Photo from Shutterstock

Photo from Shutterstock

D.C. government agencies—we know it’s summer and you want to be outside playing with your friends, but you’ve got to buckle down and do better. If you don’t, we’ll take away the Xbox. Really.

Today D.C. released grades for five D.C. agencies that were part of a two-month-long pilot program that used resident input gathered from social media, surveys and text messages to assess how well specific agencies are doing their jobs.

The D.C. Department of Transportation, for example, was given a C- in June, and improved to a C+ through July 18. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs had the same grades over the same time period, while the DMV stayed steady at a C- and the Department of Parks and Recreation dropped from a C to a C-. The Department of Public Works—which does everything from pick up your trash to writing parking tickets—fared best, moving up from a C+ to a B.

“This is a means to gather community input and improve user experience,” said Kristin Muhlner, CEO of newBrandAnalytics, the firm charged with measuring resident input over a number of platforms and converting it into a letter grade.

The firm used social media like Facebook and Twitter, web surveys and text messages to gather input; even comments on DCist and other community blogs were said to be used as resources for how the five agencies were doing. All told, 1,000 reviews—some with multiple insights into different agencies—served as the sample size for the pilot program.

The grades serve as guides for each agency on what they can do better. The DMV, for one, says it will hires a public affairs specialist so as to better communicate with residents and encourage them to request as many services as they can online—thus lowering wait times at DMV locations. DPR will do a better job cleaning public pools, while DPW will try and better explain the city’s parking regulations to residents.

“We’re going to strive to improve outcomes until every agency gets an A,” said Mayor Vincent Gray this morning, who himself has recently been knocked for his performance on a number of issues. Ten more agencies will be added to the program in the fall.

Until then, DDOT, DCRA, DPW, DPR, and DMV: shape up or ship out.