Some 70,000 children head to school in the District of Columbia today and the city’s political leadership hopes they will get the first proper welcome they’ve had in decades.
Mayor Adrian Fenty and his new school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, are scheduled to address the media this morning at 7 a.m. to give a forecast on the first day of classes.
Rhee spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said Sunday that 96 percent of textbooks were in place. On Saturday about 1,600 volunteers helped touch up the schools — painting, gardening, picking up litter and cleaning, Hobson said.
Still, there already are problems: Rhee told The Examiner on Sunday that half of classrooms won’t have air conditioning.
“As I’m talking to principals, they’re all sort of saying that even though everything isn’t done and complete, they feel good that everything is at least underway,” Rhee said.
District Council Member Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, a former member of the Board of Education, said he has been impressed with Rhee’s aggressive style.
“There is a real sense that we’re going to whatever it takes to see that our schools are upgraded and they perform,” Wells said.
About 51,000 students are enrolled in the traditional public schools and the rest will head to the publicly funded, privately operated charter schools.
Fenty and his team have spent most of the summer tamping down the enthusiasm he generated when he took over the city’s schools earlier this year, promising to wipe away years of neglect that has made D.C.’s schools one of the worst performing systems in the country. Originally, Fenty promised vague but sweeping changes to the city’s schools, which lead the nation in per-pupil spending.
As the summer wore on, Fenty and his team backed away from broad promises and instead focused simply on getting textbooks to the right place and making sure the air conditioning was working in the school buildings.
And it surely won’t be taken as a good omen that the day before the schools were scheduled to open, the system’s Web site was on the fritz and the public couldn’t get last-minute information online.
