools being told that they were being cut when

only 36 are being cut?

>> because schools got budget

assistance that shift shifted it --

why didn't that assistance happen before? >> because we give schools the opportunity to make requests

based on their context of their school community.

this hearing and my consistent

inquiry has been how is this

budget development process positive. Schools are reacting to what they were told. There are faculty who are

choosing to leave the schools because they believe their positions are being cut. There are parents who are upset because the schools are being cut.

In the month since they were

told they were being cut, you have provided additional

assistance that could have been

done earlier. >> but the positive is that we're giving schools an opportunity to share additional

context of what needs in their school community. I think that's a critical step in the process.

no. What's critical is that the schools have to fight for restoration of funds. So let me ask you this.

cardozo, I believe you said

they're now down $40,000. >> I'd have to go see.

You said cardozo, correct?

>> cardozo started with a

preliminary reduction of

$212,000, that's a result of a

enrollment decline of

approximately 96 students down

from year-over-year, and they

have not received any budget assistance.

I believe what you told councilmember nadeau was

that the initial reduction of

$437,000 had been reduced substantially by your

discretionary allocation, and

that you reduced the cut so that

instead of being cut 437,000,

it's being cut about 40,000. >> yeah, I think you're

referring to columbia heights

education campus, not cardozo.

okay. I believe the number for

columbia heights was something like $250,000 cut and that's

been reduced to 40,000.

Am I understanding you correctly?

>> yeah, so columbia heights

education campus, they received an additional budget assistance amount and that was different

from their initial budget, so

their initial budget had 365333, is a result of the difference,

they're now at a reduction of

And your testimony earlier in an answer to me was that the school

was told around March 1st? >> that is correct.

testimony today with regard to

the 265,000-dollar reduction?

>> I'm not sure why you got that today.

isn't that important that the school community feels

that their cut is 265,000? >> yeah, it's important that the

school has the latest information on what their budget

will be for that upcoming school year.

let's be clear. Your testimony was that the

school was informed March 1st.

My question is that the school community, which testified

today, is unaware. Why?

[Overlapping speakers] School after school after school, there's not one witness or one e-mail that a councilmember has received that indicates that there was any

change as a result of

discretionary -- excuse me, as a result of the chancellor's budget assistance. >> yeah.

So I think many people May be

utilizing what's published on

our budget website and we have

not published budgets yet because they're not final, but

we do communicate directly to

school communities and their

lsat of what their results are of budget assistance. What has been posted already has been posted and are in our preliminary budgets, and we will

not update those until the final

budgets are published.

I will repeat. Based on the testimony that we've gotten, there's nobody that has indicated that they're

aware of any restoration of any

penny as a result of the budget

assistance, and I think that's important. You can answer this last question?

How does this promote schools stability, this process? >> so I think this process is

designed to ensure that schools

can begin planning for the upcoming school year sooner rather than later. I think that does give the

school the able to identify what resources May be needed for the upcoming school year, as those resources May need to shift because the needs of the school

are different year-over-year, so

there's a sense of, you know, stability in what they can

provide based on their planning

budgets, but sometimes the resources do look different year-over-year and sometimes the

needs at schools also look

different year-over-year.

councilmember robert white, do you have questions?

This will be the final round. >> yes, thank you.

Thank you again, chancellor.

So based on the preliminary budget, are we projected to lose any teachers or support staff

>> that would vary by schools and decisions that schools have

made with their allocation structures. >> no. Based on the budget, either we

can afford to keep all of the

teachers, we can afford to add teachers or we lose teachers.

I think those are probably the only three possibilities.

>> yeah, I mean that would vary --

>> systemwide are we projected

to have less teachers or support

staff next year than this year? >>

>> yeah, that would depend on school budgets. [Overlapping speakers] >> chancellor, the preliminary budget, based on the preliminary

budget, will we systemwide lose or have less, fewer teachers

next year than this year?

>> so based on the preliminary budget, I would say we would have more teachers compared to

what we had last year. >> okay. Next school year compared to

this school year? >> correct.

>> okay. So the schools that are telling us they are losing positions, our understanding should be that

there's other schools that are

gaining positions, is that right? >> correct. >> okay.

and I want to reconfirm that --

I want to reconfirm that -- you

don't know what the mark is as the mayor and her budget office sets the budget, you're not

aware of what an agency mark is? >> no.

We utilize a process of looking at the forecast and then creating a number of scenarios for project what the initial budget should be for schools,

that's apart of our process. >> okay. Sow send a budget mark to the

mayor and her budget office,

they don't send any numbers for to you? >> yeah, I'm not familiar with

what you're saying in terms of a mark sent to dcps.

We use a number of scenarios to

determine what is the best

allocation to schools based on the revenue forecast for the city. >> so you have full authority

over the dcps budget?

>> it is a decision that is made

among the dcps team, that is

correct, of what preliminary budget goes to schools.

Again, a number of preliminary scenarios that we review based on the city's forecast for revenue. >> okay.

So you and your team made that

decision for any school that has lost funds in their budget

projections, that that's based on your analysis that they can do with fewer teachers and support staff?

>> yes, and that's primarily driven by enrollment that is projected for the upcoming

school year, it's also driven by programmatic shifts for schools, those are the two primary

drivers for the budget. >> okay.

And how did you factor in -- so

when we look at the need, the

increase needs for this coming

school year in terms of learning

difficulties, and inconsistencies over an entire act democrat make year, you don't see issue with some

schools having less funds than last year? >> I think that's going to be different for each school.

So where we saw a reduction in a school's budget and there was a

sense of a need for more staff,

we provided that through the chancellor budget assistance.

We've also allocated additional dollars to mental health professionals and positions in our schools.

You raise an important point around the need to have those

additional supports, so we've

added additional 31.5 FTEs, which includes the ability for

us to higher additional social

worker, psychologists,

counselors, staff, clinicians

associated with dbh, so we believe that those investments

reflect the needs in our school, but obviously, again, as I mentioned early earlier, the process is not complete and we'll

continue to evaluate the federal resources that are coming our

way and how they should also be

layered on with our goal of

accelerating learning and building resiliency for our students and our families.

>> there's been a lot over the

last half hour, a lot of discussion about the chancellor's assistance fund. i've not been able to find that in the budget. Where can I find that in the budget? >> yes.

So the chancellor's assistance

fund is included in the initial

budget allotments that schools receive.

If you go to our budget website, you can see what that amount is

>> but how do we know how much

is in the fund year-to-year, the council or the public? Where can we find the chancellor's assistance fund in the budget?

>> it is on the dcps budget

website of what's shrewded in shrewded included in the school's website.

>> where can we find it in the

Not how much each school got, but where can we find the fund and how much it is year-to-year?

>> we can provide to you what's been allocated year-over-year in

the chancellor's budget assistance, but that isn't a

separate line item that comes to dcps.

It is a decision I make in collaboration with our central

service team and structural

superintendent of where we need to invest.

>> if dcps's budget is determined based on enrollment

as I think you just discussed, does the chancellor's assistance

fund come from that enrollment

calculation or does it come from somewhere different?

>> it is not included in the enrollment calculation.

It is a separate dollars, separate set of dollars that goes to schools. so, for example --

>> I'm not talking school level budget at this point, chancellor.

I'm saying if dcps's funding,

the whole of dcps's funding based on just student enrollment, what I'm trying to

figure out is how do we get to

the chancellor's assistance fund, or is it calculated in a way that includes other than enrollment?

>> so the entire dcps budget includes attorney

central service dollars, in addition to the

dollars that goes directly to schools. >> and those central service dollars are not base odd and the enrollment projections, that is separate? >> so all of our funding based

on the upsff, which is how we receive all of our funding, and

then once we receive the funds

from the upsff, some of those

dollars are first allocated to

schools, then the remaining

dollars are allocated to descral services. >>

>> so we calculate the dcps

budget based upon per student allocations from those per

student allocations, you take money, put it into a

chancellor's assistance dpund,

then break it up among schools based on something that is

different than the unit per funding formula? >> no.

So once we get the upsff, that

funding goes to the schools

first based on the comprehensive standing model. Then there's a review to

determine if there's a need for provide schools additional

dollars, then that funding

layered in on top of what comes through the comprehensive

staffing model, then those budgets goes directly to schools.

Then, schools can request additional dollars through the budget assistance process. Then if those dollars are

approved through the budget assistance process, those additional funds are layered on

to a school's budget as well

then we fund central service. >> so it's based on the comprehensive model, not the student funding formula? >> correct. The individual school budgets that are allocated to schools

are based on a comprehensive staffing model.

So is there -- this has been a sergeant of a bitter conversation.

I want to make sure there's clarity.

Do you have a prohibition on schools using the federal funds on teachers salaries?

Are you prohibiting that?

>> so the current dollars

provided for schools for academic acceleration and social

and emotional development for the summer in the upcoming

school year, those dollars were

earmarked and designed to

support our acceleration

academies and our high dose

tutor and social and emotional activities only.

>> but sr 2 and sr 3 funding

that is coming later, you will not let schools use that for

staff and teaching salary?

>> those are the dollars and to

do the acceleration and high

dose tutoring, schools can hire

their staff to do that tutoring.

They can parent with other entities to do those services

for students in the summer. However, they were not allowed

to use that to hire staff for the upcoming school year.

For sr 3, we have not determined those parameters yet because we

have not received those dollars yet, but we're in regular communication with osse and should anticipate to have a clearer picture of the amount of

dollars that will go to schools

as a result of the additional stimulus fund and how schools can utilize it and what dollars

can be used on personnel.

>> thank you, chancellor, I'm over my time. Thank you to your and your team. Thank you, Chairman.

thank you, councilmember. Councilmember henderson. >> thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chancellor ferebee, did you all

send when each of the schools

were sent -- received their

enrollment projections, did you

also send projections for at risk students? >> I don't believe there's a

specific at risk population that

goes with the allocations to

schools, so they would not see

what your projected at risk population would be when they receive their budget. >> isn't that important because there's at risk dollars that are

supposed to be divided up based on the number of at risk students you have at school? >> not so much because the at

risk dollars are bake into the

comprehensive staffing model, so

in alignment with legislation, 90% of that goes to schools, but

it goes to schools through the comprehensive staffing model. >> right, but how can we know whether or not be dcps is

actually providing it in a a proportional base says if we don't know how many students are considered to be at risk at a particular school and how much money they're getting in

association with those dollars? >> duly noted. You know, there

that hasn't been apart of our process to provide -- >> lately. It used to be apart of the process because remember are, I'm not new to this.

You used to give out a budget with how many at risk students and associated dollars, so there's been a change, which I

think is less transparency on this, but it goes to my next

question, which is do you know

what the at risk is equal to for next school year?

>> we don't know what the usf f f

>> you told councilmember robert

fight that all of our funding

based off of the upsff.

>> we do a projection of what

the upsff will be, but we don't have the final amount.

We use a year-over-year projection to determine what

goes to schools in initial

We know the students that have

supposed to go to the schools,

but one thing is, the number is

supposed to decrease from this school year to next school year. >> do you know what the

foundational level is for upsff for next year? >> no.

Again, we use projections do

determine what goes in the comprehensive staffing model. >> okay, what are you projecting it to be because I want to see how close are you to the actual?

What I'm trying to get at first

off, this is not you, this is a larger question.

You tell me the budget is based

off of the upsff and yet, nobody

knows what the upsff is, so I

don't know how many kids should be getting a particular weight of money because you're telling

me that you don't know that.

I think you have a better yard

than your friends in the charter

sector who are really driving blind now. >> I think the challenge is and several councilmembers have called out the challenge, where

you can do the budget and wait

until you have the final budget, the usf f f,

upsff and schools will be later in the planning. At some point, you have to estimate what you think you will

receive to give schools some

idea of how they should be planning for next school year. Now, some cases, that number and

that projection is spot on, and in cases, it's off.

Typically though for us in dcps,

that number is typically to the go goode and it would be an increase to schools, not a

decrease to schools, so don't typically take dollars back from schools.

>> right, but as the head of a school system going through the budgeting process, which you

know, you've been here for a while, it happens every year. He have year, you put out

initial school budgets, every year, you have schools that petition form nalle. Some school communities don't

know that's an option for them.

Wouldn't be easier for you about how much money you have to deal with? >> I don't think we're talking about what would be easy.

I think the best thing to talk

about of what would best serve the schools. >> right. To the point of where the Chairman Was talking about earlier and what my colleague,

councilmember allen, was talking

about, I'm going to ai'm seal wee an increase in the upsff, and now we have to go through this process where we won't know what that is for another few weeks or, so we don't know what that will be in the final piece,

but in I'm a teacher and you're

showing me a budget where I've

been eliminated, do I hope that, you know, more money is going to

come down the pike, or do I start to look for another job to

my mortgage and make sure

that I can feed my kids? >> ultimately, the maker makes the decision on what the final budget will be.

I think it's critical that school have some basis to plan for and what's that we provided. I think what the Chairman Called out earlier in this process is we're having a hearing about

preliminary budgets, which is

unique, when we're probably best served when we have an idea of what the budget will be.

I think what we're calling out repeatedly, like there's this

tension, there's an initial budget that schools have to plan for, but it's not final. As I said before, I think you

have to have a basis for schools to plan for. >> I understand having a basis

to plan for, but I would like for the basis to be a bit more

realistic in terms of what we're

>> what is not realistic? >> it's the same onse who are

continuing to bring up these challenges of you tell me my

budget is driven by enrollment.

I do what I'm supposed to do to ensure my reopening

increase or doesn't change, and yet, I'll still getting dinged. I understand that staffing costs

have gone up, but what we don't see is the other investment on

that on that side so we're not penalizing or changing the game. As a school community, tough

wonder what do I have to do to

make sure my budget doesn't get cut.

>> the first thing we can do in this season, enrollment.

It's critical that schools understand -- the school community understand, like the primary drive for your budget is always your enrollment.

>> but if my enrollment hasn't

changed and we could go down a

whole different line how decisions in central office are making it difficult for me to keep my enrollment because I don't know what will happen next school year.

i can knock on every door in my

community and the first question

they'll ask, will they will be in a slot.

You're telling me my budget is

based on an enrollment decision

that I can't control. [Overlapping speakers] >> your still going to cut me a hundred thousand dollars.

>> I respectfully disagree on that. Schools have been communicated very clearly that your budgets

have been developing, your preliminary budgets have been developed for you to serve all of your students students in person next

year as a default, so there

shouldn't be any uncertainty, no questions about what your budget

is designed for you to do next school year.

It is designed, it's been given to schools for them to support

all of their students, as it has

I don't want to get the water muddied and say schools don't

know what they're doing because they have clear directions on what they should be doing for next school year.

>> I know what you say on paper in terms of the direction, but I also know the anxiety that the folks have in the community.

Let me just sort of pull up one other question that I wanted to

ask in terms of for some of our related arts positions or

positions that are not math,

science, english, actually, science, we'll put that to the side because we're cut something science touchers. How do

teachers.How do we make a central office decision that every child should

be able to go to school and have

a science teacher, every child should be able to go to school

and have art and music? How do we get to a point of making those guarantees,

especially when we know we have some communities in the district, in the dcps family,

where the families will decide to fund the positions that central office May cut?

>> yeah, so there's a baseline

for related arts that is built

into the comprehensive staffing

model so the expectation is all schools are providing related arts.

We actually have very specific parameters of how and when related arts should be provided and positions are allocated accordingly, so we definitely have a baseline that schools operate from as it relates to related arts. >> okay. I'm over my time. Thank you, Mr. Chancellor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

thank you, councilmember.

Did you have one final question because we're about to wrap up the hearing? >> no, I'm okay.

I'll hold it for the budget hearing.

councilmember. Mr. Chancellor, I'm going to correct you on one thing. A minute ago, you said this hearing on the initial budgets. It's not. It's on the budget development

process and how destabilizing it

is for our school communities. I want to thank you for your testimony. i want to thank all of the

witnesses who testified today. The record, as I indicated at the beginning of the hearing

open for two weeks and close at 5:00 P.M. On April 16th.

We do have a hearing on the dcps budget.

I believe it's going to be the same format as on the performance oversight in March, which is the first day will be public witnesses and the second

day will be on the agencies' agency's budget itself.

Give me just a second.

We think that the hearing is May fifth.

Does that sound right,

>> sounds right. Right. Chaip hansz

>> I said yes, that sounds right.

>> folks should go to I believe

the council's website to see how

they can sign up for any of the hearings or they can go with regard to this, the Chairman's

website, which is chairmanmendelson.Com. Again, thank you to all of the witnesses and with that, I'm going to adjourn this hearing.