UPDATE 12:42 p.m.: The Council has voted unanimously to reject the Mayor’s proposal, maintaining the existing requirements concerning the release of DCPS budget information and hearings.
Today, the D.C. Council is scheduled to cast its first votes on Mayor Fenty’s proposed fiscal 2009 budget, including $773 million for the District’s schools. However, one proposal in particular by Mayor Fenty has been garnering the attention of parent and community groups around D.C. – the motion to end Mayoral and Chancellor budget hearings for DCPS (Section 4031 of the Budget Support Act).
Petition For Transparency: A petition that has been making the rounds of parent advocacy groups and advisory neighborhood commissions asks the Council to reject the motion, arguing that it eliminates the “opportunity for meaningful parent and community involvement at a critical juncture in the budget process.” The petition now has over 1,000 signatures from D.C. residents and organizations, and was supported in a recent Washington Examiner editorial calling for more transparency and community input in the schools budget process. The Examiner writes, “The law requiring the public discussion of the school budget was put on the books as a result of a 1987 initiative supported by 85 percent of the voters” and points out that in light of the recent embezzlement scandals at three city agencies, more transparency should be required, not less.
Margot Berkey, director of Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools, one of the city’s oldest advocacy groups and one of the first to sign the petition, told DCist that the ability to maintain an equal level of parental input as what was established in previous DCPS administrations is a deeply personal priority.
“It’s not the same. There is nothing about my quality of life in the District that means more to me than the education of my children,” she said in response to the Mayor’s position that DCPS be treated like other government agencies, who only hold hearings after the budgets are released. While she acknowledged that a “dramatic culture shift” is certainly required to raise achievement in the District, she said that parents deserve the opportunity to comment on what they see as the school budget’s strengths and weaknesses while there is still time for revision.
