W6PSPO Meets MONDAY (new date) October 17, 2022

Dear Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization members,

1. W6PSPO will meet on MONDAY, October 17 (not our regular third Tuesday of the month) at 7 pm. Literacy will be the focus of our discussion. We will be joined by Karla Reid-Witt from Decoding Dyslexia who will discuss the Addressing Dyslexia and Other Reading Difficulties Amendment Act of 2020; K.C. Boyd who will discuss the pending legislation The Right to Read Amendment Act of 2021; and Kevin Washburn (Director Library Programs), Jennifer Carpenter (Director Special Education Inclusion), and Shareen Cruz (Reading Specialist) from DCPS. We will also be joined by Melissa Hoppmeyer who will discuss the Maury PTA’s City Advocacy Committee. We will also discuss the upcoming W6PSPO elections.
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, you can register at

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAudOqsqDorHdOqNZKiWVfvLL0TPp_az3Wp.  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

2. Right to Read Conference

It is timely that after our W6PSPO literacy discussion, there is a Right to Read virtual conference that is open to the public! Join @EdReformNowDC, @DDyslexiaDC, and a host of panelists in an engaging discussion on what must be done to improve literacy outcomes. Please share this information with your school communities.

Right to Read – What’s At Stake? – October 26, 2:30 pm

What Do Educators Need to Know About Reading? – October 26, 6:30 pm

What Do Parents Need to Know About Reading? – October 27, 6:30 pm

3.  DCPS Librarians need your support!The Right to Read Amendment Act of 2021 was presented last fall by CM Charles Allen.  This bill ensures that a full-time, certified librarian is staffed in every DC school.  If the bill passes, it would stop the negative cycle of excessing librarians and provide consistency in staffing and library service for all DCPS students.  The bill has the potential to expire in the council.  Librarians, parents and supporters need to testify at the upcoming Teacher/Principal Turnover Hearing for the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, October 25th at 1pm.   The deadline to register is October 21 at 5 pm.  Sign up here.

4.  Pollinator Garden Support – The Monarch Sister Schools Program is looking to start more pollinator gardens in DC, and work with teachers to use them as outdoor classrooms, offering lesson plans that help connect students with nature and reinforce STEM learning through hands-on activities. If your school doesn’t have a pollinator garden, and is interested in starting one, please contact me and I will connect you with the Monarch Sister Schools staff.

5.  Walk and Roll to School Day – Thank you to everyone who came to Walk and Roll to School Day last Wednesday.  The J.O. Wilson cheerleaders rocked, the Maury cross country team did a fantastic job helping lead the warm-up activities, and the Eastern High School Marching Band was their awesome selves.  Special thanks to Sandra Moscoso who did the lion’s share of the organizing.  Check out the photos from the day on flickr.

Other Local “good stuff”

In case you haven’t heard, the Eastern Marching Band received over $130,000 in donations this weekend from around the world after The Washington Post ran a story about them!!!

Have you been to Hill Center lately? DOWNLOAD this sampling of October events and programs, many of which are family, kid, and teen friendly! Please consider passing this along to your school communities.

Hope to see you on Monday.
Suzanne Wells

Petition: DC School Communities Demand Safe Routes to School

Mayor Bowser, Councilmember Cheh, Chairman Mendelson, Director Lott, and DC leadership,

DC students deserve to travel to and from school via safe routes, free from worry of being subjected to traffic violence. This should be viewed as a basic expectation for District families, as well as all District residents regardless of age or family situation. Unfortunately, according to DC Families for Safe Streets, 32 people died in DC last year from traffic violence over the course of the school year. As of October 1, Vision Zero DC has counted 2,112 crashes involving injuries in 2022 (including 232 pedestrians and 126 cyclists).

Twice a year, our school communities come together to spotlight safe routes to school via Walk (and Bike) and Roll Days. One hundred and twenty three such events have been recorded over the past 3 school years. Our local government officials and politicians accept sincere invitations to join our communities in walking and biking safely. While we look forward to the joyful celebrations, the work toward safe routes to school cannot continue to be limited to those photo-perfect moments.It is time to follow through on safe routes by updating the laws that prioritize the safety of our students and families, and it is time to equitably implement the infrastructure development and especially the enforcement of laws and regulations. Every school must have access to infrastructure and resources that ensure a minimum standard of safety.

*Legislate and Implement Measures to End Traffic Violence Now*

  1. The DC Council has two bills pending with elements that support safety infrastructure, processes, and enforcement. These bills should be moved immediately, without watering down required safety measures for all schools like raised crosswalks, curb extensions, crosswalk warning pylons, flashing pedestrian signs and speed bumps.
  2. The DC Department of Transportation must accelerate implementation of existing programs that support safe routes to school, and do so in a transparent manner.
  3. In the meantime, our schools are being forced to cobble together inconsistent measures to try to improve safety with untrained staff or volunteers. In the absence of safety infrastructure and comprehensive measures, school communities need crossing guards, the DC Department of Transportation must staff every school with crossing guards until appropriate infrastructure and strategies have been implemented.

In her introduction of the Safe Routes to School Expansion Regulation Amendment Act of 2021, Councilmember Janeese Lewis-George reminded us that, “More than 100,000 children and 7,000 teachers commute across D.C. each day to get to school.” For the sake of all District students and their families, we demand that you immediately use all the tools available to you to end traffic violence in our city.

Respectfully,

Sandra Moscoso, Suzanne Well, and Danica Petroshius
Officers, Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization

Initial Signatories:
Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization (W6PSPO)
Ward 4 Education Alliance
Amidon Bowen Elementary School PTA (Ward 6)
Miner Elementary School PTO (Ward 7)
Ross Elementary School PTA (Ward 2)
School Without Walls High School HSA (Ward 2)
Seaton Elementary School PTO (Ward 2)
EmpowerEd

Robert Henderson, Vice Chair, Ward 5 Education Equity Committee
Amber Gove, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (6A04)
Evan Yeats, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (4B01)
Erin Palmer, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (4B02)
Dr. Carlene Reid, Ward 8 Representative, DC State Board of Education
Rebecca Sohmer, President, Van Ness Elementary PTO (Ward 8)

Maria Helena Carey, Ward 6 Parent
Julie and John Muir, Ward 6 Parents
Sara Ritchey, Ward 3 Parent

400+ school community members across all wards and 80+ schools 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

dc-safe-routes-petition-and-signatory-stories-2022Everyone else who signed on…

——-

CC:
Councilmember Charles Allen
Councilmember Anita Bonds
Councilmember Janeese Lewis George
Councilmember Vincent Gray
Councilmember Christina Henderson
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau
Councilmember Brooke Pinto
Councilmember Elissa Silverman
Councilmember Robert White Jr.
Councilmember Trayon White Sr.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Contee
Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn
DCPS Chancellor Lewis Ferebee

SideWalk and Roll to School Palooza!

Eastern HS Homecoming Parade & Game – Oct 8!

Be sure to come out and cheer on the marching band and homecoming court! The parade will start at Eastern HS at around 9:30, head north on 19th Street, west on C Street and North Carolina Ave to East Capitol, south on 11th Street then east on East Capitol to 19th NE. 

Video: Ward 6 State Board of Education Candidates Forum

Missed the Ward 6 Rep State Board of Education Candidates forum? Watch it here! Thanks to Ward 6 Dems for organizing and to co-sponsors Hill Rag and PAVE.

Click this link to watch the recording –> https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1145863563002842

Testimony of Suzanne Wells Bill 24-570 “Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act of 2021″ Sept 25 2022

Testimony of Suzanne Wells

Committee of the Whole

Bill 24-570 “Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act of 2021”

September 25, 2022

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.  My name is Suzanne Wells, and I am the president of the Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization (W6PSPO).  The comments I offer are my personal comments.

The Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act seeks to address the instability schools face in their yearly budgets.  Budget instability is a real and serious problem for DCPS schools, and results in schools not being able to retain staff and/or programming. When families come to expect certain programs or services at a school and they are no longer offered, the loss of these is very troubling. If programming is lost at a by-right school, it can lead in-bound families to look at other schools for similar programming leading to further instability in the system.

While the Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act goal of creating greater stability in school budgets is a laudable goal, the bill will likely not achieve this goal. More importantly, because the bill does not address the adequacy of school budgets or the city’s decision-making that has led to an oversupply of seats/schools and an unchecked opening of new schools, the bill will not provide the budgets schools need to support their students.

I can’t in good conscience offer suggestions on a bill I believe is so flawed that it will do more harm in the end than good.  This bill, if passed, will dramatically lessen any autonomy DCPS has over its budget.  It will set in stone formulas that might seem good at the moment, but could be not so sound a few years from now.  Fundamental flaws with the bill are that it:

–  does not address how the city will replace the one-time federal and local funding that was placed in the FY23 school budgets to support schools’ pandemic recovery efforts;

– begins presumably with the SY23 budget where a number of schools saw detrimental budget cuts from the new DCPS budgeting model.  This will perpetuate for the future budget problems these schools experienced;

– does not address the use of at-risk funds that are used to supplement school budgets and are not directed to the support of at-risk students; and

– sets an arbitrary central administration/local school budget percentage that would be inflexible for future years even if legitimate reasons justified a different percentage.

Our city spends over $2 billion a year on education.  There’s really no reason that school budgets are inadequate.  However, our school budgets are inadequate because of decisions our elected officials have made in overseeing our city’s education dollars.  DCPS is responsible for providing a by-right public school system.  The Council has approved the opening of too many schools, and this impacts the enrollment at our by-right schools..  Our city’s population is not growing, yet the Council and/or the Mayor have approved, e.g.,:

  • Expanding Banneker in its renovation to grow from a 500  to an 800 student school.  The students coming to Banneker in the coming years will likely be leaving our comprehensive high schools which will see their enrollments and budgets decline.
  • Purchase of the Georgetown Day property and plans to build a new high school in Ward 3 to relieve overcrowding at Jackson-Reed High School.  The overcrowding at Jackson-Reed could have been dealt with at no cost by reducing the out-of-boundary enrollment, and readjusting the Jackson-Reed boundaries.
  • The opening of Bard Early College and Ron Brown College Preparatory High School.

All of these high school opening decisions were made with the goal of increasing choice, and did not consider impacts on feeder patterns within our by-right public school system or the budget impacts at schools losing students.

The Council continues to have blinders on regarding the Public Charter School Board .  Since March of 2020, the PCSB has approved the opening of six new schools.  What we are seeing now is that the PCSB is also approving the expansion of existing charter schools.  For example, Washington Latin has recently purchased property in Ward 4 to expand its middle/high school for another 700 students.  With a declining student population, where will the students come from to fill the seats at these new schools?  They will come from existing charter and DCPS schools further leading to enrollment and budget decline.

            Both the DCPS and PCSB opening of new schools has occurred at a time when the Deputy Mayor for Education estimates there are over 35,000 unfilled seats across both sectors. 

Once these opening and expansion decisions have been made, it is very difficult to turn back the clock, and undo the decisions.  Yet, it is these very decisions that are the major reason the DCPS schools have inadequate budgets. It’s enticing to look for simple answers to complex problems, and that’s what the Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act is doing.  If the Council wants to meaningfully address inadequate school budgets, it must first stop the continued opening of new schools our students do not need, and find a way to better balance the seats needed with our actual student population.  The Schools First in Budgeting Amendment Act does neither.  The challenges ahead will not be easy to address, but if schools are to get the budgets they need, the Council will have to find the courage to do the difficult work that is required.

Walk & Roll to School Day is Oct 12 – Register, Sign, and Join Us!

Walk and Roll to School Day is Wednesday, October 12. We will be celebrating at Lincoln Park, 7:45-8:15am. Here’s how to celebrate with us:

  1. Register your school here: https://www.walkbiketoschool.org/registration/
  2. Get the word out to your school community! Here’s the flyer: pdf and png
  3. Sign and disseminate the petition “DC School Communities Demand Safe Routes to School” here: https://bit.ly/SafeSchoolRoutesDC 
  4. Join us at Lincoln Park on Weds, October 12, 7:45am-8:15am.

Ward 6 School and Education Updates – September 2022

Dear Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization members,

Below are a few updates (in chronological order…):

1. DC Local School Advisory Team (LSAT) Collective Meeting, Tuesday, September 13

Please share the following message with your LSAT leaders:

Hello DC Education Leaders,

My name is Steve Bowen (Payne Elementary parent) and along with Marion Babcock (School Without Walls parent), and Elizabeth Corinth (School-Within-School parent) we are re-booting the DC Local School Advisory Team (LSAT) Collective. We plan to provide LSAT members from across DC with regular virtual meetings and a website/platform to share best practices for LSAT meetings, learn from subject matter experts in education, and build a coalition for public school advocacy. 

We are hoping that you will forward this to your organizations and current LSAT leaders in your network. Please mark your calendars for 7- 815pm Tuesday 13 Sept for our first meeting of the season. 

In the meantime, please take a moment to complete this brief survey (less than 10 minutes) so we can tailor our meetings to what you need to improve your LSAT. You can also check out the website we are building — this is a work in progress and we will flesh it out in the coming months with additional info and resources.

Detailed agenda and zoom link to follow. Thanks for all you do for DCPS and your communities. 
Steve, Marion, and Elizabeth

2. Ward 6 SBOE Candidates Forum, September 28, 7 pm

W6PSPO will co-sponsor a Ward 6 State Board of Education Candidates Forum on September 28 at 7 pm. 

Brandon Best and Joshua Wiley are running for the position. The forum will be an opportunity to learn more about the candidates, hear their visions for education in DC, and get your questions answered.  Denise Forte, interim CEO of The Education Trust will moderate the forum.

Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Time: 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Location: Virtual, Zoom link provided on registration

RSVP: https://www.mobilize.us/ward6demsdc/event/498054/ 

Submit your questions for the candidates to debate@hillrag.com.Please share the attached flyer about the Ward 6 State Board of Education Candidates Forum with your school communities.

3. Walk and Roll to School Day, Wednesday, October 12, 7:45 am Lincoln Park

Registration is open for Walk and Roll to School Day on October 12.  We’ll meet at Lincoln Park at 7:45 am, and will be done in time for everyone to arrive at school before it starts.  If you haven’t already, please register your schools.  More information to follow!

4. W6PSPO Elections

W6PSPO will hold elections in November.  President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer positions are open.  Please consider how you want to support this organization and its mission 

to promote cooperation among the parent organizations of the public schools in Ward 6 in order to improve the education received by all children attending our schools.  A nomination form will be available soon.

5. September 16 Hearing on Bill 24-570, Schools First in Budgeting Bill

Chairman Mendelson is holding a hearing on September 16 at 1 pm on Bill 24-570, Schools First in Budgeting Bill.  You must sign up by 5 pm on September 14 in order to testify. There is an information session on September 13 at 11 am to learn more about the bill.

6.  W6PSPO Meeting Tuesday, September 20, 7 pm

W6PSPO will meet on Tuesday, September 20 at 7 pm. We will be joined by Gabriella Pino-Moreno from the Facility Planning & Design office who will share with us the planning for the Old Miner building.  Information will be sent soon about how to join the meeting.

7.  Have lunch with members of the D.C. State Board of Education!

The D.C. State Board of Education will host a Back to School event for families from across the District. Come out and participate in our focus group sessions, grab lunch, and speak with members of the State Board directly. The Office of the Student Advocate and the Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education, will be there as well to provide information and answer any concerns you may have. RSVP now to secure your spot, and select which sessions you would like to attend!

Date and time
Saturday, September 24, 2022
10:30 AM – 1:30 PM EDT

Location
Eastern Senior High School
1700 East Capitol Street Northeast
Washington, DC 20002

Please find the descriptions of each breakout session below. Participants will be able to attend three out of the four sessions available.

Accountability and Assessment: The Accountability and Assessment Committee will present and discuss recommended revisions to the DC School Report Card. Participants will share questions and feedback on the DC School Report Card, as well as receive updates on OSSE’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan and upcoming Accountability and Assessment Committee projects.

Board Governance: The Board Governance Committee is seeking engagement on its takeaways from two recent reports focused on improving state-wide education decision-making, communications, and responsiveness to families, educators, students, and wider communities in D.C.

Education Standards: The Education Standards Committee will seek feedback on a draft literacy 2-pager and ask questions about the best and regular processes for future updates to the District’s education standards.

Outreach and Advocacy: The Outreach and Advocacy Committee will present on the ESSA Standards for Parent Engagement and receive feedback from families on how they experience the standards at their schools, including the engagement efforts that are most effective and the areas for engagement that could be expanded upon.

Thanks for reading!!!

Suzanne Wells

Musical, Parade, Summer and Yay Digital Equity DC!

Dear Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization members,

Wanted to share some updates:

1.  4th of July Parade
Many schools march together in the annual Capitol Hill 4th of July parade.  Here is the link to sign up to participate in this year’s parade. 
Registration Form – 2022 Capitol Hill July 4th Parade
The schedule is the same as other years.

  • 9 am – Marchers line up under the highway on 8th and I Streets, SE
  • 10:00 am parade starts promptly with Marine Drum and Bugle corp with others to follow – march North on 8th street
  • ~12 pm parade wraps up at the Eastern Market Metro Plaza. Marcher/crowd disperses

Please contact Christine O’Reilly at ch4thparade@gmail.com with any questions you have about the parade. 

2. Stuart Hobson Musical
On June 10th and June 11th, students at Stuart-Hobson will perform “13, the Musical.”  You can purchase tickets here.

Performance times are:

  • Friday, June 10th at 6:00pm
  • Saturday, June 11th at 2:00pm and 6:00pmThe flyer is attached. 

    Please note the themes in this show are appropriate for “older” elementary school-age and above.
13-the-musicalDownload

3.  Resilient Summer Handbook
For those of you who are interested, attached is the handbook from the Parenting Resilient Children training that the Center for Inspired Teaching put on for parents last week.

resilient-summer-handbook-2Download

4.  Congratulations to Digital Equity in DC Education and Grace Hu (Amidon Bowen parent) for being recognized by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights with the 2022 Vincent E. Reed Award for their tireless advocacy to close the digital divide and ensure every student in DC has the fools they need to thrive!

5.  Mark your calendars for the June 21 W6PSPO monthly meeting.

Suzanne Wells