Graduation Excellence Engagement

DC Public Schools (DCPS) is committed to ensuring that all students are prepared to achieve in college, career, and life. In School Year 2018-2019, DCPS set out to create a new set of policies regarding attendance, graduation, secondary grading, student promotion, and credit recovery. In fall 2018, DCPS released a new credit recovery policy based on community feedback. At the core of these changes is DCPS’ commitment to crafting policies that are supportive, inclusive, and equitable. These policies aim to set clear expectations on the standards of excellence our students must meet as well as what supports DCPS will provide along the way.

Process for Incorporating Community Feedback

Spring 2018 Engagement Sessions

In spring 2018, DCPS held more than 20 public engagement sessions with a diverse range of stakeholders. These engagements focused specifically on understanding stakeholder perspectives on the topics of attendance, student promotion, secondary grading, and graduation. Through the spring engagement sessions, members of the public, school leaders, students, parents, teachers, DCPS partners, the DCPS Principal Cabinet, the DCPS Parent Cabinet, the DCPS Teacher Cabinet, and education policy experts all provided feedback to guide the drafting of policies and regulations. These public engagement sessions included the following formats:

Focus groups: DCPS held focus groups that were open to the public and provided an opportunity to provide feedback on these policies.
Community Forums: DCPS engaged with community members at the April Community Forums and received feedback on draft policies.
Chancellor Cabinets: Interim Chancellor Alexander engaged with the Student, Teacher, Principal, and Parent Cabinets to receive their feedback on draft policies.
Staff Survey: DCPS collected more than 100 responses from teachers, counselors, and school leaders from a survey focused on graduation policies.

Summer Public Comment Period
As a result of these spring engagement sessions, DCPS released draft policies and regulations for public comment from June 22 to July 22, 2018. These draft policies and regulations incorporated the feedback received in the spring and reflected a commitment to empowering students and families on their paths to graduation. During the public comment period, DCPS received more than 200 online comments and hosted two public forums to gather community feedback.

Summary of Public Feedback on DCPS Policies
DCPS carefully reviewed all public feedback and used the comments to shape the final policies and regulations. Below, please find a summary of the public feedback received as well as a list of all public comments received.

Public Comment Period on Credit Recovery Policy
This fall 2018, DCPS released a draft credit recovery policy for public comment. DCPS collected public feedback from our stakeholders both through an online forum as well as a webinar and public focus group. A summary of this feedback is included below. This feedback was used to inform DCPS’ updated credit recovery policy.

Updated DCPS Policies

DCPS has published updated policies related to graduation, attendance, secondary grading, student promotion, and credit recovery. For more information, please review DCPS’ Pre-K to Graduation Policies.

Where can I get more information?