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Mayor Bowser Increases DCPS Budget to Support Equity and Strengthen High Schools

Thursday, March 12, 2015
Chancellor Henderson Announces Plans to Hire More School Staff, Launch New Initiatives

Contact: Melissa Salmanowitz (DCPS) | (202) 535-1096

In the 2015-2016 school year, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) will create over 200 new school-based positions and focus on: strengthening neighborhood high schools, providing targeted resources and opportunities to male students of color, and improving equity across all eight wards. Delivering on a promise made three years ago, every DCPS school in the upcoming school year will offer art, music, world language, physical education and library programming, as well as increased social and emotional supports, and opportunities to increase student interest and engagement in school.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson today shared spending details about school budgets, following a more engaging and inclusive budget process than ever before. It included a series of meetings where students, families, school leaders, community members, and other stakeholders shared feedback, ideas and insight. 

“Our budget process this year started with strong input from our community and included honest conversations and hard decisions. This has allowed us to set a higher bar and higher expectations for our students and our schools,” said Chancellor Henderson. “Together, this budget will allow us to continue to transform DCPS into the best urban school district in the country, and the school district we all want for our children.” 

Mayor Muriel Bowser made education a priority by maintaining the student funding formula which is an increase in local funds of $25 million for a total local budget of $726 million.  This represents a 3.4 percent increase over the FY 2015 funding level of $701 million,  providing nearly every penny of the increase to schools.

New Students, New Schools

DCPS expects to enroll over 1,500 new students next year, continuing the historic enrollment increases seen under Chancellor Henderson’s leadership.  For the first time in decades, DCPS will open four new schools for the 2015-16 school year.  Brookland Middle School will provide students with intensive arts and world language experiences. Van Ness Elementary will provide high-quality early childhood education opportunities. River Terrace Education Campus will support special education students with intensive needs, in a state-of-the-art building. The former Community Academy Public Charter School (Amos 1 campus) will become a DCPS school bringing the staff, students, and school leadership into the DCPS community.

Transforming Neighborhood High Schools

DCPS will invest $13 million in new funds to support high school students and improve neighborhood high schools. In the upcoming school year, every neighborhood high school will offer at least six Advanced Placement courses. Every neighborhood high school will also offer at least 20 elective courses including choir, marching band, yearbook, debate, African-American literature, accounting and SAT preparation. Currently, some neighborhood high schools offer no electives.

Seven DCPS high schools offer the industry-recognized National Academy Foundation (NAF) programming in career and technical education. After only one year in place, NAF announced last week that all the current programs are now certified, which is an unprecedented achievement in the first year. DCPS is investing is $1.3 million to expand opportunities to support and train more students for careers in high-wage, high-growth fields such as engineering, hospitality industries and information technology. 

To support student success, all high schools, neighborhood and application high schools, will receive new funding next year to keep computer labs open before and after school, a suggestion made during community meetings this year. In addition, DCPS will create a new position responsible for helping students in neighborhood high schools schedule and explore extra-curricular activities, athletic teams and other clubs.  The budget also includes funding to ensure neighborhood high schools with newly renovated pools (Dunbar, Ballou, Woodson, and Cardozo) have the staff they need to ensure students can benefit from the pool.

Increase Equity and Increase Expectations for All Students

Implementation of the district’s high-quality curriculum and instruction is still uneven across the city. To address this in the upcoming school year, DCPS will provide every teacher, in every ward, with cornerstone lessons aligned to the rigorous standards. The high quality, teacher-developed supports will range from lessons that provide a unique approach to a math problem to a weeklong instructional program around a great novel or text to a field trip tied a particular part of the curriculum. 

These lessons, to be developed by the district’s highest performing teachers, will serve as models for all teachers and will raise the bar and stretch the abilities of all students. Every teacher will offer at least four of these rigorous, high-quality, teacher-created model experiences in their subject areas for students.

Empowering Males of Color

As Chancellor Henderson and Mayor Bowser announced earlier this year, DCPS will focus on providing strategic resources to Black and Latino male students.  Hundreds of community members have signed up as volunteer mentors and tutors, responding to the call to action in January. DCPS will train 500 mentors to work with students to build much-needed literacy skills. 

Private funding, which is not reflected in the budget released today, will support new Proving What’s Possible awards to improve outcomes for students, beginning in the second semester of the upcoming school year. DCPS will also rely on private funding for the planning costs associated with bringing Urban Prep Academy to the district, creating an all-male school east of the River.

Continuing to Innovate and Help Students Love School

For the first time, DCPS has created a per student funding model to support a library “refresh”, as well as library programming and materials. Every school will receive a $20 per student allocation and schools with at-risk students will receive up to an additional $15 per student. Other new per student allocation funding streams include specifics for art supplies, science materials and physical education equipment. 

Also for the first time, DCPS will invest $1 million to pilot an extended school-year at Raymond Education Campus.  This new, research-based approach will give Raymond EC’s students extra instructional time, and inform planning decisions to expand extended year programming to other schools in the future. Details will be announced in the coming months. 

Schools who serve at-risk students will also receive an additional $50 per student investment to provide students with more access to technology. Schools where over 75 percent of their enrollment includes at-risk students will receive an additional $25 per student.

Budget Next Steps

All the investments in the highest-need schools were made through significant reductions to central office funds by 25 percent. While these reductions are necessary to drive as many resources as possible to schools, they will impact the services schools receive and DCPS will plan accordingly to ensure schools are prepared for the transition. 

The budget guide schools use to inform their decisions is available online. Families will receive a letter from Chancellor Henderson today outlining budget details and plans and emphasizing the goals and work DCPS continues to do every day. Schools will submit their budgets next week and DCPS will make those details available on the DCPS website.