Advocacy

The Ward 5 EEC circulated and added signatories the following letter and sent it to Councilmember Charles Allen

Dear Councilmember Charles Allen,
We, the undersigned Ward 5 residents, urge you, as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, to support and pursue the removal of police from all DC public and public charter schools, and to make a substantial investment in expanding mental health, violence-interruption, social-emotional learning, and transformative justice approaches.
Instead of making students safer, the presence of police in schools increases the likelihood that students will be arrested or have negative interactions with police through the criminalization of adolescent behavior, survival behavior, or responses to trauma. The harm done by this misguided approach falls overwhelmingly on Black students; 92% of school-based arrests are of Black students.
Currently, DCPS has:

We believe that this approach is backwards. Instead of increasing investments in violence and trauma prevention through violence-interruption programs and mental and social-emotional supports, we have instead doubled down on policing in our schools, which has been reactionary, damaging, and ineffective. Current school security personnel, who have strong ties to students and communities, can be retrained for non-policing, supportive roles such as mediation that can contribute to school culture and safety. Resources can be diverted to better train school security personnel as well as other school-based staff in de-escalation and restorative justice practices, and bolster investments in mental health, violence-interruption, and social-emotional staff and supports.
As an interim step in achieving the above, we urge you to take authority over the Security Assurance Management contract away from MPD and return it to DCPS, prohibit the hiring off-duty law enforcement or special police officers, and defund the School Security Division of MPD.
Thank you for your attention to these matters that are of utmost importance for ensuring the safety of DC students.
Sincerely,
The undersigned.

Committee on Government Operations and Facilities
and
Committee of the Whole
Joint Public Oversight Roundtable on School Facility Conditions
During the Re-Opening for School Year 2021-2022
September 28, 2021
Delivered by W5EEC Vice-Chair Robert Henderson

Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s roundtable. My name is Robert Henderson. I am a Ward 5 resident and parent, and vice chair of the Ward 5 Education Equity Committee. Conversations with and surveys of Ward 5 parents and families as well as direct communication with Ward 5 school leaders inform my testimony today.
It has never been more important to the safety and well-being of our students than this year, during an ongoing pandemic, to have school facilities and systems in top working order. That so many of our schools opened this year with failing HVAC systems (at least 3 of 13 DCPS campuses in Ward 5), poorly ventilated bathrooms and hallways, and leaking roofs is nothing short of scandalous. And yet it is all too true that, for some schools and students more than others, this is nothing new.
I thank Councilmember Robert White and his office staff for reaching out in June to identify recurring maintenance issues in DCPS schools so that they could be addressed before schools reopened this fall, even as some students had already returned to school buildings as early as February. Unfortunately, this proactive oversight effort was not enough. Maybe you could have started sooner. Maybe it would not have mattered.
The status quo system is deeply dysfunctional. It ought to be enough for a school leader to identify a problem, submit a request, and have repairs completed. Instead, we find that even parent organizing, media attention, and council oversight is not enough to get timely repairs, no matter how urgent those repairs are for the health and safety of our students.
Looking at the facilities needs among Ward 5 DCPS schools, two common themes strike me. First, several needs stem from or are worsened by unresponsiveness by or insufficient coordination among multiple city agencies, be it DCPR, DDOT, or DGS. And second, school modernization has been implemented inequitably, and while laudable, the efforts to correct those inequities nonetheless leave a group of schools with unacceptable conditions and no prospect for modernization in the near future. We must find a way, in my opinion, to make substantial capital investments to bring those schools to acceptable facilities conditions — safe and healthy at minimum — even if they will not undergo full modernization. Otherwise, we consign the students there to an unsafe learning environment and leave the schools to struggle to retain faculty and maintain enrollment.
Families, teachers, and most of all, our students see and live the discrepancy between the lofty rhetoric of district leadership about health and safety and the realities of their school facilities. What will they conclude about their worth?
The Ward 5 Education Equity Committee reached out to each DCPS school leader in Ward 5 in June and again this month in preparation for this roundtable. We passed on recurring issues to Councilmember White’s staff in June; many of them are still outstanding. I have listed in my written testimony current issues as reported by school leaders and parents (see appendix), but I will share a few of them now.
Three schools, Langdon, Langley, and Phelps opened the school year with stopgap HVAC solutions of limited effectiveness. In the case of Langdon, promised repairs have been delayed. Browne, Noyes, and Phelps needed or still need additional traffic controls and/or crossing guards to ensure student safety while approaching their schools. Langley has a chronically leaking roof that has already made some spaces unusable. And Wheatley Education Campus needs help from DCPR to ensure that students can safely enjoy recess. You can find a more detailed list of facilities issues attached to my written testimony.
Thank you
Appendix: Itemized Facilities Concerns of Ward 5 DCPS Schools
Browne Education Campus
Need help getting the tennis and basketball courts across from the school cleaned up and made safe for students to play. Apparently, the space is under the jurisdiction of the National Parks Service.
Langdon Elementary
Langdon opened the school year without a fully working HVAC system. Some classrooms have window units and spot coolers that don’t always work and are loud – making it difficult for teachers and students to hear one another. They have been awaiting HVAC repair since then. Repairs were promised by mid-September, but have been delayed and now are not expected before the end of October.
Langley Elementary
A crumbling roof has caused damage in several places throughout the school, including in bathrooms that also lack sufficient ventilation. Hallways also lack ventilation and therefore have poor air quality. Several staff spaces have also had to be relocated elsewhere in the building due to the leaking roof. The roof leak also has caused damage to the ceilings and walls in the cafeteria - this section of the roof has been patched, but the wall and ceiling damage remains. The cafeteria has no working bathroom, leaving children eating lunch there with no place to wash their hands. The elevator project that was supposed to be complete before the start of the school year is delayed due to “unforeseen issues with the roof.”
Phelps HS
A/C units were not ready for the start of the school year despite many months of expressed concerns to DGS and DCPS Facilities. Temporary solutions such as spot coolers, have been insufficient, leaving hot rooms with coolers blowing loudly and impeding teaching and learning.
The traffic situation with the addition of SWS @Goding in proximity to Phelps presented profound issues during the first two weeks of school. There are real safety concerns with the traffic flow. No flaggers or safety measures have been put in place (after months of pleading and requests). Dangerous intersections and encounters with pedestrians and automobiles are present each day. Our temporary measures are not sustainable and are insufficient to ensure safety.
Wheatley EC
Wheatley’s playground and fields are open to the community during the school day.
Community members on playground while our scholars are at recess.
Young men shooting craps on the playground during recess and using profanity (inappropriate behavior)
At the beginning of the school year, the splash park was still on, thus large groups of community members were on the playground during recess.
Dogs unleashed on the field running through while scholars are playing on the field at recess.
Gates are often not unlocked by DPR Park Rangers (DCPS staff do not have a key) and scholars have to walk in the alley with cars speeding through all day to access the playground and field.
Grass is not cut, making parts of the park unusable.
Having exclusive access to the space from 11:30am-1:30pm would be ideal.

Committee of the Whole Performance Oversight Hearing
for all Education Agencies
March 9, 2021
Delivered by W5EEC Vice-Chair Robert Henderson

Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. My name is Robert Henderson. I am a Ward 5 resident and parent, and vice chair of the Ward 5 Education Equity Committee. Our organization has been meeting monthly for the past two years convening school leaders, teachers, students, and families of our Ward 5 schools. Those meetings as well as regular communication with these groups inform my testimony today.
Over the past year, I have tried to live by a mantra of extending grace to all, as together we work through extraordinary and extraordinarily difficult circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to a great extent, I think that applies here. Teachers have quickly and admirably adjusted to new ways of teaching, and students have persevered. However, in some cases, I can think of no reason, pandemic or not, to justify certain aspects of the performance of some agencies over the past year.
Beginning with DCPS, I have repeatedly heard from school leaders and teachers about learning of District plans from press briefings, indicating both a lack of engagement and collaboration with these parties, and a lack of respect for the preparation needed to communicate and implement these plans. DCPS has repeatedly failed to assess the demand for in-person learning and has pushed a series of reopening plans that have put an inordinate burden on each school and their staffs to provide opportunities for a small number of students while increasing the number of students each teacher has in remote classes. DCPS leadership has taken a combative, rather than collaborative stance towards employees, not seeking their input and dismissing it when volunteered. Most recently, they pushed for in-person instruction at point when a few more weeks coupled with prioritization could have resulted in all onsite personnel being fully vaccinated before opening buildings. The District already had teacher retention challenges, and this treatment will undoubtedly exacerbate them.
Unrelated to and unabated by the pandemic, the DC Public Charter School Board continues to approve new charters, essentially creating a boundless supply of seats for a system that already has many schools below capacity. When budgets are largely tied to enrollment, this creates and exacerbates inequities across sectors and across the city. In Ward 5, we have 35 charter campuses and now 14 DCPS campuses. It does not seem to be the responsibility of the charter school board to consider the implications of charter expansion on traditional public schools. Who then, is doing comprehensive, cross-sector planning?
This leads me up the organizational chart, which if I understand correctly – it is quite convoluted – is the Mayor. It does not seem that the Mayor’s office or the Deputy Mayor for Education for that matter, provides comprehensive cross-sector planning or oversight.
The status quo doesn’t seem to be working well. The school system is not fulfilling basic priorities for equity and quality. Too many students don’t have the opportunities or supports that they need. Too often, you have to step in to demand that the agencies deliver basic plans. Schools continue to receive budget increases that fail to prevent cuts to much-needed staff. These issues preceded the pandemic and without significant changes, will continue after it. We need to rethink the fundamentals of education in the city including the governance structure and budgeting.
The State Board of Education has become the agency most engaged with the public, with hours of public comment many of the meetings over the past year. The SBOE is devoted to education rather than the broader set of areas that are the responsibility of the council or the mayor, and is well positioned to exercise greater authority over education in the district. An independent Office of the State Superintendent of Education to depoliticize education decisions.
We can do better for our students, and we must. We need our education leaders to genuinely engage with the public, and to collaborate with and support the teachers who know our students best.
I will have additional testimony regarding the budget in the coming months, but for now I will just ask that the council fund the Addressing Dyslexia and Other Reading Difficulties Act of 2020.