In the near quarter-century since District of Columbia parents were first allowed to choose public charter schools for their children, demand has grown to the extent that nearly half of all the District’s public school students are educated on charter campuses. Thousands more are on wait-lists for charters unable to accommodate them.
Charter schools — taxpayer-funded, tuition-free public schools that are operated independently — have raised the bar in terms of student performance, especially in Washington’s most underserved communities. Finding adequate facilities, however, remains a constant challenge. Unlike traditional public schools, charters must find their own school space.
As a veteran of one of the first few charter schools that opened in D.C., I am all too familiar with how these unique public schools struggle to acquire the schoolhouses essential to educating their students. And as the founder of a public charter school that today educates over 4,000 students on multiple campuses, I remember how one of our first campuses opened in an abandoned city-owned public school building, which had become an illegal drug-manufacturing plant. The building had been destroying lives and communities; it became our mission to save them. The building had been left to rot for a decade before our school acquired it. It was little more than a shell at that point, without functioning wiring or plumbing.
Back then, I ran Friendship House, a nonprofit serving low-income families in the District. I had become convinced that the children of our adult clients would need our help, and that could only be done by improving the state of public education in the nation’s capital. With too few choices at that time, one-half of all students dropped out before ever reaching graduation, and the remainder posted academic performance scores among the lowest in the nation.
On the way to building our network schools serving students from pre-K through the 12th grade, we also had to acquire real estate, financing, and construction expertise. It fell upon us to convert a derelict former grocery store; raise funds to build an $18 million state-of-the-art facility on the site of a disused ex-fast food restaurant; utilize a former Boys and Girls Club of America for swing space; and take on other long-neglected properties, with a view to transforming them into functioning public schools.
When unused city-owned property is disposed of, the law requires the city to offer these buildings to public charter schools before private developers are allowed to bid for them. Unfortunately, this law is constantly being brushed aside. When Friendship Public Charter School and other schools have tried to lease, buy, renovate and build space for our students, we have all too often been forced to compete with private developers in one of the nation’s hottest real estate markets.
There is no shortage of unused school property available. For one thing, there had been a long decline in city-run school enrollment before charters arrived. For another, it is a little-known result of school segregation many decades ago that, in many D.C. neighborhoods, two schools were built where one would have sufficed. As a result, there is a surplus of school buildings in the District. But unfortunately, the District’s government is adding to the difficulties of providing adequate school facilities for all public school children. For example, last school year, the District government announced that it was turning five ex-schoolhouses over for non-educational use, including landmark and historic school buildings empty for years or even decades. One is set to be converted to lavishly appointed apartments, a trophy office building, and a high-end grocery store, of which there are no shortages in the District’s hot real estate market. Again, this is somehow occurring despite the requirements of the law.
Today, there is still unused public-school space that remains unavailable to public school children. As the city reviews plans for Springarn, Winston, Fletcher Johnson, Langston, Marshall, Garnett-Patterson, Kenilworth, Wilkinson, Malcolm X, and Ferebee-Hope school facilities, only the last is scheduled to be offered for use by public charter school children.
The District’s public charter schools are stewards of their public education responsibilities, especially in D.C.’s most vulnerable communities. Charter students in Wards 7 and 8 — the lowest-income parts of the District, where we have created pre-K, elementary, middle, and high school options — are twice as likely to meet statewide college and career benchmarks as their peers in neighboring schools.
Charters have brought back to life buildings that had been left to decay. Buildings that blighted their localities are now community assets, attracting more activity and bringing jobs, investment, and some civic pride that has helped transform neighborhoods.
Opening the doors of surplus school facilities would be a just solution for deserving disadvantaged students; for the city, in terms of revenues; and for still-neglected parts of our city. Everyone would benefit.
With her efforts to ensure all city students received equitable per-pupil funding, Mayor Muriel Bowser has shown she strives to be the mayor for all public school children. But will the mayor now turn her attention to ensuring that all children — traditional public and chartered public — have the school facilities they need for a high quality public education?
Donald Hense is the founder and chairman of Friendship Public Charter School.
