I'm calling towards this hearing.

This is a public hearing of the committee as a whole of the Council of the District of Columbia.

I'm Phil Mendelssohn, Chair of the Council and Chair of the Committee as a whole.

Today is Friday, May 1st, 2020 is 11.14 in the morning.

We are in room 412 of the Johnny Wilson building.

And the subject of this hearing is fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for the District of Columbia Public Schools or DCPS.

The committee had uh here testimony with regard to the DCPS budget last week, that is on April 22nd, where we heard from scores of public witnesses commenting on either school operations or adequacy of the DCPS budget.

So today we're going to hear from the Chancellor and any senior staff from DCPS.

This is the fourth hearing that we are having in conjunction with the mayor's proposed budget for fiscal year 2027.

I'm actually sort of thinking as I'm saying that, uh, because we had the hearing earlier today, so this is the fifth hearing that we're having out of nine hearings.

Uh the mayor submitted her budget on April 14th.

Uh, this is a proposal for fiscal year 2027, as well as revisions for fiscal year 26, as well as a budget support act, which was legislative changes to the law to support the budget as well as the Federal Portion Budget Request Act, as well as I believe emergency versions of some or all of what I just said.

And the committee of the whole, all the council committees are having hearings this week, last week, next week on uh the budget proposals for the agencies under their purview.

That's what today is about for the committee as a whole.

The um committee of the whole will have a hearing on May 13th on all of the legislation and all aspects of all of the legislation.

So that's the BSA, FI26, FY27, Federal Portion, May 13th.

Uh, that will be an all-day hearing.

Uh the committee as a whole is having hearings on the Office of the State Superintendent's budget next week, May 7th.

Uh, and uh the DC Auditor Retirement Board, Chief Financial Officer next Monday, May 4th, and the Commission on Arts and Humanities Office Zoning, Office Planning, Department of Buildings next Wednesday, May 6th.

The council will vote first reading on June 9th on the Local Budget Act for FY 27, and first reading on the Budget Support Act, and on the Federal Portion Budget Request Act, second reading on the Local Budget Act and the revised for FY26 will be June 23rd, and second reading on the Budget Support Act will probably not be that day, but a subsequent week.

Um I think I'll leave it there for the moment.

Uh Councilmember Henderson, do you have an opening statement?

I don't, Mr.

Chairman.

All right.

Well, then why don't we proceed to hear the Chancellor's testimony and then there will be some questions.

Good morning.

Thank you, Chairman Menderson and Councilmembers.

I am Dr.

Lewis D.

Fairby, Chancellor of DC Public Schools, and I'm joined today by DC Public Schools two deputy chancellors, Dr.

Ashley and Dr.

Bay, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today about DCPS budget.

Uh thank you to everyone who testified last week at the public hearing.

We're also really grateful for the continued uh improvement and dedication and value and the feedback we hear from our residents, our educators, and our community organizations.

Uh Mayor Bowser's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget, Grow DC, uh, was formulated to drive growth in our economy, keep residents in D.C., and draw investment to our city.

These considerations are also necessary to fund the services programs that residents count on.

The federal dollars that once expanded our programs in an unprecedented way have expanded and been exhausted, and federal workforce reductions have introduced new pressures on our economy.

While revenues have slowed, we are grateful for Mayor Bowser's budget that prioritizes education and investments that will support our city students.

Since last year's budget hearing, DCPS has achieved significant milestones.

And I would like to start my testimony by sharing a few.

DCPS four-year graduation rate reached its highest level every year, and last year that is true as well.

Our students posted their largest gains on our state assessment since 2019, with many student groups returning to or surpassing pre-pandemic achievement levels.

DCPS continues to be recognized as the fastest improving urban school district in the United States and was ranked first among states in math and literacy recovery between 2022 and 2024.

DCPS continues to improve the retention of educators, continuing a trend of over the last decade, with 90% of DCPS teachers returning to DCPS each school year, and then 83% return to the same school.

As I shared last year and I share again this year, DCPS budget prioritizes educators at the school level.

On average, each school budget is 6% larger than last year.

We determine a school's budget based on several factors, considering enrollment, special population, and the need to stabilize funding year over year.

While I do not have the time today to detail each of schools' budget, I do want to provide an overview.

These investments in school level budgets mean that schools can hire the teachers to meet the growing needs of their school, provide specialized staff support to students who have greater needs, and pay for supplies of materials needed for student success.

For 27 of our schools, fiscal year 27 budget either decreased or grew by less than 3%.

There are a few primary reasons why school budget would grow less than 3%, and I want to be transparent with the council and the public about those reasons.

The most common reason is that we have fewer students who are projected to attend the school the next year.

This means that schools will not have the need as for many general education as the teachers that they had before.

In some cases, the number of students who receive special education services are also shifting or projected to decline, meaning that the school will need fewer specialized roles to support students with IEPs.

DCPS self-contained district wide classrooms provide specialized support with 20 or more hours per week for specialized instruction outside of general education, and each year we adjust the location of these classrooms.

So if a school is no longer one of the schools that host those programs, the staff will also be removed in transition and will also be taken off the school's budget.

I hope these explanations are informative for you and for staff, and I firmly believe that this year's school level budgets provide the appropriate level of resources for schools.

I also want to highlight the capital investment that DCPS is making.

Students deserve world-class facilities, and Mayor Bowser's proposed capital improvement plan reflects a commitment to clean, safe, and modernized learning spaces.

We are poised to invest $2 billion over the next six years in 24 modernizations and numerous small capital projects.

These include an investment of over $150 million in capital projects in fiscal year 27.

In fiscal year 26, DCPS completed or will complete seven modernizations or additions at schools such as Barnard Elementary School, Hardy Middle School, J.L.

Wilson Elementary School, Malcolm X started Thomas and Tubman Elementary Schools as well.

In fiscal year 27, the proposed capital improvement plan includes funding to finish construction projects at Brent Boroughs and King Elementary Schools.

With the council's approval, we will also begin construction at the Bancroft Early Childhood Annex and a new middle school in Ward 1, as well as modernization for Burrville, Chisholm, Drew Ketchum, Seaton, and Whittier Elementary Schools.

Recently, the council voted to pass the School First and Budgeting Amendment Act of 2025.

I want to first thank you, Chairman Mendelson, for removing the position check for most schools and your leadership for supporting budgets in DCPS.

I also want to share a note of caution as we face the realities of the current fiscal environment.

We are concerned about the long-term sustainability of requiring school budgets to climb in keeping with the cost, especially as we confront declining birth rates in school age cohorts.

Since fiscal year 23, growth in staffing for school budgets has significantly outpace enrollment, and at the same time, our central service staff have decreased substantially.

These cuts to central services mean less support for our students and our educators.

As I share today under Mayor Bowser's leadership, Washington, D.C.

continues to be a city that prioritizes public education, and we see the results from those investments.

This budget underscores that fact, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My team and I are happy to answer your questions at this time.

So there'll be uh at least a couple rounds of questions.

I do want to start out uh just at the end of your testimony.

You talked about um schools first in budgeting and the changes we uh recently legislated.

Uh I want to thank you, even though there are some schools on our list that we would like we the council would like to adjust that we think would more accurately reflect schools first.

The um proposed budget is so much closer to what um we've expected, and I want to thank you for that.

And then as you know, but the public doesn't, uh we shared with you our um preliminary analysis, got some feedback, and that was helpful as well.

Um and so I'm pretty sure that um the number we're looking at is gonna as a result of your feedback is going to be less than what you had um than what we had originally um thought.

So I want to just acknowledge that.

Um Thank you, Chairman.

I uh I guess I'm gonna start out with uh a question about um I guess it's sort of relevant to schools first.

So schools first in budgeting act um is a law that uh speaks to stability and to funding the budgeting for our individual schools.

It doesn't speak to equity.

The council in the recent years adopted uh the at-risk concentration weight to try to get at equity, not that that actually solves it, because I'm not gonna say that it does.

Um but we got testimony, as I think you know, at last week's hearing about John Lewis and that uh John Lewis Elementary School, and that um the testimony was that John Lewis from this is from the parents is being budgeted unfairly relative to other schools that it thinks are very similar, Truesdale, Tacoma, Dorothy Height.

Um we look at it more closely, and uh the proposed budget for it is consistent with um schools first, but on a per-pupil funding basis, it is quite different.

And I want to ask uh your thoughts on this.

So uh we looked at the school years beginning school year 22-23 and the proposed budget 26-27, and uh compared.

Um the budgets for Height, Lewis, Tacoma, Truesdale all went up.

Uh the budget for John Lewis went up more as a percentage of its 2022 budget than the other schools did.

That's a good thing.

Its enrollment went up more than the other schools.

So the increase in budget makes sense.

Um, but when we did a per-pupil uh look at it, we excluded special education and uh English as a second language.

Um what we saw on a per pupil basis is that John Lewis is budgeted at 1,227 per student, while Tacoma is budgeted at no, I'm wrong.

Is budgeted at 14,000, 600, $860 per student.

But uh height is 18,970, Tacoma 16,154, Truesdale is 20,091, Truesdale 20,091, Dorothy Height, 19,970, Tacoma 16,154, and John Lewis 14,860.

Tacoma 16,154, and John Lewis, 14,860.

So it's the lowest per pupil.

I could say how does that come about, but I don't know that that's the real question here.

It's what do we do about it?

Yeah, thank you for that question, Chairman.

Uh we work really hard to ensure that we fund schools to maintain stability, as I shared in my testimony.

I think what we see is a unique dynamic at a John Lewis with their enrollment.

So for example, uh their enrollment growth on recent years was up about 88 students.

Uh and if you look at where they were funded, um, they did not receive additional funding while the school also uh decline in enrollment.

So if you compare those schools to to John Lewis, but I think what's important in this year is they are losing a self-contained classroom, uh, which, as I shared in my testimony, uh impacts a school budget.

But we think of our budget as one that is equity-based that adjusts for equity, ensuring that one, there's stability, but also there are additional dollars for those schools uh that have greater need.

And John Lewis is important to note to ensure they have sustainability, our sustainability fund investment for them was 278,000 dollars, and which is a significant amount that was applied to their budget to ensure that they have the stability that they need year over year.

Well, uh so our calculation excluded special education, so the self-detain classroom would was not part of our calculation in making the comparison from 2022 to 2027, and making the comparison from one school to the next.

So we excluded that.

But uh still the um the funding per student is significantly less.

I mean, is it is uh looks to me like it's 25 percent less than Truesdale.

Uh Truesdale's lost um student population.

Uh over those four years, its population has dropped 14 percent, while Lewis has increased 38.2 percent in population.

But um the growth and the growth, as I noted this earlier for Lewis is greater, it's 63.7 percent compared to Truesdale, but Truesdale went up 25.4 percent, meaning that while the uh per pupil budget is a lower is uh lower than it was, it's still significantly higher, 25,000 compared to 14,000.

Yeah, I think one thing to note here is if you compare those two schools over time, is both schools transition from education campuses to um traditional elementary schools, and at the same time going back to fiscal year 2022, John Lewis grew in enrollment, and Truesdale actually decreased in enrollment.

So again, if you think about what gets baked into schools first in budgeting, we believe that it's really difficult to compare those two.

I don't know, Dr.

Ashley, you want to share a little bit more context, but I think it's difficult to compare schools that are growing and decline in enrollment, and when you think about baking into uh the stability that we want to achieve for both schools and how they're funded.

Yeah, I think the chancellor's right.

Um, you know, and that's and that's part of the byproduct of schools first in budgeting as a as a policy mechanism, is that um it promotes stability um in terms of funding, but it doesn't promote stability in the same way as we're seeing the population of students.

And so when you see a stable funding go up, uh when you see a stable funding, but students go uh down, you're going to drive up the per student um uh cost.

Um and I think this is the reality is like we have to balance a finite budget in terms of resources, and so what we end up seeing is that we do see some disparities in resources throughout the system because we're baking in some higher per student um uh calculations or higher per student um numbers uh at certain schools, uh, and we'd love to be able to do that across the entire system.

Um, but the reality is like we are operating in a finite system.

Well, I think it's a little unfair to blame skills schools first.

Schools first is about stability.

Let me just remind you like four years ago, five years ago, 80 schools were in this filling this room, complaining and screaming about how many teachers they're gonna have to lay off 80 schools.

Um and we're not hearing that anymore.

Um it is about stability, but the uh the discrepancy in um the discrepancy in per pupil is one that has existed.

It's less now than it was four years ago for these schools, but still it it predates schools first.

Um and schools first does allow for reductions in budgeting if there are uh if there's enough of an enrollment drop that um schools first explicitly authorizes uh reducing a butt school's budget.

And uh the school's first law is very clear that uh if you wanted to, I'm gonna save this recognizing that you don't have lots of money to do this, but if you wanted to, you could just increase John Lewis's budget by more because schools first doesn't prevent that.

Yeah, and Chairman, I I hope you didn't mishear me as you know we're not blaming schools first in budgeting of it, but it is a byproduct of that in a finite environment.

Is that some of those dollars that could go to boost um the per student dollar amount of John Lewis are actually going to other schools that are being stabilized, right?

Because there are you know better than than most, are there's only so much money within the entire sector?

That's important if there's stability.

Correct.

Yep.

And so I think that's the balancing act, right?

And that's what we've been trying to achieve with trying to make sure that we're still initially starting with our equity-based model and then adding on top of that stability funding, and so that we are trying to drive dollars, recognizing that we're in a finite financial environment.

Well, uh, this is gonna be increasingly uh a look um or a focus of the committee.

Um as I've said, it's important to stabilize schools, uh, but then we want to do more for equity.

I have one more question, and I'll turn to my colleague, and that is um um the um did the did DCPS consider or submit any uh budget enhancement requests with respect to FY27?

So I'll start with did you consider any budget enhancement requests?

We we did uh and we baked into our budget some enhancements to support the implementation of artificial intelligence in the district.

Uh we also uh establish some FTEs to support that.

Uh we also included additional dollars to support extracurricular and after school programming at our elementary and middle schools.

Uh and so we did think about ways in which we needed additional resources to support our students and families.

So did you submit any requests for enhancements?

Any enhancement requests?

We're we did not submit any requests uh to the mayor's office.

We did fund some enhancements within our own budget.

Um we made some trade-offs within our budgets to be able to afford some of the things that the chancellor highlighted.

Okay.

Um you did consider enhancement requests.

You funded them within your budget.

You did not submit any enhancement requests to the mayor.

Correct.

Um I don't know that we have this.

Can you give us um a table that shows where you did these enhancements?

Yes, in our budget materials as a part of our budget allocation to schools, we shared what our enhancements are for this year, but we're happy to give you that information.

If you could, I find the tables in the budget book sometimes very hard to because they have like very general terms like uh increase for programmatic enhancements.

What the heck is that?

So if you could give us attributes.

Uh if you could go so far as to include attributes.

Sure, we can share those.

Okay.

And I assume soon.

Sure.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Henderson.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I actually want to start our conversation about at-risk enrollment projections.

Uh so overall, the mayor's budget decrease um at risk student funding by about 7.2 million.

This is for DCPS.

Um the uh school year 26-27 enrollment projections for DCPS suggests that there would be about a 2,000 student at-risk student designation decline in the upcoming school year.

But in comparison for public charter schools, their enrollment of at-verse students remain relatively flat.

So then I have to sort of ask the question are we actually losing 2,000 students or is something else kind of going on here?

Or was this a right sizing in terms of what happened in this current school year?

Yes, so I think we saw interesting dynamic going into this school year that we hadn't seen in previous years.

This school year as in the 25-26 school year, uh you recall that we have been the only urban school district really in this region and nationally that was going in enrollment.

We saw a shift in that this current school year where we did not meet our projected enrollment and didn't see the types of increases in enrollment that we saw in the past.

We do see some indication that there are less at-risk students.

If you look at the projected enrollment for DCPS for the 26-27 students, okay.

So if the students are not at DCPS and they haven't left charters or are, and they they're not moving to charters, right?

Because the charter school enrollment projection for at-risk for next school year is the same.

Are you saying that the whole city is losing 2,000 students?

Well, I think we're going to see next school year very likely that we will have less students in the system overall between both DCPS and public charter schools.

Uh just given the current decline in birth rates, what we see in our current cohorts, our data suggests that there are likely among those numbers, less at-risk students in DCPS.

I can't speak to the specifics to what is in the numbers for the public charter schools, but that's that's what we're seeing in our numbers.

Okay.

Did you all take into account some of the changes that were coming to some of these public benefit programs, right?

So under the current definition of at-risk, it's a student who is either homeless and foster care, qualifies for TANF or SNAP, and is older than the typical grade for which they are enrolled.

SNAP work requirements are currently in effect.

So that's gonna impact next school year and right now, according to Department of Human Services, right?

I've got 17,000 families who are out of compliance who would no longer are SNAP eligible.

So if we good think about that sort of going forward, we're gonna have students for whom their economics has not changed.

Their current family situation has not changed, but the federal government is saying due to these work requirements, you're no longer eligible for this particular program.

Did you all take that into account in terms of this budget formulation?

Because I feel like it's something we have to think about in the future because qualifying for TANFR and SNAP, yes, on paper you may not qualify based on this one sort of requirement, but in fact, economically speaking, you should qualify.

Yeah, we have been tracking those changes.

Um, for example, we've been talking recently about the impact on uh things like aftercare because it's associated with those benefits.

And families might not have access to a benefit.

I think one dynamic, we'll go back to your question about the charter space.

I do think there's been expansion of adult education services in the charter space, which I think changed the complexity of the numbers.

Um but again, in terms of determining the exact number of at-risk students, that's not a direct um you know, allocation or projection responsibility that DCPS has, but we do ensure that we inform our families of what's coming down the pipe in terms of the changes in terms of 10 FS.

I know.

So now I'm asking this question in terms of you, Chancellor, as a member of the mayor's cabinet and these sort of conversations, because again, it's not just around at-risk funding, although that impacts your school budgets, to be clear, right?

Uh a change of 50 or so students' designation, that's a loss of several thousands of dollars.

It could be even a loss of a staff position or a teacher, but then it also changes the ability for someone to qualify for programs that they definitely need, like after school funding, et cetera.

Is there anything in this budget that essentially provides a cushion?

Because we know that there are going to be so like let's take for example um the end of this school year, or I guess at some point, I haven't gotten an email yet, but at some point you guys are gonna open up the portal to say sign up for after school for school year 26-27.

There are probably a number of families for whom they've already lost their SNAP benefits because that is already in effect.

So they don't qualify for after school, but they need after school.

What contingencies are we making available for school year 26-27 so that those families still have supports?

Well, we have contingency dollars that we set aside to support schools throughout the school year.

Um again, these changes, if I I think about when the changes were made in the timing of the projections, I believe the changes to TANF and SNAP were made after the projections were made.

But I think if we determine that there's a misalignment with what we see in need and how schools are allocated, we will certainly utilize the resources we have set aside to support schools where there's shift in enrollment or additional needs identified on the school year.

I think if there's a significant misalignment, we would certainly have to bake that into what we share with city leadership in terms of planning for next year's fiscal year budget and allocation.

I would tell you the EOM knew this because HR1 bin law, right?

So we've known.

We've I've been asking for months.

Hey guys, what are you doing to help all these people who now have work requirements actually meet the requirements so that they don't lose all of their particular benefits?

And on top of that, compounded, right?

Because I got work requirements coming for Medicaid starting in January.

So we've got a significant number of people, families, households, et cetera, who are about to lose federal supports that are now tied to local benefits, particularly from the education space.

And it's very discomforting to me that you guys haven't been having that conversation because it's going to impact your schools in 26-27.

No, we've been having the conversation.

I just don't believe that there's any indication now that schools don't have the appropriate resources they need to support their student population.

Okay.

Um let's talk about English language learners or multilingual learners.

Um the budget proposes cutting funding for English language learners by 4.2 million.

Um was this a result of a projected decrease in enrollment?

You feel like for that student population?

Yes, so there are a couple groups when we talk about the at-risk population.

Um the other is a multilingual learners.

We're not seeing the same numbers that we've had historically in the past in terms of the resources and dollars needed to support that particular population of students.

Um, what's our projected enrollment decrease for 26-27?

Uh how to get that number to you in terms of the number.

You're asking how many less multilingual learner students?

Yeah, we'll get that number to you.

Okay.

I mean, I guess in sort of that same vein, uh, I'm gonna ask about Harriet Tubman because I like pass it every day.

Um, I know that Harriet Tubman had a enrollment decline this school year, and maybe la the school year prior because they were swinging all of five blocks, but you know, it's fine.

It's a nice big, beautiful building.

It is.

Um, and it looks like they're working really hard to finish it on time.

Yay, DGS.

Um, and their contractors.

How does this school budget for Harriet Tubman reflect or does it reflect you all's belief that those families are gonna come back with the new building?

Yeah, so it does, I believe, fairly project their enrollment for this coming school year.

Um, but as a part of our budget development process, we added an additional feature this year to support schools that are swinging so they could request additional dollars uh given some of the challenges that schools raised with enrollment or other uh needs that the school may have that are in transition.

Is that sitting at central?

Or like this additional Yeah, so it it is similar to our budget assistance process.

Okay, we give schools the opportunity who are swinging to request additional dollars.

We evaluate all those requests and then we allocate those dollars to schools, and that is held centrally but is awarded to schools.

Okay.

I don't have enough time to get enough another question.

I'll have another round.

Yeah, but for Tubman, we're we're anticipating a slight increase, um, but we're continuing to monitor their enrollment over the summer because sometimes we do see when a school opens from a modernization that they have a large uh increase in their enrollment.

Okay.

I and I want to name and sort of recognize I since August of last year, like there the city has gone through a lot.

Certain communities have gone through a lot, um, particularly, I think it's impacted a lot of our English language learner families, our multilingual families in terms of some of the enrollment declines there.

Um, but I want to make sure that not all the resources are going away, should things shift um and and trusts be rebuilt, although I know that happens over a long period of time.

So the the projected number of students to decrease from multilingual learners is around 600 students.

600 students.

Correct.

Wow.

Okay.

Um I guess similar but a little bit different.

Um last year when we asked you about the capacity of DCPS to strengthen the dual language program, you all said you needed more time to finalize and expand the programs.

Um now the mayor is proposing cutting significant funds for multilingual learners in the dual language budget.

So what happened in the last year?

Do we still have a thing?

For dual language?

Yeah.

Yes.

So I mean, to sort of get the shift.

Like last year we were like, let's expand, and now we're like, oh, we've got to pull back.

Yeah, so we still are going to expand our dual language programming.

Um we believe that you know, regardless of the the shifts in the multilingual learning student population, there's still significant interest in um you know learning languages, and we see significant interest in expanding into our middle school space for those elementary students that have that experience.

I'll turn to Dr.

Bay, she can share a little bit more about the programming that will be established at Jefferson Middle School to support families that are currently in elementary dual language programming and how we're building that out.

Uh and we're also um Wait, why don't you guys choose as Dr.

Bay responds?

I would love to understand how Jefferson was selected.

Is it because of the feeder academy the feeder for whom?

The feeder elementary schools that would feed into that middle school.

There was a lot of demand from Chisholm among others.

Yeah, and my thought was Chisholm wanted to become an education campus.

But keep going, go ahead.

Yeah, we moved away from the one become an education campus.

If I could, we wouldn't have any education campuses because it is extremely difficult to find the middle grades and provide the appropriate support.

So we shifted our focus to to middle school and Jefferson Middle School plan was well received by the school community.

Good morning.

Yes, thank you, Chancellor.

So for as the chancellor mentioned, um Jefferson currently offers uh humanities across six through eight Spanish humanities.

Um so we thought it would be a great fit in terms of enhancing what they already have with actually building out a full strand um dual language program, very similar to what we have at McFarland.

Um so next year um they'll continue to offer the Spanish humanity courses that they currently offer.

Um we are providing some additional assistance in terms of um helping the school to establish an administrator who is over the dual language program, um, and we will actually launch in 27-28 the first cohort that will continue with Spanish humanities as well as one of the additional core content areas in Spanish, which is similar to the middle school program that we have at New Farland.

So we're super excited to be able to build that out to be able to accommodate families um that want to continue with dual language.

Okay.

How do you think the strength of that model compares to the middle school experience at DC International?

Yeah, we haven't.

I'm not as familiar with that.

I know that you guys don't want to do the comparisons, but that's really the comparisons, right?

Like I've got all of these dual language public charts.

You should talk to the families of DCI.

Yes.

Put that to the side.

Yeah.

I've gotten those emails.

But what I'm talking about isn't from a curriculum standpoint of what I hear a lot of DCPS families who are in the dual language wanting is like a true dual language experience on the middle grades.

And so that's why I'm just asking how the Spanish humanities plus an additional core subject from a curriculum standpoint, not on an operation standpoint of what's happening in that school building, but from a curriculum standpoint, are we can we make comparisons?

I'm way over my time.

Sorry, go ahead, Mr.

Chairman.

Sorry.

Yeah, but do you want an answer to that?

I I think they're gonna say they haven't done that comparison.

Yeah, we haven't spent a lot of time at DCI.

I I would say it's it's um it's comparable, but we're we're happy to talk more with Dr.

Walker Davis and see if she has a perspective that we can learn from.

Okay.

Uh thank you, Councilmember.

Uh so I want to come back to the enrollment projections.

So this was touched on by Councilmember Henderson.

The percentage of DCPS at risk students is decreasing in your projections.

Um why so if we my theory is if you look at where we're seeing um less school age children in DCPS enrollment, they're in communities where there is greater saturation of uh school options.

Uh and I think that where we see uh families that are typically not uh at large at-risk population, we we don't see that same dynamic.

Um but I think it's something that we need to continue to monitor closely.

I think that also could be we just have less uh potentially at-risk school age children in the city as well.

Um but I think those are dynamics that we need to continue to analyze.

So when Councilmember Henderson was asking the questions, what I was hearing was well, eligibility requirements are changing, and so there would be fewer folks who would meet the definition of at-risk, since our definition predates the changes in federal um.

But you're not saying that.

Yeah, I think when this when the projections were made, I don't believe, again, I I'm not sure you have asked um Deputy Mayor about the projections, but I don't believe when the projections were made that the changes in TANF and SNEP were a part of that consideration.

You're involved in the projection projectioning, correct?

We've we we provide data, but we don't actually develop the projections.

Um but there's some iterative processes, some participation on your part.

Um what strikes me is that the at-risk population in the enrollment projections for DCPS is decreasing, but for charter schools it's flat.

Um I think I heard you suggest that maybe there are fewer at-risk students in the areas where DCPS is competing more with charters.

Well, okay, but then the charters should see drop as well.

So why is it DCPS?

Yeah, I gave you I gave you my theory.

I think those are areas that we need to continue to analyze once we have students actually in the building next school year.

I also mentioned earlier that there are more adult learning spaces in the public charter school sector that is not in DCPS.

Um I think that could be uh a reason for the data, but I'm not getting that because uh adult adult students aren't aren't in in the at-risk calculation.

It's a separate.

Maybe they're getting the overage and they're not the at-risk.

Uh let me go to a different question.

Although I'm gonna pause.

Councilmember Henderson, do you want any follow-up on that?

On the enrollment question, the at-risk question.

Uh underspending.

So gosh, I remember uh every year I think what I hear from you as we're developing the budget is that we're cutting your budget too much.

Um last year, DCPS underspend its budget by about 25 million dollars.

Our analysis shows significant underspending in ESL positions and positions funded with at-risk dollars like age, assistant principals, behavioral techs.

Um was this underspending in ESL positions, the result of vacancies.

Yeah, I think largely uh I think if we zoom out from the individual positions, uh what happened here was that we received uh, and I we talked about this as part of uh performance oversight hearing, we received a large lump sum payment um from Medicaid that actually arrived after the fiscal year ended, but was recognized in the previous fiscal year.

Uh and so a lot of expenditures got journaled over um sort of en masse um over to that payment because we have to liquidate federal payments first, and then that allows local funds to be then freed up.

Uh and so some of that has to do with just the fact of just like costs were identified by OCFO moved over onto those federal payments.

We uh very aggressively, as you know, and we're very proud of is the fact that we we hire uh aggressively and really work to reduce vacancies um at our schools.

And so I think that's that's largely what you're seeing is some of the journaling exercise that happened.

But you expected that money.

It was Medicaid money.

Yeah, so um it's actually something we're we're we're glad this year.

So we've had a lot of productive conversations with OCFO uh uh and their OBP as well as the mayor's office of budget is we previously haven't recognized the fixed cost.

Um sorry, the um the audit, uh the lumps on payment.

Uh what we have uh budgeted for previously was the reimbursements that we received.

And so generally what happens is we don't know the timing of that, and we don't we're not able to spend those dollars.

This year in FY27, we're actually budgeting have budget authority in the budget built in so that we're able to better plan for and allocate expenditures against those resources so that when the actual money comes in, we don't have this journaling exercise that happens.

But you expected that the Medicaid reimbursements would come in.

We expected the reimbursements to come in.

We also expect that the lump sum payment will come in, uh, but when the timing of it, we've had a lot of variation of in which fiscal year that that has been recognized.

Um some years it's been recognized in the the year that it is received, some years have been when the audit was conducted, and so what we've been working with now uh is making sure that we have alignment between OBP uh uh OBPM and uh all of our teams to make sure we understand where that revenue is going to be.

So is there a difference between Medicaid reimbursements and this lump sum payment?

Correct.

What's the difference?

Yeah, so you can think about reimbursements are uh uh you know payments that are coming in on a routine basis for services.

Uh and then there's a time audit that's conducted as part of uh uh the Medicaid reimbursement process that trues up our overall expenditures that's done um at a later date and looks back a couple of fiscal years.

And so, you know, for example, the money we received, I think this year was in FY24, um, and then the audits done in 25, and then we received the payment in 26.

And so um some of it is routine reimbursement requests that we're making, and then some of it is actually looking at the expenditures.

And does the lump sum always come in in October?

It does not.

Uh and that has been the challenge for us, and that has been the challenge that we have had with um the accounting folks about where does this revenue get recognized?

Because as I mentioned, like you know, these are looking at expenditures that were made in FDA.

But hold hold on.

So I um I don't care when it's recognized at the moment.

And my question, it's more your ability to plan around it coming in.

So you're what I'm hearing from you is that some years it comes in in September, some years in October, and some years in December in December.

Correct.

And so that makes it difficult for you to plan around.

Correct.

Did you have any inkling last year when you were going to get it?

We did not.

Uh we saw the finalized report.

And again, this is actually the actual cash came in after the conclusion of the fiscal year.

Yes.

But it was it was you said uh credited against FY25.

Correct, yes.

And so what I'm hearing from you is I'll put this differently.

Your testimony is that you did not know when it was going to come in, and so you couldn't spend against it.

We would be anti-deficient at that point.

Well, Lord help us if anybody overspends and is anti-deficient.

Um I think you know, and it does matter of when that revenue is recognized uh in order for us to be able to spend against it.

And so now uh we've come to an agreement with OCFO about you know that we will have budget authority because there is confidence that that money is coming in at some point, and then they can recognize that revenue against that budget.

Of course, it is a truing up.

So it is.

It theoretically it could be a negative as opposed to a positive.

That is that you're charged.

It has never been a negative.

Um I don't I'm not sure I totally understand that if it is possible to be a negative, but uh well if they're chewing up, they could say they've already reimbursed you more than you should have.

Theoretically, I I believe you're correct, but would have to confirm.

But that hasn't happened.

So how much was the lump sum payment?

Uh 15 uh 15 million or so, 15 or so million.

So that makes sense.

19 million, excuse me.

How much?

19 million.

Well, that makes my next question a little bit more difficult.

But if it's 19 million and you under spent by 25, then that means you you underspent by six million.

Sure.

Yep.

And I think the the reality is, right, if if we'll recall um the billion dollar budget hole created by Congress and the intentional slowdown that was asked for uh by the city in terms of slowing down vacancies, being mindful of all of our expenditures to make sure that we were able to balance the city's budget.

And so uh we did see a higher than usual vacancy savings.

We also scrutinized our expenditures a little bit more uh because that was the direction that we were given to actually try and create some um savings throughout the throughout the government.

So at the moment, uh so I think the um what are they called?

The FME FRPs, thank you.

I think the FRP is just got posted, but I haven't seen it for DCPS.

Uh so ours I saw ours this morning and it's moving through the process, we're predicting an underspend of 100 and 1,000.

Or 100 uh and one hundred thousand dollars essentially is what we're predicting underspending is what the OCFO is predicting across a 1.4 billion dollar budget.

Uh I was looking for a different answer.

Sorry, I couldn't help you there.

I'm out of time.

Councilmember Henderson.

Okay.

Um just want to ask uh really quickly.

So when and as part of the narrative in terms of what was submitted in the budget book.

Um there was uh piece around early action pre-K initiatives and um DCPS quote being dedicated to expanding access to early childhood education programs across the city, renovations and new classrooms will be needed to um accommodate this expansion of the program.

Um we've done that as in a couple of places thus far already.

I'm curious where are you all looking in the next school year around expansion or are you?

For pre-K3 and pre-K4.

Yeah.

Uh I think we're still evaluating that.

I think one of the challenges we see is that we just see less students in the system for pre-K3 and pre-K4.

Currently, right now enrollment applications for my school DC is down for pre-K.

Uh and so I think we need to continue to understand and analyze what is the landscape going to be for the future as we think about you know where classrooms are, how we support classrooms for pre-K3 and pre-K four.

Okay.

Given what we know about decline in birth rates.

Okay.

And what about your partnerships with CBOs for our even younger, younger, younger learners?

Um DCPS is a host site to a couple of um early childhood programs, even in the zero to three space.

Um and this past school year, one of your partners had to close a number of sites due to um loss of funding on the private side.

Uh have you all been able to contract with new CBO partners so that that can restart in the next school year?

Like I would hate for us to lose these spaces because they're already outfitted for the zero to three, right?

Like we've already built it out for that purpose.

Um, and there clearly is still demand and need in the child care space um for uh slots.

So how are you all approaching that?

Yes, so we are doing requests for proposals for supporting the child development centers.

So to answer your question, we are seeking partnerships.

Um is the RFP currently up on your site?

Uh I'll check with our team, I believe so, but I will confirm.

Uh I think the other um area that we we would need to continue to do is some of the similar right sizing that we've done with or thinking to do in pre-K3 and pre-K4, but it's important to note that UPO is also identifying other sources of funding.

Uh and so we believe that at least one of the classrooms that was taken offline this year will be brought back online next year.

Um next year 27 or next year next school year.

Next school year.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh and so um I I think we still will see robust offerings for our child development centers, um, but we may just not see the numbers that we've seen before.

Okay.

Again, like I said, um, I know that uh for our our child development centers, their biggest costs are uh space in people.

And if DCPS is offering space, that helps um a lot for for families who are um seeking slots.

Now again, forecasting to the future, I think there could be a space where we continue to think about you know how does the government facilities fit into the the whole child care solutions and affordability in ways that we potentially haven't done in the past.

So I think that's another option.

That's further.

Let's talk about next school year in terms of like let's try to make up the spaces that we just lost um in in this year.

Um I want to ask a little bit about central office for a second.

So um the budget proposes uh a large decrease um in school support services, but I know that a large chunk of that, about 49 million is a move of certain monies to Department of General Services.

So that would leave about a 17 million dollar cut um in central.

Is is that a is that about accurate uh I don't have the exact number.

Like the budget book shows 66 million, which is a large chunk.

So that would make people feel like, oh my gosh, all of central office is about to get fired.

But if you look, DGS is getting a bunch of that money.

Yeah.

So the way I think about it, and I think obviously Dr.

Ashley can add more context, is the percent of FTEs in central services because it's something that we've been tracking over time.

So last year we saw a 6% decrease in personnel.

This year we're projecting an 8% increase, a decrease in personnel.

Okay.

So you know that's significant.

Yes, it is.

Along with other services that we're having to, you know, take out of our central service budget.

So as I shared my testimony, I think the challenge has been wait, I'm sorry, can we unpack that for a minute?

Because I had a question about tech and systems support.

Um, which our documents are showing gone.

But I'm like, but you guys, you have systems and you have tech.

So like that can't be the what's happening there.

So I'm curious, like where else are you getting those supports and services?

Or is that a typo?

You're talking about tech and system support.

Yeah, we yeah, um oftentimes we don't see the same documents that you all see.

Okay, um and so we are not cutting tech and system support uh.

I was like, oh, maybe they got some internal whiz kid.

We have lots of whiz kids.

Um but we are we are not cutting uh that significantly.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it might be the attributes a little bit different.

Um what divisions are being hit the hardest?

Yeah, I think we see the most significant shifts in areas where there are shifts in needs.

Uh so for example, um our special education population is shifting, uh, early childhood education population is shifting, as I mentioned earlier with pre-K.

Um, I think those are the two areas where I think we see the most significant shifts.

There are other ways in which we support schools, for example, um, you know, we typically pay for licenses for platforms and some of the tech supports that schools utilize that will be shifting over uh in some cases to schools.

And so I think again, personnel in those areas that I mentioned, and also some of the supports that we provide centrally in costs that we cover that schools will not have to cover.

But when we sort of have this conversation, right, like shifting licenses and otherwise.

When you shift licenses, which is now a new cost, there's two things.

One, are we getting economies of scale now that every school is gonna have to pay for it itself, right?

There are bulk prices for some of these systems when it is happening from central office and you're doling out licenses to all of your various locations.

If every school is doing it for themselves, then don't we lose that?

We do lose the economies of scale that can be beneficial, but at the same time when schools are receiving more dollars at a much higher rate.

I know, but it's almost like a shell game when you say that though, right?

Schools are getting more, but then because now I have to pay for software systems that I didn't have to pay for before, and I gotta cut field trips.

Potentially, but yes, schools went up.

But like you're now requiring more of the school budget than like a number of years ago, we used to have this conversation a lot of like, let's give schools the maximum flexibility, but as you start to move things from central office to now the schools having to do it, the flexibility goes away.

Does it not?

Could potentially, but I believe given the budget that schools have, they they have flexibility.

I think they do a really good job of trying to be responsive to the specific needs of their school community.

Sometimes they say, you know what, this isn't the priority that's right for us, and they choose to invest in other ways.

Uh, isn't other areas.

But I know you have a parent council, but I don't know last time you actually sat down and talked to some of these PSOs and the the request of fundraising that we are asking parents to do to fill in the gap of something that had been previously paid for that is not paid for it further.

And I think this brings into a question of the equity conversation, because there are some schools that are gonna figure it out.

They're gonna figure out how to pay for your licensing now, and they're gonna figure out how to continue to pay for the special librarian, and then also to pay for field trips.

And then there are some schools where the kids will never see any part of the city because field trips have to be cut.

Well, that's we're not we're not cutting anything for for field trips for school, and we ensure that there's equity and access for field trip.

But I think what you're getting into, we just got tighter budgets, right?

And so the choices that we have is how do you allocate what you have strategically to schools and central services, and we prioritize the classroom teacher and ensuring that schools have the appropriate educators.

Would it be great to have more resources to maintain all the supports we have centrally and continue to perform fund schools in the way we have and also increase compensation as we've done with our collective bargaining agreements?

But all those numbers don't square with the current fiscal environment that we're in.

I hear you on that.

What I'm suggesting though is that our narrative and language about how we speak about it is just not presenting the full picture of what's actually going on.

We tout and do press releases and ribbon cuttings and stuff about oh my gosh, we've raised the UPSFF, but then you guys aren't really talking about most of that is already gone because of the teacher union contract, or up, most of that's already gone because now software licenses now have to move to schools.

So what it makes our job harder as a legislator or appropriator, rather, is because now I have all of these parents and school community members who are coming to me and saying like it's not enough, it's not enough, but they're saying all of these things, right?

I don't feel like we're doing a really good job in terms of expectation setting of one decision impacts the other decision, which impacts the other decision.

I think we are very transparent about the real numbers, and I would argue, and I've had the beauty and the honor of doing this now for eight years.

I've seen eight fiscal years, I've seen much louder and um more argument about equity and resources in the past than I have seen and heard in the current state.

And I think it's because we've continued to refine our budget process.

One to be more transparent, secondly, to ensure that we fund schools at the level that's most appropriate with the resources we have in the most equitable way possible.

Is it solving all of our challenges?

No, but I believe what we do now is significantly better than where we were, even when we have more resources.

Um, but the idea that we're playing this shell game, you know, I don't believe that.

I think we're being very transparent with what the real numbers are in terms of how schools are allocated and what the real numbers are in terms of how central services is supported.

But I would be the first one to acknowledge when it comes to our young people, we'll never have enough resources, right?

And we are confined to the current landscape of where we are fiscally.

But again, I think even the chairman acknowledged in his opening remarks, what we hear from schools about their budgets is not what we heard in the past.

I also said it was because of schools first.

So Dr.

Ashley, you um you said something about um different budget documents.

So, and I'm not looking for uh criticism, I'm looking to understand, and it doesn't surprise me, but explain.

Say the last part, what you said just it doesn't surprise me, but explain.

So, you know, we we submit uh budget documents, they go into the big budget process.

Um council often sees different spreadsheets than what we see in terms of what we've submitted in our own internal budgeting applications as well.

Uh so sometimes we do see things that are organized in different uh manners, and we also see sometimes that there are changes that have been made.

Um, most times just by mistake, we've seen some double counting and things like that.

And so we're always happy to help explain.

So, for example, one of our cost centers actually shows a doubling of positions.

Um, and that was actually a shift from cost centers and then it got doubled.

And so sometimes you know, there are these, you know, you guys are looking at one document and we're looking at something different.

So we're always happy to help, you know, sit down and collaborately talk through what is what that looks like.

Well, shouldn't we know where there are those discrepancies?

Because in the end, we adopt the budget, and the budget we adopt is what we load, we give to the CFO to load into the system.

So I don't know if there's a doubling in the cost center of FTEs, but if there is a doubling, and that's not what was intended, we need to know that to correct that.

Yeah, and we're we're just now going through.

Um we have some of the same documents now, and we're going through those.

And so typically we do work with Bajan and the team of like flagging those things where we know there are issues as well as the mayor's errata document.

Um, and so we'll we'll make sure as we go through those documents we are communicating those with you.

So you will we'll share that.

Uh, it's in our best interest to be collaborative in that way, yes.

Yes.

Um unless it benefits us, and then we won't share it off.

Yes.

Um I appreciate your uh chuckling at that, but I kind of know how it works.

The um what was shifted from um either central school wide school support to school?

So the line of questioning dealt with uh software licenses.

What else was shifted?

I think that would I wouldn't say that was probably the most significant.

I would say the other area is stipends for TLIs, which were uh teacher leadership slash coaching positions that schools can establish in the past we've supported that with stipend centrally.

If schools like to have a TLO, they will need to support that from their own budget.

What's a TLI teacher leadership?

What's the I and TLI?

What is the I and TLI?

I'm not really sure.

I think we've got initiative.

Okay.

Teacher leadership initiative.

So it is a structure where a teacher could have a portion of their day with students as a direct classroom teacher, and then they have a portion of the day where they're coaching other teachers within the building.

If schools elected to do that, we have paid the stipend.

We're now saying as schools, if you like to do that, you will have to be responsible for the stipend.

How much are we talking about?

So on the TLI, what would that be for a school that elects to do that?

We'd have to get to a number.

I'm not sure where the cost is on 25.

2500.

2500 per year.

Per TLI.

And uh so not every school does that.

That is correct.

And of schools that do it, what's the typical number?

In terms of how many TLIs they have?

Oh, how many TLIs total?

I'm sorry, isn't that the same?

So what I'm looking for is if I look, if a school elects to do it, is it likely to be one or three TLIs?

I think it varies by school.

And how much do the software licenses cost?

So I think the important thing to talk about software licenses, one is that we provide all required licenses that are required as part of curricular activities.

Um if there are additional you know, things that are provided, um, those are up to the discretion of the school.

And there's been some things that we have discontinued centrally.

Um, and I'm not sure if Dr.

Bay has any of those off the top of our head, but that schools have still said we still see value in this and that our school community really likes them, and so they've continued uh to invest in those.

And so it really depends on from a school to school basis.

Likewise, there's some software licenses that we've never paid for centrally, um, and that the schools say we really find this a valuable tool, it meets our security requirements, it goes through a vetting process, and then they're allowed to use that as well.

And so um it's really hard for us to say uh what those licenses cost would be.

But Dr.

Bay, I don't know if you off the top of your head if you have any of the examples.

I don't have any off the top of my head.

I want to make sure that what we share is accurate, but we can provide you with that information.

Okay.

So the software licenses that are required are still being paid for by central or school support or school wide?

Correct.

It's only these uh optional licenses.

That is correct.

Uh let me shift to asking about contracts.

Um how much do you pay for food to food contracts this year?

Take those.

Yeah, let me uh I'm gonna next ask how much are you projected to pay next year?

Although I think I have that answer.

Yeah, let me find out on the school contract on the food contracts.

Um I think the the important thing with um as the as we get the numbers for you on that is like the food contracts are challenging uh because we never know how many meals we're gonna serve.

And one of the things that we're actually really proud of is that we're gonna actually um serve more than 10 million meals this year, uh which is more meals than we've ever served, right?

So we see demand growing.

Um and so we start with a budget amount um uh and we see that there's more demand.

Kids are more excited about the offerings or being more creative.

Um and then so you'll see some modifications as well.

Um we've probably seen one that's in front of the council right now, um, where we do add additional funding for for those contracts.

And so some of that is local dollars, and then some of that is USDA match uh that comes from from Aussie.

Um we uh have 46.7 million dollars in FY26 is what we uh have budgeted, and that goes to 48.6 million dollars in FY27.

So a small increase there.

Uh we also know as part of our option year contracts that those costs will increase year over year as well.

Uh we also know as part of our option year contracts that those costs will increase year over year as well from 46.7 to 48.5.

46.7 to 48, 48.6.

Yeah, I have five here.

Uh but uh let's say six, so that's uh 1.9.

And technology is going from 18.4 to 20.2.

Does that sound right?

It sounds right.

And security is going from 30 to 39.

Correct.

Do you want me to answer it before you ask?

Yes.

Uh so uh this is our final year of our option contract.

Um and so um uh we are in the process right now of rebidding security.

Um and so we do do not know what that will look like in the next fiscal year.

Um we also know uh from some of the market research that we've done is and some of the costs that we've seen uh is that we do expect those prices to be higher.

Um and so what we want to make sure that we can do is to be able to cover all of the services that we are providing today with this new contract because it hasn't been bid um and we haven't awarded a contract yet.

Um this is our best guess at what we think that this might cost um so that we can continue to provide services.

Well, tell me why I'm wrong.

I am of a view that um there can never be enough.

Uh that uh folks are always saying, well, uh, there are three security officers here, but really I'd like five.

And um that's the pressure.

And I'm of a view that there isn't enough analysis and pushback that well, actually, maybe you don't need five.

Maybe you don't need three, maybe you need two.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be security, but uh I think the uh uh what do I say?

The uh human inclination is more.

And this this is a this contract is something that we the council has pushed back on in last in recent years.

This is a roughly a 30 percent increase.

Correct.

That's huge.

And I and that's above what it was.

So I think a couple of years ago it was like 24 million.

Correct.

And I was complaining it was too high.

Yeah.

I I do want to point out, and and we agree, right?

And we do try to find that balance.

We want to make sure our schools are secure.

We also know that our principals and our parents find a lot of value in the security officers being there.

Isn't that what I just said?

Yes, and I'm and I'm well no, I'm saying they find value in the folks that are there.

I do think that I don't think it's just fine and values, like we've had real incidents in schools that I don't I'm not disagreeing with.

Yeah, so I think but you know I want to occur to be responsible.

And then I walk into or out of the building, and there are four sitting at the desk.

Well, which is it, one or four.

And as far as I know, there was not another alarm or anything.

So I don't dispute that there are incidents.

And I don't dispute that even if there are no incidents, that there need to be some security officials.

Um I don't think there's been any real analysis of um the need or need per school or uh whether it would be cheaper to do it in-house.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but my recollection a couple years ago, we were paying the contractor something like 50 or 60 dollars per officer.

That's not what they're making.

That's 50 or 60 per hour.

That's not what they're making at all.

Um, if we doubled what they were making, we would still be saving on the uh the cost of security.

Of course, we then would have additional costs.

I don't think that analysis has ever been done.

So we're just paying more, more and more.

Dr.

Ashley, you got interrupted.

Yeah, no, no, it's um I appreciate the conversation.

I I think there's a couple things that are often forgotten with security as well, is that this is not just the school day.

Uh, this is all our athletics events, these are our after-school activities, uh, these are the PTA meetings that are happening as well.

And so, like we are having a lot of uh um additional engagement.

So I mean we want to provide productive ways for our our kids to be engaged, and we want to always provide security for those opportunities.

I think the other piece of this is reminding that it's a labor hour contract, right?

And so when you do see that $50 an hour, um you're correct.

Not all of that is going to the individual employee, but the reality is like we don't have to create an additional subpool.

And so if the security officer calls out, we don't pay for that, and they have an additional school.

And so, like there are economies of scale here of using contractors.

You also don't have to train them.

We also don't have to train them.

You're right.

Uh, thank you for making the case for me.

I think the the reality is, right?

We uh continue.

Yeah, the insurance.

Um we are trying to find that balance.

Many of our schools only have one security officer.

Um and we differentiate by grade level.

We also want to make sure that we are able to get kids in and out of the school building at the beginning of the day because that increases attendance, right?

If there's a long line for security.

So like we do try to find that balance, all of that to say is like we do think this is valuable.

We continue to find ways that we can have efficiencies here.

So thankfully for you, I'm over my time.

We've been with Councilmember Wendell Felder.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I was enjoying the dialogue.

Uh Chancellor's always uh delightful to see you and members of your senior leadership team.

Um Thank you, Councilmember Felder.

Uh absolutely your experiencing this, all agencies across the district are experiencing this.

You guys are seeing reductions, saying your overall uh agency budget.

I'll start off with some general questions and then I'll dive right in.

Uh my first question despite uh your reduction in uh funding for your uh operating budget, what are you most proud of of your DCPS proposed budget for FY 2027?

Yeah, thank you.

So I shared in my testimony, we're extremely proud that we continue to see more students graduate on time, prepare for college and career than we've ever seen before.

Uh I also share a testimony.

I should go to Christina.

Can you let Jim finish this and let me go ahead and go back?

Yeah, yeah.

So you asked you asked what what we are proud of.

And so again, I shared in my opening uh testimony that we're extremely proud of the growing number of students that are graduating on time prepared for college and career.

I'm personally really thrilled that we have more students earning dual enrollment credit, right?

So they're earning college credit and high school, something that is a budget enhancement for us to expand those opportunities for our high school students.

Uh we see record gains in both math and literacy from what we were able to achieve pre-pandemic and post-pandemic subgroups exceeding that performance level.

Um we're still one of the fastest improving urban school districts in the nation.

And we're number one.

If you look at all states and jurisdiction from post-pandemic 22 to 2024, DC is number one.

And I think that says a lot about the work of our educators, what our students have been able to achieve.

So I point to that what I'm most proud of.

I think this budget sustains that work well.

Um, the work that we've done in math, the professional development that we provide for our educators, uh, the compensation that is very competitive for our staff.

Uh and so I think this budget allows us to continue that progress.

And you know, that's what I'm excited about.

Also excited when we think about our young people and keeping them engaged outside of school time.

We've added additional resources to support after school programming, which I think is a true anchor, not just for the school, but also how we ensure that our young people thrive and have meaningful experiences outside of the school day.

Thank you for that.

And with the 1.4 uh modest reduction in your operating funds, what's some of the biggest challenges that you see presented within your proposed budget, if any?

Well, I showed in my testimony really throw that we're able to to continue to expand our modernization and small cap program.

Uh and so that's a big big accomplishment for DCPS.

I think we've got a one of our largest number of monetizations that we're gonna be opening in August additions, and so I think our challenge will be as we've expand more space.

How do we ensure that we have you know an appropriate preventative maintenance?

Uh, how do we ensure that we're able to address some of the buildings that have not been modernized?

And so I think from an operational standpoint, that's a challenge.

And then we continue to see uh our operating costs increase with the market just like everyone else.

Um but I think our central services team uh I shared earlier is going to be reduced by 8%, and we saw 6% last year.

And I think our challenge will be is how do we respond to the needs of our schools when we continue to see a shrinking central services team that provides those supports to students and families and our educators.

Now, with the increase in your operating, I'm sorry, with the decrease in your operating funds, uh, but an increase of 4.6% in your capital funds.

How are you ensuring that investments and facilities are matched with sufficient operating resources?

Yes, I mentioned earlier, really confident in the small caps budget, um, our capital improvements.

Um, there's a lot that we are doing with life and safety, for example, we're addressing our door locks, uh, we're ensuring that there's um better and more up-to-date um weapons abatement equipment, which is an issue that comes up from time to time.

And so I think again, staying ahead of uh the maintenance costs, uh, continue to monitor utility expenses as well.

I know some of that's being shifted to DGS, but those expenses we know that continue to arise.

Now, Chancellor, I saw that um your personnel services increased by 50 million dollars while your non-personnel services decrease significantly.

Could you explain what was the shift in spending priorities?

Yes, I think personnel typically increased with just the cost of you know, benefits, salary increases, and so I would say that probably is the main driver there.

We aren't adding FTE centrally, as I mentioned earlier, uh we're actually realizing a reduction.

And so it would be on the school side.

If you look at the net teachers, I believe we're up maybe like 60 teachers or so.

Uh, and we're also in a year where there's a WTU salary increase.

And so that coupled with the increased cost uh of benefits and other employee costs, that's the main driver.

Now, are schools experiencing reductions in supplies or programming as a result of this shift and no, yeah, we we analyze that utilization year over year to ensure that they have the appropriate money for supplies and materials.

Now, um I see that DCPS FTEs decreased by about 60 percent um 60 positions.

I think you were kind of alluding to that recently.

While personnel spending increased, uh what explains this dynamic absent of the uh uh teachers' union contract?

Is there any additional costs to that?

I can't think of any.

I mean schools continue to make decisions where they add certain positions to their budgets year over year, and then they make adjustments based on their student populations and needs.

And so I think that's where we see the greatest fluctuation.

Of course, each year, salaries do increase with not only collective bargain agreement, but the step increases that teachers are entitled to as well.

Okay.

Um, but those are our main drivers for personnel costs.

Copy.

Uh could you speak speaking of personnel and staffing?

Could you speak to the staffing policy on nurses and medical staff?

Are there medical professionals located at every school?

That's come up a lot.

There are.

Thank you.

Uh well, you know where I'm going with my next line of questions.

This one would be a good hearing if I didn't bring up Ward 7.

Uh schools.

So, Chancellor, as you are aware, you know, Ward 7 schools often face the sports disproportionate uh facility needs and student support challenges, making uh equitable investments critical uh for our students uh who attend school and ward seven.

Uh so my question, Chancellor, is how does DCPS ensure equitable distribution of both operating and capital funds towards seven schools?

Yeah, so we we do assessment each year of all our schools across all eight wards uh to identify priority capital projects, as you know, the PACE Act determines how we modernize facilities.

We've been able to hold true to that.

Um but in terms of other capital improvements, we do assessments of our buildings to ensure that we are prioritizing need.

Uh we look at the history of particular issues, um, we look at safety aspects as well to determine what's the most equitable way to uh identify projects for improvement.

Uh, and I believe again we've done a really good job with addressing schools across all eight wards, but also you can see uh many of your schools in Ward 7 have benefited from our capital projects.

And then my final question what metrics are you use to define equity and funding?

So we want to ensure that our resources are aligned to need.

And so we we look at knee from a facility standpoint, as I mentioned earlier, but also for students.

Thank you.

Councilmember Henderson, I apologize for skipping you.

It's okay, Mr.

Chairman.

Just a couple of more questions for me.

I actually want to pick up where Councilmember Felder left off in terms of talking a little bit about capital projects.

Did you guys send uh to the committee of the whole your small cap list plan for FR27?

Don't know if we've sent that.

Okay.

If you do share it with the committee of the whole, and I do think they probably would be interested if you could share it with my office as well.

Sure.

It just helps to provide a little bit more context in terms of individual school communities.

Now the hope in me is like, oh, does this mean that they're gonna start doing more or expand their uh scratch cooking sites?

But then I'm also trying to be realistic, and I'm just like maybe that's y'all just uh retrofit in the warm-up zones.

But I wanted to ask.

Yeah, it's not to take over operations to ensure that we have equipment to support schools in the current structure we have, but it's something that we continue to think about, you know, ways in which we could potentially expand, but is not directly related to that right now.

Okay.

Um do you already know which uh 10 schools?

Not sure the specific document you're looking at.

Uh but the kitchen upgrades that you're referring to uh is oyster atoms uh is an upgrade.

Wait, time out.

How is why why are we doing a upgrade to a school that just got renovated?

Sorry, Adams.

Okay.

Not the one that's just yes, yes, thank you.

Wait a minute.

Yes.

I think you're saying oyster.

Oysters the old one, Adams is brand new.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, you put it together.

I was like, hold on.

Like thank you for that.

Uh, and then we are doing some smaller work um at uh Payne Lafayette, River Terrace, Roosevelt, and Woodson.

And these are really stabilization projects, uh, making sure that we can continue to meet DC health regulations as equipment is breaking.

Um, some things that folks don't realize is that like our ovens can cost up to 40,000.

Um, and so some of this is just replacing aging equipment until that school gets to a modernization.

Gets to a modernization.

You name River Terrace, which brand new.

Well, ish.

Okay, fine.

10 years been 10 years.

I guess it has been more than 10.

It has been a little bit more than 10 since we've done river terrace.

Okay.

Roosevelt.

It's been more than 10.

Yeah, it's been okay.

All right.

Okay.

I I think of some of these projects as like still in pretty good condition.

Yeah.

Um, but I I understand sort of the upgrades, upkeep pieces.

Yeah, and Councilmember Henderson, if I can.

I think the other thing that we are working on is making sure that we're doing better lifecycle management and then making a capital improvement plan for all of this equipment.

Traditionally, a lot of this has been born out of operating costs, right?

And at an oven that is 40,000, right?

That is a capital eligible expense.

And so, how is it that we're thinking about this in a better, more long-term strategy?

We know that we're building buildings for the long term, but some of the equipment inside of it is not going to last as long.

So we've been having this ongoing conversation with the CSO CFO's office about what is capital eligible.

So I'm just sort of noting that an oven is capital eligible, but some of them believe that a trash can is not.

So interesting.

Okay.

Um, all right.

So roof repairs.

Uh, I think is another area where we have seen a lot of things.

Um how are we approaching this and sort of comparison around schools that we know have an upcoming modernization?

Yeah, but like the water is still seeping through, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great, it's a great point.

You know, we do do uh life cycle assessments on all of our roofs and understand, you know, how well quickly they need to be replaced to make sure that they can be in good working order.

Um, and that roof assessment does show prioritization.

We do try not to replace a roof that we're just going to tear down in a couple of years, right?

Like it is about how do we actually find that balance.

Um, and you know, when can we do patching versus an entire roof?

Um, in the FY27, you're seeing a roof for SUSE uh for 4.2 million dollars uh, for example.

Um this is great news for the SUSE community, although I'm sure they would like a full modernization, but we're gonna get there, right?

We're working on our historic designation, and we'll see that in the upcoming PACE documents that these schools be included, yes?

Yes.

Wonderful.

Um will we get the uh PACE supplemental information?

Yeah, the PACE supplement uh is in its final stages of uh being transmitted to the council.

What does that mean?

I'm I'm we the the committee of the whole is voting on this joint in like three weeks.

Is it stuck in IQ?

It is it is an IQ, yes.

That could be a couple months, half a year.

It'd be nice to have it before we vote.

And Councilmember Henderson, I will point out in the education modernization report modernization uh that is uh being proposed to be included as part of the budget uh moving forward.

Yes.

You're gonna press the executive to get it out of IQ.

We will follow up, yes.

Okay.

Um we've received some uh outreach from community members and families at Dunbar High School about um some consistent issues that they've had with elevators as well as uh garage doors.

I noticed that they don't have a particular um line item.

You know, it's not a large project.

Elevators is a small cap, but I don't have a small cap list to know whether or not they'll be able to get that addressed.

Yeah, elevators is a challenge across the district because um the many different um vendors that were involved when the elevators are constructed, but we have recently I think elevated the pace in which we're able to respond to elevator repairs.

So the goal is to continue to collaborate with DGS on people who can make the repairs quickly.

Um sometimes who repairs the elevator is driven by who constructed the elevator, right?

Uh and the contract on that.

So I think we got a better understanding of that, and we've been better with repairs of elevators, but my understanding, this is also kind of a citywide issue that elevator repairs are slow across the district.

Okay.

I'm not really sure.

Uh I'm Dr.

I'm just gonna ask are you aware of the concerns at Dunbar?

We we are aware of Dunbar and several other schools with with elevators.

Okay.

Do you want that on Dunbar?

Yes, please.

Uh so Dunbar, the elevator, we know we now know what the part is uh that's broken.

Um it's what supplies power to a specific component.

Uh they're working on sourcing and funding that part, and so they're working through that.

And so now that we've identified it, there will be quicker resolution on that.

We also know that a garage door does work, but there's something wrong with the control board, and so they're able to manually open it with a you know push button, uh, but the fobs don't necessarily communicate with the control, and so we're working on figuring out exactly what part is needed for that.

Um, but that work is in progress as well.

Okay.

I don't want to minimize the garage door, but the elevator piece clearly is an ADA compliance issue, um, which we've had at other schools where now students have to take their classes on the first floor via computer screen because they can't get to their class on the second or third level.

So, like definitely sort of it is a high priority for high priority.

Great.

Um connected schools.

Um, there were several concerns raised about the proposed cuts to connected schools.

Now, Chancellor, I've heard you lift up connected schools in um instead of uh community schools, right?

The DCPS connected schools is our response to community schools, but now we're cutting it.

Um other capacity or infrastructure are we providing schools to fill in the gaps here?

Yeah, so we we still believe it is a very strong model and schools continue to thrive utilizing.

I think what we're seeing is just schools that have implemented for a while and have decided that we're gonna invest in other resources in different ways.

So it's not a divestment or deprioritizing this strategy.

Um we've had a couple of schools that have decided that yeah, we're gonna take some elements of the model, um, but we may not just be a connected school by name, um, but we may incorporate some other strategies that we think are important to our student population.

So we'll have 12 connected schools next year, but we have 18 currently, and most of those changes are shifts that have been made by school leadership in terms of prioritizing in other ways.

Okay.

If we could just get that small capital project lesson, of course, the PACE documents would be helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Sorry, I skipped you.

Uh, Councilmember Fruman.

Thank you, Chairman Mendelson.

Uh, on the connected schools, uh, have you tracked data on what sort of an impact the connected school model has had on truancy?

Do you have any indication that it's been helpful in reducing truancy or not?

I think it's really difficult to identify one strategy as the primary driver.

Um we do see some indication that students who may not be attending school because of other barriers in the home or community, the connected school models can help remove some of those barriers.

But I think tying it one to one, this strategy is the primary, I think it's difficult for us to do.

And the reason I ask is uh DHS has a pilot on truancy, and I'll be asking questions about that coming up, and the impact of that pilot doesn't look that strong to me.

I'm gonna ask the director to explain why it should look stronger to me than it looks on paper.

But if there are other things that are having a bigger impact on truancy, then maybe we need to think about taking resources that are used in a place where it's not having a giant impact and putting it in a place where it is.

Do you have an idea of a place like that?

Yeah, I think we continue to try wide range of strategies.

If you look at just raw attendance, you do see about a 7% higher attendance rate for those schools that are connected schools, and so I think you can draw some conclusion that there's an impact, right?

But you also see a correlation with high impact tutoring as well.

So those students that receive high impact tutoring generally have a higher attendance rates as well.

So I think there are a number of different factors where we see very promising strategies, but we also want to continue to try new ones.

I think with the pilot, what we see is the value of case management in the most intensive way with really digging in with the family, or what are the barriers that are keeping students from coming to school and case managing up to solutions that can best support that family.

All right.

Well, this is an area, and I sort of gave a heads up at the public testimony hearing to the director that I'm gonna be asking about it.

The numbers of students for whom intendance improved is just not that big.

And so that's fair.

You gotta take a look at that.

Uh the budget for our security goes up nine million up to 39 million.

Why what happened and what why is that?

Why did that budget number go up?

Yeah, we thank you, Councilman Foom.

We talked about that earlier.

I mean, there's increased cost for personnel, and we see that across the board not unique.

Uh, and I think we're also providing more services.

We mentioned earlier, for example, we are expanding the extracurricular and after school opportunities for students and families.

There's security that goes along with that, which increases the cost.

Um, and so I think those those are a few drivers.

I don't know, Dr.

Ashley, is there anything else you want to add in terms of like actually as you if you add you know that one of the things that I will be interested in is how much of that increase or how much of the investment is for after school time for after 5 p.m., for example.

So as you embellish, keep that question in mind too.

Yeah, and I'm happy to get that for you.

I don't know if I have it off the top of my head.

Our our cost at schools are actually relatively predictable, right?

We know that we have three security guards here, one security guard here.

We know that that tour of duty.

Uh and so those costs are actually really predictable for us.

We do surge in support uh as needed if we're having something going on uh at a school and they need more folks in there.

I think the other point just to add to the chancellor that's important in this context too is that we are rebidding that contract.

Uh and so we do you know, typically we have an option here that we can look forward and see what pricing will be in the next year.

We do not have that in this case.

Um and so we're in the process of actively bidding that.

And so there is uh a bit of uncertainty in the contract.

That is just for schools and then what is uh for all of the other activities after the hearing.

Yeah, and I mean it's the idea that the contract would build in the standard stuff, and then kind of an accordion of time for outside of school time that you and so that's subsumed in the contract because as you know for after school things, uh weekend things, there's a charge for security, but that that's already included in what you're paying under, is that already included in what you're paying under the city.

Yeah, the way the contract is structured is it's it's a strict labor hour contract, which means that somebody works an hour, we pay an hourly rate.

Um so like we don't we don't set out and say uh you know you're gonna provide security for all of these schools, right?

And and it's a fixed cost.

We uh do make allocation decisions based on that and say this school needs one, this school needs two.

Um like I said, sometimes that changes based on the circumstances on the ground throughout the year.

Um, and so it doesn't contemplate in that way.

It says, you know, here's the hour.

So the hour that costs for you know, providing school services is the same hour that it costs for an after school activity.

And you may say to the contractor, we need this this week, and next week you might need uh we need two people over here at Roosevelt because there's gonna be people there at night.

Correct.

Yeah, perfect example of that is like we see a lot more utilization in fall sports uh as well, where we have you know additional security folks that are staffing those those games.

Uh basketball season as well, uh, we see different ebbs and flows of utilization throughout the year.

Uh we do utilize the same uh uh personnel generally they're assigned to our contract, uh, with some exceptions, right?

There's a sub pool that they manage.

Um and then the other piece of this that's important uh as well as we thought talk about controlling cost is we don't pay overtime, right?

And so if their employees go over 40 hours, that's built in as part of the their contract within that 50 or so dollars an hour.

All right, wonderful.

Um, what kinds of circumstances do you go with a sole source contract?

And and I think one of those circumstances is iReady, and why would iReady a sole source contract?

Yeah, I mean, uh we're we are pretty uh closely, not pretty close, but we do follow uh the PPRA, uh, which outlines when and where we can award sole source.

Um of the technology purchases and assessment packages and curriculum uh fall under sole source assessments.

Uh I think it's important to recognize is even when we do do a sole source procurement, uh, we go out and do market research and the program teams are looking at different uh different offerings out there.

Um, but we don't we don't do the same sort of competitive bidding that we would and say uh you know, pitch us, you know, this testing assessment platform or uh this curriculum, uh, but we do go out and evaluate the marketplace.

And I think one of the things that to be um clear the final point from an academic standpoint, we really need to have assessments that are aligned to our standards and our summative assessments, and so that really drives the way we think about which assessments that we utilize because we want to ensure that it provides us with the information we need to inform instruction, to inform interventions, and obviously the assessments are are created differently, and so we want to make sure that we have the right tools for our school leaders and our educators.

So I'm I'm increasingly hearing from folks, and I don't want to make it sound like it's a million people, but I'm hearing from folks who have concerns about screens in schools and reliance on screens in schools, and there's you know, people invoke to me data about uh kids learn both math and reading better from hands-on instruction person to person than when they learn it on a screen.

To what extent well, to what extent are you hearing that?

To what extent and to what extent do you evaluate the efficacy of these technology tools?

They're they're sort of new, but to what extent are you reviewing it?

And I'm sorry to have cut you off, but go ahead.

No, no, thank you.

I think it's a great question.

There's growing research about screen time.

Uh I am of the mindset that you know too much of anything could be bad for you, right?

And I think we need to find ways to find balance.

It was the topic that I brought to the Washington Teachers Union in our meeting this week uh to really discuss the teacher perspective on this and how educators are thinking about it.

I think what I got from that conversation is also uh the important to balance.

I think there are benefits to some of the technology tools that we have in terms of it being computer adaptive, um, providing space for the teachers to have multiple instructional groups in the classroom.

And so I think we will need to continue to dive into the research, but also think about what policies or practices do we need to stand up to ensure that we do have that balance as we learn more.

I think we've seen really positive outcomes from the cell phone ban.

And so what we're seeing now from a school day perspective is we really drive access to devices and screen time, right?

Because these are the devices that we're allocating to school.

Now, what I think is a budgetary consideration, since we're at this we're at a budget hearing is do we need to continue to invest in technology in the same way we have passed in terms of devices?

Because that's a huge part of our budget.

We do see some school districts that are moving away from one to one.

Uh they're changing the way that they think about investments in technology.

We we need to continue to do our homework on that because it's something that I worry about because you know that we have huge tech advocates who want us to buy more, buy more, but I think there is some merit to the research that is emerging that maybe that's not the best way to allocate your resources in terms of improving student outcomes and student achievement.

But finally, I am of the mindset also that there's no substitute for direct instruction.

Uh, and that is you know, the way that students um most benefit from um this teacher to student interaction.

So really helpful.

Uh I've been hearing more and more about this, and I mentioned it to the chairman the other day that right now we're in the middle of the budget season.

This is nobody's got the bandwidth to think about this, but I do think in the fall, stepping back and having gathering information on this and having a conversation.

These are technologies that have been introduced and they became they were introduced in part through COVID.

And now they're on the landscape, but stepping back and taking an assessment of how do they fit, what makes sense, which way should we go?

I think would be a valuable thing.

Do you share that view that if we have a lot of things?

I agree, right?

I agree.

We've already started the conversation.

I could see it taking a similar path that we took.

Again, I mentioned earlier the cell phone ban.

Uh I think there are some policies that can come from further conversation focused groups.

We want to obviously also hear from my parents and students.

It's interesting, preliminary conversation with students.

Um, they also see the value of direct instruction and um is their preferred way to experience the classroom.

So we'll continue to to solicit feedback.

But yeah, I think it's a conversation that we need to have.

All right, wonderful.

I've gone over, so I will stop now.

Uh thank you.

There'll be another round.

Um I do want to just comment.

Uh, speaking about cell phones, that I got some feedback recently.

Uh, a principal who or teacher who said there's much less fighting in the school because of the cell phone ban.

Yeah, I mean, I think our our data around you know, altercations and conflict are being impacted by not just that, but we also I believe do a really good job with conflict resolution mediation now in our schools.

Um but I I would say for certain that there's more positive interactions between students and the peers as a result.

Sure, but I just wanted to add the element of the perspective of the fighting that there isn't uh the uh texting and social media during the school day that then fuels a fight after the day.

I would agree.

That is that is certainly a benefit and it minimized that opportunity.

Uh I appreciate you calling that out.

So let me go back to I want to go back to the security contract.

Uh it's being rebid.

What's your schedule for coming to the council?

Who there isn't a schedule?

There is because it's coming up for expiration.

I just don't have it.

So when does it expire?

Uh it's expire September 30th.

Yeah, we probably want it in place for the start of the school year, which is August.

Uh, I mean, I I think uh we don't want to predetermine, like the contract ends, uh so we have to honor until the end of the contract, and so we've got to think about the phase out plan as part of that, just like when we phased out of other vendors.

Um, and so we'll work through that.

They're also covered under the same protections uh of the uh field service management workers, the displays workers act.

So like we're not gonna see big shifts of folks.

Um right now we're really making sure that we're thinking through the requirements and making sure that we have really locked those down as we go out uh for solicitation.

So when is it is is the um RFP it's an RFP?

It is an RFP.

Hit the streets.

Yes, it has.

And uh so when I could ask for each step, I won't.

When when do you expect that there will be a selection?

The team uh is saying that we're expecting this to be at the council uh in June.

Um for and that's very early for September uh contract.

But obviously, we know that you guys go on recess, and so I think they're going through the evaluation um process right now.

I don't want to get too in the weeds here on a contract that we're actively soliciting so we can follow up with all the specific dates of when we think that we'll make a proposed award.

But you think it will be coming to the council in June?

In June, yes.

If I put money on it, you can make me lose.

But if I but I'm telling you, put money on it.

Did not give you a date uh in June.

Uh but we are we are we're working very hard to make sure that we're getting contracts in place with plenty of time, uh making sure that we're thinking about transition and also making sure that we give uh the council the opportunity to review those.

Um and so uh hopefully you've noticed that in some of the the contracts that have been coming over already.

So uh which is good.

Um when Councilmember Fumo was asking some questions about security contract, uh you said you could get back with regard to uh what portion is after school or weekends.

Yeah.

So if you do, uh be sure to give us a copy.

Absolutely.

That's the uh protocol.

So I want to ask you about uh food.

So the cost of the food services for DCPS and FY26 is 46.7 million.

I think that's what you said earlier.

I believe so.

And the council received a food services contract with Sedexo on April 24th, modifying option year two, because of quote, increased enrollment, unquote.

Isn't DCPS enrollment essentially flat?

So then why is the contract increase?

Yeah, I think it's the meal counts that we're we're referring to.

Uh more folks are taking part uh in our meals.

It's something again, as I mentioned, we're proud of that.

The teams, all of our contractors and our self-operating program have really been creative in thinking about how that we get folks to partake.

Uh and that means that you know we are having an increased cost there.

Um and so that's that's what you're seeing there as part of that.

So increased enrollment is not student enrollment in schools, but rather participating in the meals program.

Yep.

Is the food really better?

I I think so.

So, Chancellor, when's the last time you uh ate a meal with in the cafeteria?

Um it's been a while in the cafeteria, but we have the food service team do our meals for evening events, uh, such as our student advisory board, parent advisory board.

Uh, and so that that's the last time I believe I've had a meal from one of our providers.

I will say I I had some pizza at check the other day, yeah.

That was it was a veggie pizza, it was quite quite good.

Um, and I would I would eat it again for lunch.

Uh so we do see also that some of our uh teachers take part in the meal program, which I think is also uh indicative of the fact that they enjoy the food.

Um it's convenient.

You know, we and we have it's it's not just you know scooping things on plate anymore.

Like we have uh you know, sandwich bars, we have salad bars, we have different options.

Taco bars, taco bars, um uh and so like it it is about how do you drive participation um and making sure that it's not just boring food and and we take feedback from the students um across all of our providers and and what we're offering and have seasonal offerings as well.

Um this is not a question.

I the other day ran into somebody, a senior person with one of the vendors or three vendors if I remember for DCPS food.

And self-operated, so for total.

Four.

Yeah.

Um and um this person commented that our having multiple vendors was actually a good thing.

I would I would agree.

It uh you know, they all have a healthy competition.

We think it's good, but one of the vendors thought it was good.

Yeah.

It holds them all accountable.

Uh wasn't what it holds them all accountable, right?

And they're all looking for those meal counts, right?

And how can they all be how can they all out-innovate?

Um, you know, I'm I'm you know uh partial to our self-operated program, but you know, we're always thinking about how that we continue to to do different things in schools.

Uh so the council sent over some what we call common budget questions, and in your common budget question responses, you identified a sole source ELA contract uh five million two hundred and eighty-one thousand five hundred and seventy-two dollars.

I have no idea why it says sixty-four cents without a vendor being specified.

What's this for that is uh the uh um uh high quality instructional material, ELA curriculum that we have not yet awarded, which is why that there's not a vendor associated with that.

Uh and as a reminder, that's a Aussie requirement um uh for us to update our literacy curriculum.

But wasn't DCPS producing ELA curriculum in-house?

We do, but we also have vendor provided ELA curriculum as well.

Well, yeah, why don't we do it in-house instead of um paying a contractor?

So as a part of RC's work with identifying high quality instructional materials and materials that are alignment with the science for reading.

Um there have been recommendations made for curriculum that would best service in that area, and we believe that our current in-house curriculum is not as aligned as some of those other resources.

And so we have been piloting other tools.

Um for example, we talked a couple of times about the middle school curriculum, and then we have some elementary schools also piloting curriculum, and I believe don't have to be correct memory in middle school is common lit.

So you do something in-house and you don't think it's very good.

Well, we we believe that there's some better options out there given what we know about the strength of high quality instructional materials.

And you don't have folks in-house who are better than well, I don't think it's it's it's in terms of are the people better.

We just don't have the bandwidth that we had in the past.

So uh we don't have the same number of curriculum staff and the same central services team to produce a new curriculum at this time.

So do you know who the vendor is for that specific dollar amount?

I don't know the vendor.

That's that's what you're asking.

Yeah, that's uh it's that's also a multi-year.

So OCFO provides us data, not the not the system.

Uh um, but uh we have not yet awarded a contract for the vendor.

Um and so um I think we're still evaluating uh specifically on some of our HQIM vendors and don't want to get ahead of that contracting process.

So how did you pick the number five million two hundred and eighty-one thousand five hundred and seventy-two dollars and sixty-four cents?

Uh so uh that is uh dot that's data that's supplied by the OCFO.

So um uh we have uh eight hundred and forty-six thousand dollars allocated for that for FY27.

You have what?

$846,000 uh that allocated in FY27.

I think you're looking at a longer investment horizon, perhaps.

Um what was the second part of your question?

I'm sorry.

It was only one part, and that was how did you come up with five million two hundred and eighty-one thousand five hundred and seventy-two dollars and sixty-four cents?

Yeah, and so I think it just uh zooming out from just this specific um uh procurement, not to oversimplify, right?

Uh the PPRA and any good procurement requires us to do market research when we're doing budgeting to understand, you know, how much do we think the rough order of magnitude is for this procurement is going to be.

Similar to what we did with the security contract, we go out, we look at what other folks are paying, and that's how we do the budgeting because we ultimately uh will solicit uh uh you know a contract or and then we will negotiate with them and ultimately decide what that price should be.

Yes, and that's what should happen.

And ideally, you're representing the best interests of the city and saying to the vendor, no, we're not gonna spend 10 billion dollars on this.

We're gonna come up with a more reasonable price.

And you said you're doing some market research.

Yes, but I think I you said for $846,000 is what you think it will be in FYI.

That's what is budgeted.

That's what is budgeted, yes.

Um and um you were speculating that the five million two hundred and eighty-one thousand five hundred and seventy-two dollars and sixty-four cents is a multi-year total.

I don't have the same data that's in front of you, so happy to compare notes.

Um but except it came from your answers to the common budget questions.

I understand OCFO produces that, not the agency.

In close collaboration with the agency.

I I do not have the data that you are referencing uh in front of me.

Can you provide the budget attributes for this?

Sorry.

Yeah.

So the 64 cents might be in error.

I believe so.

It could be.

I think Councilmember Fruman asked some questions about IRETI.

I want to go there for a moment.

And I think I'll start this way.

I um visited a school, and before I left, I had to talk to four or five students.

Um I'm not gonna say the name of the student, but I'm looking at her statement.

My name is Blank.

I am the representative from the fifth grade Spanish learning class.

I love Cleveland, and I am an advanced ELA and math student.

I want to let you know how many required DCPS tests we are assigned this year.

Nine IREDI diagnostics, 20 iReady growth checks, 40 math topic quizzes, six math module assessments, eight RCTs, and ten DC Cape tests.

This is a total of 93 tests.

That means we are testing more than half of the days of school.

I hope you can help all students with this.

So, Chancellor, you know that uh I have pressed that there's too much testing because I hear that complaint all the time.

In our hearing last week and on other occasions, the committees received testimony arguing that IRETI wasn't or isn't well aligned to CAPE in math, but is often used for measuring teacher effectiveness on impact.

Yeah, I I heard the list, and I'm just thinking there aren't 10 cake tests, right?

So I'm not quite sure if these are assessments that the educators are utilizing.

Uh and I I think there's a a bit of misunderstanding.

So the student may be wrong and there are only 83 tests.

Well, I'm just thinking about what you listed.

For example, you said there's 10 cake tests, and there's but she added it up to 93 tests.

Yeah.

And I think if you I'm just thinking about my experience as uh elementary student, elementary teacher.

I took a spelling test every Friday, right?

If you calculate that over time, you know, over 180 days, nine weeks each quarter, four quarters a year, like it's it's a large it would be a large volume of spelling tests, right?

So I think teachers have always given assessments, giving quizzes, giving tests.

I think we utilize technology a lot more to provide those assessments, but teachers have always needed to assess for mastery and understanding.

I think we want to have the best tools in order for students to be able to do that.

Well, most of the assessments, just one second, and I'll I'll turn to you.

I think most of the assessments that you uh have mentioned are also very quick assessments that are not you know administered for the entire day.

Now, I will say CAPE is a most significant summit of assessment that we have that is much larger in time, but it's not administered 10 times a year.

And we have been responsive to this feedback and have had a history recently of reducing the number of assessments and modifying what's required uh centrally.

And so we'll continue to assess that, but uh again, I think there's a misunderstanding in I think there's always been assessments to inform instruction and mastery.

Well, I don't want to tell this fifth fifth grader.

I would tell the fifth grader that be prepared to take an assessment in every faction of your life, probably for the rest of your life, right?

Whether it's uh your work, um, whether it's your higher education experience, there's often I only go through a test once every four years.

You say you once every four I only go through a test once every four years.

An assessment once every four years.

Well, to get a driver's license, you're gonna have to take an assessment.

Okay, but not 93 in a year or 83 if you're gonna pick on her 10 DC cape tests, maybe it's something else.

Yeah, well, I I think if you look at what good instruction includes, it includes assessment for mastery.

And I think that's done.

It's been done in classrooms.

So I think I don't want to belabor this too much, but uh I think that um we just hear too much too many complaints about there's just too much testing.

And it just seems to me that if a teacher is good, he or she has a pretty good sense whether Johnny is um where he or she need so God Johnny would be a guy where where he needs to be in reading or where he needs to be in math.

Um constantly assessing 83 times a year.

Um just seems like too many.

So I mean I'll just forewarn you.

I'm looking again at uh whether we use the budget to put a little pressure on reducing the number of tests.

Yeah.

I think IREDI is in the sites, because we get a lot of complaints about IREDE and IREDI, despite what you said earlier, not being aligned to um not being aligned to uh CAPE, but being used on impact.

Yeah, I think it'd be a big mistake.

I mean, I think if you look at our results and outcomes, you know, not many people are producing outcomes we have.

Um, but I think it's something that we have evaluated, we continue to evaluate each year, and I think this idea that you got 83 assessments is an if an inflation.

I think we've always had assessments, we just utilize technologies in different ways to assess.

So there recently was a class action lawsuit filed against a company that develops iREDI.

What student data protection does DCPS have in its contract with iReady?

Yeah.

So Dr.

Ashley, I know his team works on the safety aspect of it, but I just want to be clear that we have no indication that any sensitive data has been compromised with I ready uh in terms of the allegations in that lawsuit.

Yeah, I think so.

As part of the contracting process, we uh read uh and evaluate their terms and conditions uh in consultation with our uh general counsel as well as OAG, depending on the contract dollar amount, um, as well as with in collaboration with our Office of Data and Technology to make sure that we're meeting all of the required standards about local uh and then federal laws, and as well as making sure we're meeting the our best practices as well, and that's done as part of any technology uh contract.

So you think that uh you think that um uh student data is protected.

I think that you know there's always a risk with any technology vendor that you have.

Uh you know, we have evaluated their terms and conditions, we have uh received assurances from them, we do quality control with them as well uh in any of our technology purchases.

Um can you provide us a copy of the IREDI contract?

Certainly.

And is it only one contract with them?

I would have to check.

Um uh we can follow up with you with any of the contracts, or you can get you whatever contracts we get.

Well, yeah, you only you only need to follow up by getting us to contract your contracts.

Yep.

Uh Councilmember Fruman.

Uh thank you very much, Chairman Mendelson.

I I do think this uh continues to go to the idea of stepping back and looking at these technologies.

Um I'm struck we had a hearing on bold schools that was uh was very interesting, and it was schools in DCPS and schools in the charger sector.

And one of the things, one of the lessons I think was doing assessments frequently to see where kids are so you can respond to where they are.

So there's a balancing here, and there can be what are the methods, but how long are these assessments?

What is it, what is that 83 really look like and what does it replace?

I think is an important question for us to be looking at.

But on the one hand, you hear from folks saying too many assessments, and on the other hand, you hear from folks saying the schools that are succeeding are monitoring where kids are and meeting them where they are in the moment.

So I think it's a really important conversation for us to be having.

Yeah, so I I do I do agree that it has been one of the tools that we benefited from in terms of improving student outcome.

But we've also tried to strike the right balance and made adjustments.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chancellor.

Um, we've really been targeted in terms of, as was mentioned earlier, the the uh breadth of assessments that we provide.

We've made adjustments to the RCTs.

I know in previous years there was lots of feedback about the quantity of RCTs as well as the quality and how those RCTs are used.

Um and so we've made adjustments in terms of the number of RCTs.

We've partnered with our teachers and our uh instructional coaches in order to really analyze the quality of those RCTs to make sure that they are able to be used for the correct purpose.

Um those are some of the things that we're continuing to do, and we'll continue to do that throughout.

Um, with the upcoming new K 2.0 assessment that is coming, there will be assessments that come along or or um interim assessments that come along with that new assessment.

And so we're in the process of um looking at those and being able to analyze which of those assessments will we replace, maybe with some of the assessments that we're currently using.

Um so this is definitely a priority to make sure that we strike the balance in terms of the assessments that we use, what is no longer needed, and I think more importantly, how teachers are using the data from those assessments because if they are using the data from those assessments in order to inform their small um small needs-based small groups in their interventions, um, then we will see we will ensure that the assessments are being used in the appropriate way.

Yeah.

I guess my main point, and that's that's all interesting, is that we want to keep an eye on this.

And there are different kinds of assessments.

There's summative assessments, there's formal assessments, there's teachers who do you know, like your spelling test thing where you can look at it and you can see, okay, well, this child is having trouble with the EA.

And uh and we want to get it right.

We don't want to rely too heavily on uh a top-down technology.

But for right now, it's you know, how do we get it right?

And how do we figure out how technology fits into our schools?

How do we stop step back and think about that?

I think that's an important question.

Yep, we'll keep our eye on that.

The only other thing that I would add to that in terms of the use of technology, I'm in schools every week.

Um, and what I see, both when I have announced visits as well as unannounced, is that a far majority of the time students are engaged in direct instruction with their teacher, um, engaging in different types of activities, projects, things of that nature.

And so it's definitely something that we're going to continue to keep an eye on and make sure that we are providing the appropriate guidance.

Um I think we're all on the same page in terms of making sure that we're monitoring that time and when students are on a device, is it purposeful?

Is it enhancing um the instruction that they're getting in the classroom?

Okay.

Um there's a 46 million dollar decrease in central school-wide services.

What what's maybe you've talked about this already, but that's a big number.

What does that represent that 46 million dollar cut?

That is uh our fixed cost moving over to DGS, largely.

So that's the utility bill.

Correct.

Okay.

Um why is there a decrease in special education extended school year placements?

Um it looks like there's a sharp decrease in at-risk student projections and ELL student projections in including in that space.

But what why is there a decline in uh special education extended school year placements?

Do you know?

Extended school year would be driven by students' IEP and services, so I would anticipate if there's a reduction there, that's a shift.

But we we talked earlier.

Uh there have been some downward trends for multilingual learners and average students in DCPS.

My impression is the decline, and you I think I I was doing other things but had you on, so I was reading the captions.

But my impression is the decline is significantly larger at DCPS than it is in the charter schools.

Is that right?

I think they're flat and we're projecting uh downward trend.

Now what what we see though is that there are certain populations and communities have been impacted.

So for example, we've had a higher number of overage high school students that were projected to decrease.

Again, those students would be deemed at risk, and so that could be a driver.

Um as you know, we have more students in the traditional high school space in DCPS.

Um but is it's something that I think we'll just need to continue to analyze.

Okay.

Um how many FTEs approve field trips and what's the what's the typical this is the thing I'm increasingly hearing about is the difficulty in getting field trips approved.

What's the typical timeline for a chip field trip to be approved?

Thank you.

Yeah, I think it depends on the actual field trip.

So if it's a local field trip, um that is approved by the principal.

Um as the trip is not local, if it goes outside of 50 miles, and that is something that is elevated to the instructional superintendent.

And then for international field trips, those are um elevated to my office.

Um I think it just depends on how quickly those um items are uh submitted um and in terms of feedback.

I would say those that are at the school level, obviously those happen faster, but we have not I have not heard um in my office any concerns with the timeliness in terms of getting field trips approved.

Okay.

And the principal for field trip in the District of Columbia, the principal doesn't have to come to DCPS Central at all.

Correct.

Okay.

I think I think I'm gonna stop and thank you all very much.

I I I had some question on food service and uh Councilmember Henderson touched on some of it, but I do want to get on the record that it would be I think it would be good if we increasingly move towards uh scratch cooking and doing it in-house.

And I don't know, I think in response to her question, you said there isn't necessarily a move in that direction, but you continue to look at it.

What's what kind of process do you use to look at a potential move to scratch cooking and in-house provision of meals?

Yeah, so uh council member Henderson were asking about the update in kitchens and ovens, and was that an indication that we're moving to more uh in-house it was not, it was just the age of the equipment.

Uh I think our ability to sustain uh in-house model and and and the costs associated with it, uh the key areas that we we need to continue to dig into if we were to expand.

But I thought you did say that in response to that, that no, it isn't an indication of us moving in that direction, but we're kind continuously evaluating it.

The the budget items for purchasing equipment for kitchen is not an indication that we're growing now, but that door is still open.

And do you have any kind of process where you're looking at it, or it's just out there, but not there's not an engagement on exploring that possibility.

Great.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Councilmember.

How much does DCPS have in its budget for supplies for athletic trainers?

We'll we'll research that line item.

I think it's being researched as we speak.

I'm not that not that fast, um, but I'm sure it's being researched right now.

But I will take the opportunity just to correct uh an earlier statement on the high quality instructional materials.

You're referencing attachment I.

Um that's that is the something that is done collaboratively with our team.

Uh that was what you're referencing the 5.6 million dollars uh for that.

Uh that was an error on our part.

Um we put the entire, you know, what we projected for multi-year.

Um and so uh the uh FY27 amount should have been that $800 and uh uh $46,000.

Uh so just wanted to correct uh my previous statement on that.

Everything you just said is consistent with the notes I took.

Great.

Um uh and uh I uh we do I don't have the amount uh for the athletic trainers.

But we can follow up.

Well, I asked because the athletic trainers are being told that there aren't funds to replace key equipment.

And someone asked us to come up with some dollars to fund these needs.

So I'd kind of like to know what's going on here.

Yeah, we've we've had some engagement with athletic trainers um and regarding the key athletic equipment uh and really work to make sure that we're troubleshooting and addressing the the needs that are outlined as part of the CBA as well as what's required.

Um if there's specific cost items, we're happy to follow follow up with you on that.

Um but we did make some efforts in the past fiscal year to make sure that um there were some things that needed to be updated and some things that just as part of best practice we were replacing.

So happy to to hear if there's any specific items and we can address those.

Uh give me a second.

Um, then if you would get back to us on this.

So I guess the full question would be how much does DCPS have in its budget for supplies for athletic trainers?

And when you follow up and give us that answer, also tell us where it is in the budget.

Sure.

And we'll follow up with you, but it's $36,000 for equipment.

And then um what's going on that we're getting complaints that um athletic trainers are being told there aren't aren't funds to replace key equipment.

Is this uh uh central or school support or school wide?

Dr.

Bay, I think this is school support um uh as part of the DCIAA.

Yeah, and again, I think it would be helpful to hear what specific equipment um uh that uh and again we could follow up offline on this is um uh being needed or being requested.

There are specific items that are outlined within the CBA um uh that those some of those concerns have all been addressed um throughout the year as part of our engagement with athletic trainers.

What am I looking at?

First, yeah, but who's this?

This is from athletic training.

Um athletic trainers used to operate under a medical model reporting to a medical professional who made decisions based on best practices.

That structure has been eliminated.

Medical decisions are now made by the athletic director, an administrative position, with cost as the apparent priority.

That is not how student health and safety should work.

Our three asks are one equipment maintenance line item, dedicated protected funding for the upkeep, recalibration, repair, and replacement of athletic training equipment each year, cost estimate ten thousand dollars.

Two, red bag replacement line item, funding to replace emergency supplies that are used or expired.

So our trauma and emergency kits are always game ready, cost estimate five thousand dollars.

Three medical oversight position, restoration of a medical professional role that athletic trainers report to for clinical decisions, removing the authority from the athletic director, cost estimate 150,000 for standalone position, or $30,000 for additional duties position.

That was not all part of my original question.

Um if you guys could follow up on that.

Sure.

And if you need some of that repeated, uh Mr.

Verlin Scott.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh why are there fewer connected schools projected for FY27?

Uh that question earlier.

We had six schools uh less this coming year, and there were all decisions made by school leaders.

It doesn't mean that they're abandoning all other strategies, just means that they are investing in other ways and may incorporate some of the strategies, but the support centrally will remain the same for this upcoming school year.

And again, schools are not mandated to be connected schools, they choose to do so.

So your testimony is that six schools, the principals, the school leaders decided to invest in other ways.

Correct.

How much does it cost a school?

I think the primary cost is the FTE.

Yeah, so the connected schools manager is just under 140,000.

We also recommend to schools in terms of non-personnel uh funds to budget anywhere from 25,000 to 90,000.

So that number is going to be different school by school depending on what they are setting those sides those funds aside for.

But the total, if you include the connected schools manager as well as the MPS ranges from about 185,000 to 230,000.

185 to 235?

To 230, yes, on average.

Six of them said you we'd rather put that 235,000 to something else.

I'm understanding that correctly.

Yes, that's the direction.

Um but are there other schools that would like to be connected schools?

Yeah, I'm not aware of any schools that want to be a connected school that hasn't you know raised their hand and we haven't had that discussion.

But again, these are decisions that principals make in collaboration with the local school advisory teams.

So there's no there are no schools on a waiting list, so to speak.

Correct.

Now, if the if a school doesn't have the resources, they can make a budget assistance request for this particular resource as part of our budget assistance um process when schools identify gaps in their allocation.

And we provided budget assistance uh for four schools that were receiving federal grants for their connected school models.

That was Henley Kimball, Malcolm X, and Turner elementary schools.

Uh so as a result of them losing the federal dollars, we gave them budget assistance so they can maintain the programming.

So my notes here say your budget for the current year is $129,000.

That's in is that in central or school support or school wide.

The number sounds right though.

You don't know which of the buckets it's in.

I think it's a school wide, but we will follow up.

And then um sorry, school support.

And then um for FY27, my notes say that you have six hundred and forty-seven thousand budgeted.

That's correct.

That's correct.

And that's for even though it the money may be in school support.

I'm gonna say that's for central to provide additional support to these schools, correct?

Give me a second, um the mayor's proposed budget support act proposes to repeal the alternative breakfast program, which helps support grab and go breakfast.

Which helps support grab and go breakfasts.

My understanding is this is funded through Aussie, but it supports your schools.

Do you know which DCPS schools participate in the program?

Not entirely sure.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

So I don't know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, so the graphical breakfast program allows uh you know kids to grab breakfast and take it to their classroom and eat uh if they come to school early.

Uh it does uh um uh support a number of our schools.

We'll have to follow up with you specifically on how many schools that that supports and what the dollar amount looks like.

Uh if when you follow up, can you also give a sense of the level of participation in the program?

Sure, we can definitely so let's say it's Thompson Elementary School, okay.

That answers part of it, and let's say it's two students who participate in it.

Sure.

Or there are 100 and two students who participate in it.

We can certainly find it.

Are you concerned about losing the program?

Yeah, I mean, I think majority of our schools are participants.

I just don't know the level that students participate.

Given what I see in schools, I don't know that I would say it is high utilization, but it I think some will keep our eye on.

You'll you'll get back to me on this with some data.

Last year, which I think means for the current year, we budgeted three point three zero uh three positions at DCPS to support new heights.

You cut those funds.

Why again we don't see numbers that we've seen historically for um parenting and students who need these supports?

So we just believe that we don't need the level of support that we've had in the past.

Are you zeroing out the program for 27?

Um I don't think we've zeroing out the program.

I think we're is our recommendation that we reduce the number of staff associated with the program.

Yeah, we're actually shifting um the way in which we coach and support the PLCs, the local PLCs at the schools to our connected schools team.

Um we feel as though they have the capacity in terms of identifying resources and providing supports at the school level.

Um and so what we anticipate is that schools will still receive the the resources and services and coaching that they need in order to support their parenting students.

So schools will not see a change in terms of their ability.

They won't see a change in their ability to be able to meet the needs of their students.

Um they will the coaching and support will come from another office in terms of our connected schools team, um, but we don't anticipate that this will interrupt services to students.

So the connected schools team will see additional work.

The connected schools team has capacity to support the PLCs at schools.

Do you know how much you have budgeted for new heights in FY27?

So, in terms of um actual positions, we have not budgeted additional positions.

Correct.

Right.

I understand that you eliminated three positions.

Correct.

So you still have a budget for this, or it's just absorbed into the um connected schools.

It's absorbed into the connected schools team.

And again, I think this is the area where we're right size into the knee.

We just don't need the volume of personnel to support the student population.

This population has been significantly decreasing over time.

Um I want to go back to experiential learning.

So if I remember correctly, we put several hundred thousand dollars into Aussie's budget for them to contract, and then schools can then I'm not quite sure how it works.

I guess contact whatever that ASI office is or whoever the vendor is for trips, school trips.

How is that working for G CPS?

You referring to when there was advocacy about students with IEPs not having no no no, I'm not talking about IEP experiential learning, school trips, experiences.

Are you talking about it?

I think it's the vendor.

Am I what?

You talk about live and learn it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't heard any concerns.

Do you think it's working well?

Yeah, I don't have any reason to believe it's not.

We haven't had any, they haven't reached out to us recently with any concerns or raised, nor have we heard that from schools.

Can you say more about these new initiatives?

Um you identified $600,000 for AI literacy and instructional innovation.

So that's what I mentioned earlier, where we are trying to build out a team that directly supports the integration of artificial intelligence.

We also continue to invest in literacy strategies as well.

But the reading clinic and what was the second one?

Literacy.

So yeah, so this the artificial intelligence in AI literacy is to create FTEs and supports for a team that has a sole focus on integrating artificial intelligence into how students learn and also how our educators learn and respond.

Is six hundred thousand the right amount?

As in my understanding that this initiative will cost.

Does it include a contract?

For the artificial intelligence, that's all personnel.

For the literacy, I don't believe that's a contract either.

Yeah, it's a total of six personnel for uh for the literacy and then two for the AI.

And what are the two AI folks doing?

Go ahead.

I think as the chancellor mentioned, you know, I think we're trying to think about AI and what the future of AI looks like.

Uh, and so these are folks that are really helping to think about AI literacy, um, but more importantly, uh, or equally as important is also about what is AI policy and governance look like in the system.

How do we make sure that we're responsibly using AI?

Um, we know that it's it's coming, uh, and we know that our students and our staff are going to be exposed to it.

And so, how do we make sure that they're literate about it?

Um, and also that we have policy guardrails and says this is how you can use it responsibly, um, and making sure that we have those data safeguards in place to make sure that you know we don't want folks using AI in ways in which that could compromise our student data, our student privacy or internal data as well.

Um you've identified, I think the numbers $8.1 million and expanded after school programming.

Is this new funding?

Yeah, so it's a combination of uh some of it is uh new funding uh or increased investments.

Um and so about $3.9 million dollars of that uh that goes to support uh athletics, uh point seven or seven hundred thousand that goes towards supporting um some expansion of athletics and after school programming and middle school, um, some 1.5 million dollars of federal funds to support extended learning uh and after school staff, uh and then also uh sixth grade academy as well.

So that's about two million for the um sixth grade academy.

Yeah, so three point nine million dollars for athletics, seven hundred thousand for um expansion of after school athletics and middle school extracurricular programming, one point five million dollars for extended learning, uh four hundred thousand dollars for after school staffing, uh, one point three million dollars for extended learning staff, uh, and then uh about three hundred thousand dollars for sixth grade academy staff.

And that's all new?

That's not all new, that's just our overall investment um in uh uh the programming so I got this number from a letter the chancellor sent to schools highlighting new initiatives.

Yeah, so some of that new initiative specifically is some of the middle school programming and athletics that we're planning on rolling out.

So some of it's just continuing in existing program.

Correct.

So how much of this is new?

About 1.2 million dollars is new.

Um you identified $700,000 to strengthen dual enrollment.

How many students will be able to participate and at what schools and there is there a criteria for participation?

Yeah, we're super excited about the expansion of dual enrollment.

Um we are able to invest in such that all of our schools will um be able to offer at a minimum six additional uh dual enrollment courses with schools raising their hand to offer even more than that in terms of the number.

So for each course, each section, um, there's a max of 15 students that are eat in each section.

So I would have to get you um more details in terms of the total number.

Um but our schools, um, our students, our families are super excited about the opportunity and the outcomes that we've seen thus far have been really really promising.

Um we are seeing more and more student students raise their hand um to participate, and they're doing really well in those courses and earning that those credits.

So I heard you say all schools.

I'm sorry, all high schools.

And I heard you say six additional courses in each.

Six courses six courses minimum.

If a school raises their hand and that they want to offer more, um, we are going to support them with that, but at minimum six percent.

So if it's a high school, they'll be dual enrollment.

Correct.

And I think you said six students per course.

Fifteen, up to fifteen per course or per section.

And that's gonna cost seven hundred thousand.

That's correct.

Umpact.

My impression is that impact is costing more and more every year.

Am I wrong?

It's actually gone down.

Um so I think uh two fiscal years twenty-seven million uh think it's down one point one million dollars this year from the previous fiscal year.

Uh so um the three years I've been here, it's actually come down, I believe, every year slightly.

I think you're thinking about post-pandemic.

And during the pandemic, we DC increases, but those are also years where we modify the criteria for the impact review process.

So I think you said it's down 1.7 million.

FY27 is down from FY26?

1.1 million dollars down.

And this is always a little bit weird in the sense that the bonuses are paid in December for the previous school year.

As I said, I run out of questions.

Yes.

Okay, and hopefully that'll be in within the week.

And that doesn't mean by today's Friday.

That doesn't mean by tomorrow, but that means very soon.

Yes, we'll work to get you to follow up as soon as possible.

All right, and I'm going to close off this uh hearing um the committee as a whole will be having uh the next education related budget hearing next Thursday, May seventh, so then we will hear testimony on Aussie.

And I don't think I'll go through all the other hearings.

I want to thank the witnesses who testified last week.

That was all the public witnesses and Chancellor Faraby and your team, thank you.

The time is two oh one PM and this hearing is adjourned.