W6PSPO Meets Tuesday, Nov 16 @ 7PM

Dear Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization members,

W6PSPO will meet on Tuesday, November 16,  at 7 pm.  We will discuss:

1.  Redistricting proposals for Ward 6.  Staff from Councilmember Silverman’s office will join us for the discussion;

2.  Teacher and principal turnover.  Mary Levy who has researched this issue for the State Board of Education will join us for this discussion. This discussion is in advance of the December 16 hearing on Teacher and Principal Turnover vs. Retention in District’s Public Schools; and

3.  Staff at your schools who are trained to administer medications including EpiPens, (which is one hour online training), other medications (which is in person and online training), and a 4-day diabetes training course. If principals can share this info prior to the meeting, that would be great.

If you registered for a previous W6PSPO meeting, the link you received for that meeting will work for this and future W6PSPO meetings. If you don’t already have the meeting link, contact w6pspo@gmail.com for registration link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In addition, please note that on November 17 at 5:30 pm, DCPS is presenting a FY23 New Budget Model Information Session.

Finally, starting November 15, DC Families for Safe Streets and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Street Smart Program will host an interactive Remembrance Wall at Union Station, leading up to World Day of Remembrance on November 21.

World Day of Remembrance is an international event honoring the 1.35 million people killed and millions more injured on roads each year. One life lost to traffic violence is one too many.

HOW TO PARTICIPATEYou are invited to visit and contribute to the Remembrance Wall to honor those whose lives have been impacted by traffic violence. The Remembrance Wall features artwork from Chelsea of Chalk Riot and chalk will be available for you to add to the wall throughout the week.  Please visit to honor loved ones, commemorate a crash you survived, thank a first responder who helped in the immediate aftermath of a crash, or share your thoughts, reflections, and hopes for our collective future. All are welcome to participate regardless of when, where, or how the crash that touched your life occurred.

EVENT DETAILS

  • Location: Union Station; 50 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC; towards the east side inside the Main Hall 
  • Begins Monday, November 15 with Chalk Riot at 10:30am. You can come and watch Chelsea work. Visitors are welcome to add to the Wall thereafter. The station is open daily from 6am to 10pm.
  • Ends on the evening of Sunday, November 21.

NATIONAL VIRTUAL CANDLE LIGHTING Those personally impacted by traffic violence are also invited to attend a virtual candle lighting with Families for Safe Streets chapters across the country on Sunday, November 21 at 8pm eastern. RSVP here.
Full details for World Day of Remembrance are available on their website.
Hope to see you on Tuesday.
Suzanne Wells

Heather Schoell Testimony – DC Council Coronavirus Immunization of School  Students and Early Childhood Workers Amendment Act of 2021 – October 27, 2021

Testimony of Heather Schoell, Eastern HS PTO President

I need you to think of a really horrible, hectic day you’ve had, one where you needed to be in multiple places at the same time, when you didn’t get to finish your morning coffee, and lunch is chips at 4pm. Now play that out as your EVERY DAY. 

This is where school staff is right now, not only at Eastern, but at all schools. In normal times, each school support staff member is doing the job of 2 people, just because that’s how the budget goes, and they make it work. Now, because of COVID-related absences, the days are almost unbearable. Instead of doing her regular duties, the director of strategy and logistics is frantically calling and texting teachers to see who can cover for this class or that class when teachers call out. 

That means teachers who are in the building aren’t getting planning periods. Daily tasks are put on the back burner. The system is collapsing because everything in the day is reactive. The A/C was out in most of the school, so they had to react by trying to move classes to a cooler room. The effect of every person out for the day cascades – it’s one fewer for lunch duty, for covering the phones, for ordering supplies, for helping students, for all the little things that make up a day in a school. Every snag takes time, but the majority of the blame lies at the feet of COVID. 

I’ve known many of the staff at Eastern going on 6 years now, and I can tell you that I have never seen them so wiped out, depleted, and defeated. They are bone tired and there is no end in sight for them, no end of these hectic days. They can only take this high intensity and fatigue for so long. I’m really afraid they’re not coming back next year because of the level of stress, and I can’t blame them. This stress can also make them more susceptible to getting sick.

Teachers and support staff are people who have people issues – health concerns, elderly family members, babies at home. Just as we have contracts that help protect workers from being taken advantage of, and OSHA guidelines to make the physical environment safe, we have to have health standards that protect everyone.

Without objection, the Eastern PTO sent a letter to Mayor Bowser and Chairman Mendelson in support of a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for all eligible students. As of yesterday, the Pfizer vaccine is fully approved for ages 5 to 11. Currently, student athletes ages 16 and over are required to be vaccinated, which is great. It’s not so great for the student theater group, student club members, or students at indoor lunch. It makes no sense.

Nothing is going to change until all students are fully vaccinated. The hectic days, the call-outs, the heightened angst – nothing will change. We need the required student immunization list to include COVID. It’s really that simple. It’s only an issue if you make it one.

I think the way to get where we need to go is with mobile medical units going to underserved neighborhoods. That would cover school immunizations, school athletics participation, even check-ins with the elderly.

This hearing should have been a year ago, and this legislation should long since have been on the books.

Thank you.

Open Letter from Eastern Senior High School PTO to Mayor and DC Council: Mandate COVID-19 vaccine for eligible students

Valerie Jablow Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on DCPS and DCPCS School Reopening – September 21, 2021

Valerie Jablow

Committee of the Whole

Public Roundtable on Re-Opening District of Columbia Public Schools and District of Columbia Public Charter Schools for School Year 2021-2022

September 21, 2021

I am Valerie Jablow, a DCPS parent. As we struggle with the covid delta variant, which has led to increasing cases in our children and schools, I have compiled for you 15 action items to ensure our students and school staff are immediately much safer.[1]

For this compilation, I (and many others) owe a debt of gratitude to DCPS parents Sandra Moscoso, Grace Hu, Becky Reina, Mary Levy, and the (truly) grass roots, 100% parent- and educator-powered DC Families for Covid-Safer Schools.[2]

Sadly, absolutely none of these action items would be needed if the mayor, her deputies, and many DC elected and appointed officials had not prioritized in person learning in SY21-22 over everything else and hinged their actions and answers to questions (including yours at the 9/21/21 hearing) on falsehoods.

Since January, hundreds of parents, teachers, students, and elected officials have testified before you and the state board of education and written you and the mayor about the need for every publicly funded DC school in SY21-22 to have

–vaccine mandates for all students and staff;

–weekly testing for all students;

–robust virtual instruction for all who want it;

–covid guidelines that apply to all of DC’s publicly funded schools; and

–DCPS ensuring equitable physical conditions across its schools, with ample social distancing; fully functional HVAC; and plenty of outdoor space for both learning and eating.

Though we now have a November 1 vaccine mandate for school staff[3], it didn’t happen soon enough to keep an entire grade at Johnson Middle School safe, whose recent quarantine was a result of exposure to an unvaccinated (presumably covid-positive) staff member.[4]

As a healthy, vaccinated DCPS parent with a healthy, vaccinated DCPS student and no ill or immunocompromised household member, I am relatively lucky.

Maybe you and your families are, too.

But you did not permit me or anyone else to testify in person before you at the 9/21/21 hearing because you and I both know that we are not safe doing that.

Thus, I implore you to understand the gravity of what we are facing now in our schools:

Just as we know that not all children learning from home are unhappy, frustrated, or not learning, we also know that children can, and do, get covid; get sick; and die of it.

With hundreds, possibly thousands, of student covid cases JUST in DCPS after only 3 weeks of school, and thousands of our students and staff going into, remaining in, or emerging from quarantine as you read this, the lives of our kids, their families, and their teachers hang in the balance right now.

Please, while there is still a chance: do the right things.

1. Make all DGS work orders for all our schools public.

There is a database—it is not public, and the persistent lag in work orders translates to unsafe school conditions.

2. Make sure DGS is held accountable for lagging work orders and dangerous HVAC conditions at the start of school in DCPS that persist to this very minute.[5]

Per DC Families for Covid-Safer Schools, all indoor spaces should have at least 5 air exchanges per hour.

3. Test all students each week in every school.

Testing protocols in DCPS are not meeting even the minimum the mayor stated on August 18 (10-20% of asymptomatic students weekly), with DCPS identifying only a small fraction of all reported covid cases in its students.[6]

That suggests a terrible public health failure, inasmuch as both robust testing and reporting are being done not by DCPS or any DC agency–but by DCPS parents. As it is, no one anywhere in DC government even knows what DC charters are doing except for the few that have revealed their strategy.

Testing is not rocket science. Per DC Families for Covid-Safer Schools, schools should test all students weekly with asymptomatic PCR; use rapid antigen testing for symptomatic students and staff; use a rapid antigen testing test-to-stay program to reduce quarantine; and ensure all PCR results are returned in 6-18 hours.[7]

4. Make all test results public for all publicly funded schools.

Per parent Sandra Moscoso, testing results should be made public for

# of staff asymptomatic tests conducted each week by school

# of staff positive results from asymptomatic tests by school

# of student symptomatic tests conducted each week by school

# of student positive results from symptomatic tests by school

# of student asymptomatic tests conducted each week by school

# of student positive results from asymptomatic tests by school

# of staff and # of student positive cases reported to DCPS (outside of symptomatic tests) by school[8]

Please do not say or allow yourself to be fooled into thinking that DC’s public reporting right now is accurate or fulsome—it is not. Every single public-facing DC government website with covid data shows different numbers; is lagging in time; and does not have every case, because DCPS itself is not testing widely, thus leaving reporting to parents.

(BTW, does anyone anywhere in DC have information on that list above? If not, why not? Students and families go across wards, across school sectors. If you say you value “school choice,” then you have to value this—unless the choice is actually not that of families, but of school operators.)

5. Employ more contact tracing in DCPS, and ensure that all charters have at least the minimum that DCPS has.

Our UNrobust tracing has ensured that the virus can spread unimpeded. Right now, DCPS employs 10 contact tracers for about 50,000 students. KIPP employs 6 for 7000 students.[9]

6. Ensure case notifications are updated more rapidly and disseminated to full school communities.

I was never informed by anyone at my school or at DCPS that there was a positive covid case at my child’s school—I got the news from my child and from checking the DCPS website of notifications (see here: https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/health/response/notifications/).

As it is, DCPS official case updates are wildly variable and often slow. Some school communities have been notified a week or more after a positive case was identified. That ensures only one thing: the further spread of the virus.[10]

7. Ensure all DCPS communities have the outdoor furniture and equipment needed to use outdoors spaces immediately and fully.

Right now, only a subset of DCPS schools has students eating outdoors, and it is unclear whether all schools will have assistance creating safe outdoor spaces.[11] All DC leaders have put this 100% on DCPS principals—which is neither fair nor helpful.

8. Make quarantine rules truly robust–and stop promulgating the myth that because someone is vaccinated they cannot get and transmit covid.

Right now in DC’s schools, CDC guidelines are being used as a ceiling, not as a floor.

That not only prevented a vaccinated sibling from quarantining when her sibling became infected, but also ensured that she was at school, possibly infecting others for days, before being diagnosed with covid herself.[12]

Per DC Families for Covid-Safer Schools, all classes sharing indoor space for more than 15 minutes should quarantine if anyone in the class tests positive. In addition, all students (as well as any children residing with them) in any class with a positive case should be tested immediately.

And if a sibling tests positive, every student in that household needs to quarantine at the same time, regardless of vaccination or test status. This sound guidance is used by a number of other jurisdictions.[13]

9. Ensure all students in quarantine or whose families have kept them home because they are unvaccinated or have family members who are immunosuppressed receive appropriate educational materials and support.

We have heard, repeatedly, that not all kids who are quarantined in DCPS are receiving fulsome educational materials, and no one really knows what is happening in our charters WRT quarantine education outreach (or, if they do, they’re certainly not making that information public).

Worse, DCPS has allegedly told teachers to not help families who are keeping their children at home for fear of covid—even when those families are using school materials obtained through teachers and their schools.

All of this amounts to denial of education.

10. Provide robust virtual options for students in quarantine and those whose families wish to keep (or are currently keeping) their students at home.

Literally no one has ever said in person learning is not desirable for the vast majority of students.

But since the start of school, we have been facing huge numbers of covid cases in DC, many among school-age children, while more than 50,000 DC students are currently unable to be vaccinated because they are not yet eligible.[14]

A robust virtual option for those who want or need it would not only prevent the spread of the virus, but it would address the weirdly depressed enrollment of 48,704 students in DCPS for SY21-22 (cited at the mayor’s press conference on 9/20/21), which is likely due to parents keeping their unvaccinated kids home out of a rational fear of covid.

11. Provide tech support in DCPS sufficiently such that there is a 1:1 device ratio for all students, and classrooms and teachers are able to pivot to virtual for some or all students through simulcasting or a fully virtual option.

Right now, Digital Equity in DC Education estimates that only 35% of DCPS classrooms have the ability to have a simulcast teaching session.

The tech survey work of that organization has also made clear that DCPS is falling far short of a 1:1 device ratio at all schools, such that even having any virtual option is precluded for large swathes of DCPS. There is also evidence of insufficient internet access and tech support for existing devices in DCPS, including many classes with nonworking smart boards and teachers without working laptops.[15]

12. Stop threatening families with disenrollment, reporting to child protective services, and punitive absence policies.

Right now, many families who have kept their unvaccinated children at home have been told they will be disenrolled from their schools come October 5 if they do not send their children in person to school. Many have had visits from child protective services.

These punitive policies hurt all students, most especially those with disabilities whose supports have been most at peril in the pandemic.[16]

DCPS absence policy even counts an absent sibling of a student diagnosed with covid as unexcused, when quarantining of all household members of any student diagnosed with covid is the rational and humane action for everyone, even the vaccinated.

In addition to enduring these punitive actions, DCPS parents must provide additional information to prove the need to quarantine if a student is not identified by DCPS for quarantine, including date of covid exposure; length of quarantine; and name, organization, and contact information of the medical professional or contact tracer ordering the quarantine.

13. Mandate vaccinations for all eligible students and roll out vaccines immediately after approval for children 5-11 years old.

DC is blessed to have plentiful safe and effective vaccines for covid—but the carrot approach is clearly not working with regard to covid vaccination. Analysis by Mary Levy shows low rates of covid vaccination among DC children who are currently eligible for it.[17]

As a society, we decided a long time ago that it wasn’t acceptable for kids to suffer from (and occasionally die of) vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles, smallpox, and polio.

Why are we pretending that deadly and highly transmissible covid is any different?

If LA can mandate vaccination for covid for all eligible school kids, so can DC.

14. Ensure the same rules for covid testing, quarantine, and vaccination apply to all DC’s publicly funded schools.

The acting head of OSSE said at the mayor’s September 20 update that 41 charter LEAs are participating in the city’s school-based testing program.

So: what’s happening with the other 20-some charter LEAs? Why is there any difference? Why don’t we know? WHAT don’t we know?[18]

We have decided as a society that the safety of kids at publicly funded schools is paramount. This is why we don’t have different rules for DC charters for, say, fire safety; building certification; potable water; clean air; vaccinations; and school nurses.

We should not have different rules with covid, either.

15. Put a stop to the politicizing of sensible public health measures for school children in a pandemic, like mandated vaccinations and virtual instruction.

Our averages of covid cases, and covid metrics, have for weeks now been above what the mayor herself set for safe re-opening.[19]

Yet, the deputy mayor for education himself implied to parents not only that virtual learning is inequitable, but that wanting virtual learning is somehow being against in person learning.[20]

Current punitive policies for absences and quarantine (as outlined in #12 above) ignore the traumatic reality of many DC families in this pandemic and prioritize a political desire: that of a return to normal in schools.

But what we are experiencing right now with covid is NOT normal! We need to meet our families where they are—not where someone’s political desire wants them to be or pretends they are.

None of the 15 action items above are beyond your power; the power of anyone in DCPS or DC charter schools; or the budget of DC.

Really: You, the mayor, and other elected and appointed leaders can do this–today.

Please: DO IT.

[1] I write this at a time of terrible statistics regarding DC schools and covid. Both DC school-based cases (see here: https://twitter.com/wperkinsDC/status/1436003213837225984) and cases among DC school-aged kids (see here: https://dccovid.com/ages.html) have been surging since DC kids returned to school in August. Not surprisingly, Children’s hospital has been full of covid cases in kids (see here: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/childrens-national-near-capacity-amid-rsv-covid-surge/2799872/).

[2] Here is the latest for the group’s re-opening recommendations: https://educationdc.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/for-release-to-officials-dc-families-for-covid-safer-schools-asks-2021.pdf

[3] See the slide deck here from the mayor’s September 20, 2021 press conference: https://mayor.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/mayormb/release_content/attachments/COVID-19-Situational-Update-Presentation_09-20-21.pdf

[4] The original reporting is here: https://twitter.com/deliangoncalves/status/1435631767004848133 It was subsequently confirmed through reporting by Perry Stein in the Post that the cause for the Johnson MS exposure and subsequent quarantine was an unvaccinated staff member: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/09/19/dc-school-covid-quarantine-testing/

[5] I counted a minimum of 10 DCPS schools with failed HVAC in the days before school started (see here: https://twitter.com/DrTeeeee/status/1430545198698930179). The problems continued through last week (see here: https://twitter.com/EboniQueen3/status/1438479773567684609 and see here: https://twitter.com/codybnorton/status/1439233035703136261) and into this week (see here: https://twitter.com/codybnorton/status/1439923880815116289 and see here: https://twitter.com/mrvarhall/status/1440419911558303755).

That was hardly the only ventilation failure in DCPS: Several people took to fundraising to purchase or make covid-safe filters for individual classrooms (see here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/air-filters-for-dcps?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-163097622253-f30f939ea1a04645&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_email%2B1137-update-supporters-v5b%2Bspider1c).

Yet, 11 days before school started, DCPS removed the HVAC reports from its “reopen strong” website: https://twitter.com/sandramoscoso/status/1428388076489957380.

[6] See slide 6 here for DCPS testing protocols: https://educationdc.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/back-to-school-update-presentation_08-18-21.pdf

The testing was supposed to happen for 10-20% of asymptomatic students weekly. Instead, the week of September 6, DCPS performed 4080 tests—less than 10% (see here: https://coronavirus.dc.gov/node/1558951). Far worse is the fact that the same chart reported only 26 positive student cases in DCPS—while another chart showed that no matter what day of that week you pick, MANY more DCPS students were actually infected with covid (see here: https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/dc-public-schools-dcps-data).

[7] See here for a more thorough outline of the group’s excellent testing protocols: https://educationdc.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/dcps-covid-testing_-what-we-need-now-e28093-dc-families-for-covid-safer-schools.pdf

[8] All of these, plus more recommendations, are in Sandra Moscoso’s testimony to you on 9/21/21, available here: https://w6pspo.org/2021/09/23/sandra-moscoso-testimony-dc-council-roundtable-on-dcps-and-dcpcs-school-reopening-september-21-2021/

[9] See here for information about the contact tracer disparity: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/09/19/dc-school-covid-quarantine-testing/

See here to see how contact tracing for students works in reality in DCPS (i.e., not well at all): https://twitter.com/DLPetroshius/status/1438634378134007810

See here for its failure with a DCPS teacher: https://twitter.com/teachergimbel/status/1439942679874375689

[10] It is not just DCPS that is slow. One website for reporting (https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/dc-public-schools-dcps-data) is not updated daily. Yet another website (https://coronavirus.dc.gov/data/schools) is not only not updated even weekly, but gives NO metric by which anyone knows what the case numbers represent in time (that day? that week?). The only thing that is clear is that the cases are not cumulative.

[11] Not only do schools lack what was supposed to have been provided, but the reason is due to foot-dragging by DCPS since spring. DCPS has instead cited supply chain issues. See here: https://twitter.com/ScottGoldstein/status/1437735710258339843

[12] This was the experience of DCPS parent Danica Petroshius, which she recounted here along with a fellow parent whose family also became infected through school contacts: https://drive.google.com/file/d/133VEvnty7rfeNbafanZ0Wa1hlaF1kHA6/view

[13] Thanks to Mary Levy for finding guidance from Virginia (https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/182/2020/10/Child-School_COVID-19_Booklet.pdf); Tulsa, Oklahoma (https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1604073421/tulsaschoolsorg/wpqggsgdme6elsyxtgwd/District_COVID-19Response_English.pdf); South Carolina (https://scdhec.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/School-COVID-19-FAQ_FINAL_8.24.2020.pdf); Dane County, Wisconsin (https://publichealthmdc.com/documents/Child%20Care%20Center%20FAQ.pdf); and Oregon (https://www.mmdhd.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/School-Scenarios-How-to-Handle-Exposure-to-COVID-19.pdf), all of which require cohabitating students regardless of vaccination status to quarantine with their covid-positive cohabitants.

Right before the 9/21/21 hearing, a council member tweeted out that updated guidance on this was coming from DOH: https://twitter.com/chenderson/status/1440356738755031043?s=20

While that’s a relief, it does nothing to address the ills caused by the current policy; doesn’t address the need for children to quarantine in households where an adult is covid-positive nor erases the inexplicable distinction in policy between vaccinated and unvaccinated co-habitants; nor explains why it took DC so much longer than other jurisdictions to recognize the transmissibility of covid among children in the same household, even among the vaccinated.

[14] This website has DC’s latest covid case stats by age (warning: it isn’t pretty for the under 18 set): https://dccovid.com/ages.html

The spike in DCPS cases this week alone is horrifying: https://twitter.com/AndrewZeitlin/status/1440271870901686275

[15] See the group’s excellent work and recommendations here: https://w6pspo.org/2021/09/21/grace-hu-testimony-dc-council-roundtable-on-dcps-and-dcpcs-school-reopening-september-21-2021/

[16] This (and more) is laid out eloquently in this September 15 letter to the mayor and council: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyqDeYBfxcvoqBay5NhK8nDbGtnPqjGtBVEBHxv99FWmoOdg/viewform

[17] Recent vaccination rates for vaccine-eligible DC children are very poor. See this chart, which DC education researcher Mary Levy created using DOH data: https://twitter.com/MaryLevy17/status/1439272324805632001

[18] Here’s a challenge: Does anyone in any DC agency or elected office know what each and every DC charter school is doing with respect to

–testing;

–family communication of tests;

–quarantining;

–instruction of students in quarantine;

–ensuring teachers and staff are not penalized for taking time off to quarantine or to take care of children in quarantine;

–student absence policies for covid; and

–student disenrollment policies for covid?

If not, why is that an acceptable stance for public officials in a pandemic with a deadly and highly transmissible virus with respect to publicly funded schools that educate nearly half of DC’s students?

[19] The mayor’s own reopening stats are completely at odds with the mayor’s own covid phase guidelines. Take the color-coded chart at this website, https://coronavirus.dc.gov/page/reopening-metrics

Here’s what the chart looked like on 9/14:

Here’s what the chart looked like on 9/15:

Here’s what the chart looked like on 9/19:

Yet, even though most color-coded boxes are not green, DC remains in the phase 3 green. This makes no sense—worse, it actively endangers children. For what purpose is this misrepresentation of reality being done?

[20] See this in a parent’s deconstruction of a letter from the deputy mayor in response to a plea for help after kids became infected with covid at school: https://educationdc.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/mark-up-of-dme-response-09-17-21.pdf

.

Alexandra Simbana Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on School Facility Conditions During Reopening for SY2022 – September 28, 2021

Alexandra Simbana

Committee on Government Operations and Facilities & Committee of the Whole

Joint Public Oversight Hearing –

School Facility Condition During the Re-Opening for SY2021-2022

September 28, 2021

Hello, my name is Natalie Rose Simbana Leistikow. I am here before the Council again to let you know what is happening with students and teachers throughout the City. First, I want to say that it is because I’ve had excellent teachers at Cleveland Elementary that I’ve been able to learn the skills to come before you and speak up for students since I was very young.

Like all teachers, my teachers are dedicated, loving professionals and during this time of uncertainty of the pandemic they have given more and done more because they love their students. It is for them, that I am here facing one of my fears and speaking publicly.

My teachers are having to do their jobs without proper resources and in conditions that no one here would find sustainable. They prepared to welcome students back to school but their buildings were not ready, many throughout the city did not have proper HVAC or filtration systems making their rooms very HOT and unsafe! One of my former teachers even had nosebleeds as she tried to prepare her room in extreme heat. The schools were closed for over a year, so we knew students would need to return at some point. The buildings should have been prepared for them before school started.

Many schools do not have the technology they need for teachers AND students! Schools without enough computers are sharing devices and once again, students are having to take time out of learning so each person in the class can do some work on the computer. Even more stressful is that teachers do not have their teacher computers either. And many more do not have working Smartboards. Where are all the computers? We are not setting up our teachers for success and that hurts them and it hurts us too.

While I have not yet been to school in person, I care about my school, my teachers and my classmates. But this is about more than just my school or my class. Imagine I am a student from a school in your Ward in any part of the City. No school teacher, student or community should be experiencing these issues when it is already a stressful time. PTA’s and PTO’s no longer have the time or money to help fix these critical needs and they shouldn’t have to.

This is too much to expect from families, students and teachers. There should be a better system to REALLY help fix technology and school problems for us. I hope you can do something to help.

Thank you.

Natalie Rose Leistikow Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on DCPS and DCPCS School Reopening – September 21, 2021

Natalie Rose Leistikow

Committee of the Whole

Public Roundtable on Re-Opening District of Columbia Public Schools and District of Columbia Public Charter Schools for School Year 2021-2022

September 21, 2021

Hello, my name is Natalie Rose Simbana Leistikow. I am here before the Council again to let you know what is happening with students and teachers throughout the City. First, I want to say that it is because I’ve had excellent teachers at Cleveland Elementary that I’ve been able to learn the skills to come before you and speak up for students since I was very young.

Like all teachers, my teachers are dedicated, loving professionals and during this time of uncertainty of the pandemic they have given more and done more because they love their students. It is for them, that I am here facing one of my fears and speaking publicly.

My teachers are having to do their jobs without proper resources and in conditions that no one here would find sustainable. They prepared to welcome students back to school but their buildings were not ready, many throughout the city did not have proper HVAC or filtration systems making their rooms very HOT and unsafe! One of my former teachers even had nosebleeds as she tried to prepare her room in extreme heat. The schools were closed for over a year, so we knew students would need to return at some point. The buildings should have been prepared for them before school started.

Many schools do not have the technology they need for teachers AND students! Schools without enough computers are sharing devices and once again, students are having to take time out of learning so each person in the class can do some work on the computer. Even more stressful is that teachers do not have their teacher computers either. And many more do not have working Smartboards. Where are all the computers? We are not setting up our teachers for success and that hurts them and it hurts us too.

While I have not yet been to school in person, I care about my school, my teachers and my classmates. But this is about more than just my school or my class. Imagine I am a student from a school in your Ward in any part of the City. No school teacher, student or community should be experiencing these issues when it is already a stressful time. PTA’s and PTO’s no longer have the time or money to help fix these critical needs and they shouldn’t have to.

This is too much to expect from families, students and teachers. There should be a better system to REALLY help fix technology and school problems for us. I hope you can do something to help.

Thank you.

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Alexandra Simbana Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on DCPS and DCPCS School Reopening – September 21, 2021

Alexandra Simbana

Committee of the Whole

Public Roundtable on Re-Opening District of Columbia Public Schools and District of Columbia Public Charter Schools for School Year 2021-2022

September 21, 2021

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman and Councilmembers. Like many parents, we began the summer with hope about our 9-year-old daughter returning to school in the Fall, and hoped the country had finally turned the corner on the pandemic.

Instead, we are now in the fourth wave.  Case counts are rising higher and faster than they were when our schools shut down in 2020. For our family, the danger is real and it is personal.  Last year, I had a life-threatening case of COVID that landed me in the hospital for nine traumatic days, and has left me with long COVID complications ever since.  Because I am immunocompromised, a simple cold I caught from my twin toddlers in late August quickly developed into pneumonia.  It took four rounds of antibiotics and I was nearly hospitalized again.

We also faced the reality that schools are not prepared for the surging pandemic.  We were promised better ventilation.  Instead, my daughter’s classroom had a broken HVAC system, with temperatures soaring into the high 80s.  We were promised strict quarantine and isolation protocols.  Instead, we learned that when a child tests positive, the other students in the class aren’t considered a “close contact” as long as their desk isn’t immediately adjacent to the positive case.  It is a fantasy to believe that kids don’t mingle in the course of a school day or breathe the same air.  DCPS’ quarantine and isolation protocols seem to have been designed by someone who has never been in a fourth grade classroom. These kids don’t live in their lives simply based on the close contact map.

Given my immunocompromised status and our deep concerns about safety, our daughter is learning from home, using workbooks and online portals to complete the same lessons as her classmates, and sending homework to her teachers. 

This would be easier if the Mayor had not prohibited our schools from establishing a virtual option.  The Virtual Academy that does exist is only available to students with serious health conditions, but not for situations like ours where the student lives with an immunocompromised person.  We would prefer she be in school – if that were a safe option.  I am vaccinated, but she is not eligible.  I could not live with myself if she gets sick.  We also worry what happens if she brings the virus home and I am reinfected with a breakthrough case – in my compromised state, would I be able to recover?

Until the first day of school, it remained an ongoing discussion in our family about whether to send our daughter to school. What would we do? We decided we would take it week by week and keep our eyes on the numbers but at least our daughter would continue to learn thanks to the support from her teachers and her school.  But when the school reopened it was clear that the building wasn’t ready, teachers didn’t have the curriculum they needed for teaching, school devices for teachers and students weren’t available and the more you looked, the messier the reopening “plan” looked at every school across the city. It was clear, as hard as teachers could try, these greater issues were outside of their individual school’s control and it would be just a matter of time before there would be a mountain of COVID cases everywhere. The problems were not limited to one school, instead it was clear these were systemwide issues. The lack of preparedness, the lack of resources for teachers and schools, the realities of reopening were not being addressed or even acknowledged for school communities – ALL of that is what lead many parents to keep their kids home. And many more parents had the same concerns but felt they had no option but to send their kids back into unsafe conditions for in person learning because DCPS didn’t provide any real options for families to access virtual learning. Students/children are all members of families and the health conditions of those families are not considered by DCPS to be material information to make available a virtual option for students. But there is a great need for virtual learning for those students who have been sent home due to exposure or COVID positive cases. These children are also being left behind without any educational plans to pivot to when they are suddenly returned home to quarantine.

There is so much that is wrong with the reopening. Parents continue to grasp for information which should be readily available. Our children are unprotected by lack of testing and delays with notifications and our teachers are being asked to risk their own health on a daily basis. Their pandemic is still very much at its height because the comfort of a vaccine for those under age 12 is still in their distant future. But even after a vaccine we will need to continue to take precautions to keep everyone safe. Below are recommendations of what we need to continue to do but with more efficiency and reliability.

I am working with a coalition of DCPS and charter school parents from across the city (DC Families for COVID-Safer Schools) who want to see BOTH better safety protocols for in-person learning and a workable virtual option.

We strongly urge the following:

  • Expanded testing, taking advantage of free, federally funded programs to test as close to 100 percent of the students and teachers as possible.
  • Faster notifications that provide better information to the entire school community
  • Greater transparency in data reporting
  • Outdoor lunch – available to all students, in all wards
  • Improving ventilation and filtration in classrooms
  • Making quality masks available to all students and teachers and ensuring that they are worn correctly.
  • Better social distancing protocols
  • Establishing a virtual option for families who need it or want it. Furthermore, given how unpredictable the pandemic is and the fact that outbreaks can spread out of control very quickly, we should be ready to pivot to virtual learning at a moment’s notice if necessary. We still aren’t where we need to be on digital resources. Teachers still don’t have devices, Smartboards are non-functional at a critical time of need and many schools are still not at 1:1 devices for students.

Lastly, I want to raise the struggle of many families like my own who have chosen to keep our children home due to rising COVID numbers and family health complications which place us at greater risk. Each family is making choices based on their situations during an emergent time. These families and students should not be penalized when they can clearly demonstrate continued learning, attendance through the online programming and efforts above the norm. These families should not be cut off from their schools because their medical needs place them in great danger of health complications from COVID. If a virtual learning option was already in place to help students who move into quarantine, then families of immunocompromised would be able to be serviced without more of a burden. But the truth is DCPS has not planned to help children continue to learn during quarantine and that is a disservice to students and their long term learning.

Members of the Council: the reopening plan is broken.  Our students and teachers are at risk.  We need you to step in and take action.

Thank you.

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Mary Levy Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on School Facility Conditions During Reopening for SY2022 – September 28, 2021

Mary Levy

Testimony for DC Council Roundtable

on School Facility Conditions During Reopening for SY2022 –

September 28, 202

Little specific data on DCPS facilities is issued publicly.  What information there is includes the general condition of each building and its modernization status.  I have combined these with statistics on the at-risk enrollment by school.[1] Result:  62% of schools that serve the greatest number of at-risk students are only in fair to poor condition, compared with 25% of schools that serve the fewest at-risk students.

Results by ward are similar, given what we know about the differences among DC wards.  Only half the schools East of the River have been modernized compared with 100% of those West of the Park.  By ward, according to the latest data published, 44% of schools in Ward 8, compared with 60% in Wards 5-7, and 100% Ward 3 have been modernized. We should not be surprised when the HVAC fails in non-modernized schools, or conditions otherwise disfavor learning.

This is a public health problem.  At-risk students, particularly those in Wards 5, 7 and 8, live in communities with the highest incidence of COVID, inter-generational households, and the lowest vaccination rates, including those of teenagers. This means that when their schools have bad air, COVID is likely to spread, disproportionately affecting them, their families and their communities.

The danger of COVID infection is not limited to the approximately 33,000 DCPS students below the 7th grade level, who cannot be vaccinated, but also to the thousands of secondary students who are not fully vaccinated.  Figures are not available by sector of enrollment, but citywide, this is 61% of all teenagers and huge numbers in the same low-income communities many of whose DCPS facilities are not modernized and in fair to poor condition.  Their buildings are not in condition even for COVID prevention, let alone effective learning.

Everyone agrees that in-person schooling is best for students, but DCPS insistence that it is the only way is based on the insistence that the buildings and practices are safe, and that is a false assumption, as shown by the reports of dozens and dozens of eyewitnesses.  This did not have to happen.  The school system and the DC government have had months to plan and implement functioning HVAC systems with appropriate filters, virtual learning for families that want it (thereby enabling more social distancing), outdoor lunch, adequate masks and protective equipment, robust testing, contact tracing, full reporting.

Why do DC officials have so little respect for parents that they refuse to respect demonstrable needs of some for distance learning and indeed, refuse to believe their eyewitness reports of what is actually happening in schools?  Community spread is officially considered to be high. The latest data – release of which has slowed to a crawl — shows new cases and hospitalization levels that put the District far into the red zone where we used to shut things down, and most other metrics have us in Phase 2. Yet, seven-day averages/thousand for DCPS are far above citywide averages.[1]

Where is any sense of urgency?  Are we happy as long as we can have indoor dining and live performances in theaters and concert venues for the well-to-do, vaccinated adults from around the region?  As COVID spreads through schools, it will rebound right back into the community, especially the communities hardest hit and least vaccinated, people of color and vulnerable states of health.  Do they and their children generally not count? 

[1] 2020 Master Facilities Plan Update, December 2020 and Annual Enrollment Audit, Fall 2020.

[1] https://twitter.com/DJoseph31/status/1441517560701374465/photo/1

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Heather Schoell Testimony – DC Council Roundtable on School Facility Conditions During Reopening for SY2022 – September 28, 2021

Heather Schoell

Testimony for DC Council Roundtable

on School Facility Conditions During Reopening for

SY2022 – September 28, 2021

Submitted Testimony Followed by Actual Points Made

Thank you to the Council for the opportunity to share my perspectives. My name is Heather Schoell and I’m the PTO president of Eastern Senior High School.

The pandemic has left us all raw, but we have to push through it. That’s what teachers and school staff are doing, but they don’t work in a vacuum; it takes all the supporting agencies to do their jobs, too. In the best of times, it’s uncomfortable to be in a hot room, but we’re not in the best of times. DCPS swears the air quality in schools is fine because the air quality company DGS hired says it is. You’re only as good as your word, so sorry, but it’s a leap of faith over a canyon to take DGS at their word. After years of dealing with them, every school teacher, custodian, and administrator knows that! Custodial staff can only do so much to get them through when DGS doesn’t do what needs to be done.

DGS had well over a year to make necessary fixes in school buildings. I understand there are supply chain issues, but 18 months is a lot of days and a lot of missed opportunities to work in empty buildings. Now they’re not empty – kids are sweating in 80+ degree classrooms. They’re having to cross to the opposite side of the building to go to the bathroom because of burst pipes. There are work orders from two years ago that have been marked as complete, but were never fixed. It took Council intervention to move the needle at Eastern last year. So what else is new? That’s how things get done in the District, by out-squeaking the other wheels. That’s why there’s an imbalance and an inequality among resources by Ward, including the physical state of schools.

I don’t need four minutes to tell you that we need to hold DGS accountable for their assignments, and it should go without saying that the work should be done well and in a timely fashion. Would you call back a plumber who took a year to fix your leaky sink, or be a loyal customer to the company that keeps NOT fixing your A/C? Why are we allowing this waste and mediocrity to perpetuate? I’ll tell you why – it’s because it’s kids and teachers. Adults with any power wouldn’t stand for discomfort at work. If your office was 86 degrees, you’d turn around and walk out. But kids and teachers don’t have the power to do that. 

This school year has started out rough – teachers are quarantined, so there aren’t enough adults in the building to cover classes. It took parents to get DCPS to stop marking quarantined siblings as unexcused. We’re still holding daily indoor banquets – at least 5 per week, but again, it’s kids and teachers having to sit in school lunch rooms, so not adults with the power to refuse. 

Do the right thing; use your influence to right wrongs:

  1. Put a stop to this monopoly on facilities and demand accountability. We need DGS to do their job so that schools can do theirs, and we need a smarter and more organized system of repair requests. If there are 3 broken door alarms at a school, that should be 1 visit, not 3 – DUH. Maybe assign a team (or at least a point person) to schools so they know buildings’ ins and outs?
  2. We need a hybrid school solution, at least until the vaccine is authorized for under 12s. There’s already a remote learning system in place – access should be expanded so as to not put added pressure on teachers to simultaneously teach to home and in-person students.
  3. We need a COVID vaccination mandate for all who are eligible; nothing will change in school COVID safety until that’s done.

Thank you.

Actual Points Made:

I wanted to give voice to Mr. Woodfork, Eastern’s head custodian. Last year he shared with me how things work, and I learned just how broken the work order system is, and I shared that with CM White’s staff. Listen to the head custodians. They know the buildings and they know how a redone reporting system should work. The 311 reporting system is already in place. They could use that same system for school facilities needs reporting and tracking.

Stop the silo. Integrate other agencies to make things work. CM White asked parents what to prioritize – the Dept of Housing knows exactly what to prioritize for safety. Bring in DPR for outdoor resources, DOH for testing, etc..

Quit giving DGS and their construction contracts a pass. CM Allen mentioned Maury’s A/C being out after only 2 years, but their roof started leaking right away. That should be noted so we don’t use that company again.

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