D.C. school enrollment dispute ends with a compromise
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
June 3, 2009
The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to dole out millions of dollars that it had threatened to withhold from the public schools budget until the fall, allowing Chancellor Michelle Rhee to fully staff her classrooms before the start of next school year.
The monthlong clash between Council Chairman Vincent Gray and D.C. Public Schools’ Rhee over school enrollment projections, with its ugly public rhetoric and threats of mass layoffs, was set aside in favor of compromise.
The council agreed, as part of the fiscal 2010 Budget Support Act, to fund the public schools at its confirmed enrollment for the current school year, or 44,681 students. DCPS will receive $24.2 million of the $27.5 million that the council had lopped from the system’s budget last month.
Rhee could still collect at least a portion of the remaining $3.3 million, if an October audit shows a turnaround after years of declining enrollment. For every confirmed new student, the system will receive $8,945.
“This is a very, very generous and somewhat unprecedented [action] by the council,” said Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells.
Rhee had claimed, based on projections devised by a trio of think tanks, that DCPS would pick up 373 new students next year. The council scoffed, citing a decadelong enrollment drop.
The chancellor was directed through the budget to devise a more accurate system of determining student numbers.
“Between now and this time next year we're going to adopt a new method,” Gray said. “We can't go on this way.”
The council's decision to withhold millions sparked threats of teacher layoffs, as Rhee began a public relations offensive.
“She deliberately created a crisis,” said Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry.
In a letter to the chairman sent Monday, Rhee reiterated her faith in the system's 2010 projections, while adding, “I cannot guarantee that this will occur.” Historical trends, she acknowledged, “do not support the citywide projection.”
The Budget Support Act, which sets out the legislative changes needed to implement the city’s $5.4 billion 2010 spending plan earned unanimous approval Tuesday. In it is the final roster of earmarks doled out by the council, a 10-page, $20 million-plus list that wasn’t finalized until the last minute as several nonprofits that failed to turn in required paperwork saw their money redistributed.
