Letter from LSAT to Chancellor Ferebee Requesting Restoration of Staff in SY22 Budget

March 15, 2021

Chancellor Ferebee

Melissa Kim, Deputy Chancellor

Amy Maisterra, Deputy Chancellor

Jerry Jellig, Instructional Superintendent

District of Columbia Public Schools

1200 First Street NE

Washington, DC 20002

Chairman Phil Mendelson

1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 504

Washington, DC 20004

School Without Walls LSAT

2130 G Street NW

Washington, DC 20037

Dear Sirs and Madams:

As LSAT representatives, we are writing to explain why we could not come to a consensus with our school’s leadership regarding our final budget and the excessing of a staff position. We have grave concerns about how the School Without Walls High School is being funded. Our LSAT has just completed five meetings of highly engaged, well communicated, and thoroughly mindful examination of our school's initial budget for SY22 and its impact on our community. Having to reconcile an actual budget loss of $850,744 last year and another actual loss of $505,945 this year, our representatives emerged exhausted and frustrated. 

When our 600-student enrollment remains consistent and our high school students from all eight wards are by far the lowest funded, we question the initial budget allotted to our school. As LSAT representatives who share in DCPS’ vision to educate the whole child, we, like yourselves, work to ensure an excellent education, promote educational equity for all our learners, empower our educators, and engage our families to make learning a joy at School Without Walls. We believe serving the same number of students each year should mean continuing the same amount of academic and professional staff providing the same level of academic programming and support. Having made several cuts to reconcile the lowest-funded high school pupils in DCPS, and by continuing to sustain losses in resources from year to year;  we believe our students are not only being underfunded, but, in fact, defunded.

 Like you, we recognize the inequities that exist across the District of Columbia and we share in acknowledging that many students’ special academic needs come with added weights that require major supplemental funding. We also recognize that although our students come from all eight wards (Wards 1,2,3,6 = 373 and Wards 4,5,7,8 = 222, and 5 military) they approach high school motivated to not only be accepted in college, but to also graduate from college. That being said, our concerns of unfair budget allocations stem from the consistent and deliberate removal of school resources and their impact on all of our students. 

According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, the 2013 Deputy Mayor for Education Adequacy Study proposed allocating $10,584 per pupil funding for all high school students. Nine years later and suffering pandemic losses, the initial budget per pupil funding FY22 (as seen on DCPSbudget.com, dashboard 2) at School Without Walls is at $10,426.17, which is lower than the 2013 Adequate Funding Study. Our FY22 Initial Budget total is $6,255,700 and falls far below the $10M average for all high schools. We are the lowest per pupil funding high school student in a range which climbs as high as $67,063.12, across all the variations of DCPS high schools. All high schools have one factor in common: students that need adequate funding and support in their teen years to graduate.

When our stakeholders examine these numbers in light of our academic vision knowing how much of the deficit we have already reconciled in a time of a worldwide pandemic,  while sustaining losses from the abrupt removal of our principal this school year, we representatives can not explain why we are continually underfunded.

During our monthly LSAT meeting, the board recognized the administration’s difficult and tireless  task, however, unanimously disagreed to support the administration’s final budget proposal to cut one education position. There was a second vote, with one abstention, to request the funding needed to cover our deficit of one FTE  at $112,569, allowing us to keep our faculty intact, and to fully fund a Psychologist position with an additional ~$54,000.

Our school can not continue to sustain losses to our educational program and provide Blue Ribbon worthy outcomes for a steady 600 students. Our students hail from every ward and like all DC students, deserve what School Without Walls High School provides-a rigorous education experience.

As a collective community with the sole purpose of promoting high expectations  and high achievement, the LSAT of the School Without Walls High School in accordance with the Collective Bargaining agreement between the Washington Teachers’ Union and DCPS, respectfully requests the restoration of 1 FTE faculty position and a fully funded Psychologist position.

Sincerely,

Marion Babcock, Parent Co-Chair

Carlton Ackerman, Teacher Co-Chair

Arthur Klawender, WTU Representative

Randy Showstack, Parent Representative

Malene Lawrence, Parent Representative

Esperanza Román-Mendoza, Parent Representative

Andrea Marryshow, HSA Representative

John Ralls, GWU Adjunct Professor, Community Representative