The District pledged to provide an extra $51.2 million to its chronically underperforming school system, a move D.C. Public Schools officials say will “soften the impact” of the deep cuts they expected last week. But many schools won’t share in the newfound wealth, and high school classroom sizes will increase.
“Even with these additional funds, DCPS must still offset a reduction in total funding and cost increases as we work to create a balanced budget,” interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson wrote in a letter to parents, staff and community members.
Seven of the school system’s 11 high schools are slated to receive less money in 2012 than they got this year, and DCPS officials said the student-to-teacher ratio will increase from 20 students per teacher to 22. Dunbar Senior High School — where lax security prompted Henderson to force out the school operator installed by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee — will receive about $680,000 less than this year, a 10 percent cut to the school’s budget.
On the other end of the spectrum, H.D. Woodson Senior High School will receive an additional $2.1 million, a 43.9 percent increase. Overall, the budget for next year’s high schools will increase 0.2 percent.
Elementary school funding is set to increase by 5.6 percent, while middle school money would be cut by 1.6 percent.
DCPS officials said the budgets for individual schools were based on their expected enrollment; non-English speaking, special-education and low-income populations; and grade levels offered, among other things.
Last week, Mayor Vincent Gray announced that city revenues would be $105 million higher than expected for fiscal 2012, thanks to higher projections for upcoming growth in the commercial real estate market.
Gray said Monday that $76.9 million of the windfall would go to D.C.’s public schools: $51.2 million to DCPS and $25.7 million to charter schools.
The public school budget would jump from the current $564 million to $612 million next year.
“I have been clear in my commitment to supporting public education in the District of Columbia and moving forward with reforms,” Gray said.
The pledge followed a harried two weeks for DCPS, which The Washington Examiner reported had failed to fund athletic budgets at District high schools, and Gray, who reporters discovered broke city law by leasing an SUV and who mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown accused of trading a city job for Brown’s campaign support.
Keino Wilson, athletic director at Coolidge Senior High School, said he and others still have not been paid for their work in the 2009-2010 school year: “It’s funny, the mayor and [Kwame Brown] and the argument over how much their cars cost, when we in the schools [haven’t been paid].”
