POST Local

The District has been trying to save a few dollars by reducing the number of special education students in expensive private schools at public expense.

According to a new report, that includes 118 students whose families don’t even live in the city.

Those are among the findings of a panel in the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) that studied suspected cases of residency fraud in 2011 enrollment data. D.C. is expected to spend $110 million in fiscal year 2013 to support 1,700 special education students in private settings --where annual fees run anywhere from $30,000 to $125,000 and up--because it was decided that the city can’t meet their needs. The Gray administration, which is trying to improve services at neighborhood schools, would like to shrink the number to 1,100 by 2014.

On Wednesday the state education agency reported 276 confirmed instances of students in the system illegally: 126 in DCPS, 32 in public charter schools and 118 in pricey “non-public placements.”

That’s less than one-half of one percent of the city’s 78,469 public and public charter students. But the costs mount quickly. Assuming an average of $75,000 in tuition for the 118 non-public students, the tab comes to $8.8 million a year. Add the minimum amount of per-student funding under District formula ($9,000) for the other 158, and you’re looking at a minimum of an additional $1.4 million.

“Education is free, but not without cost,” D.C. State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley said in a statement. OSSE will press the families involved to pay non-resident tuition and make referrals to the D.C. Attorney General for collection and prosecution, if necessary, Mahaley said.

You can look at the OSSE documents here.

This is how a student of Arnita Meekins at D.C.’s Harriet Tubman Elementary described her gift as an educator: “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was. So I was.”

Meekins, who works in special education, was among this year’s 21 recipients of the Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Awards, sponsored by The Washington Post Educational Foundation to recognize teachers throughout the region for their initiative, creativity and professionalism. A group of area principals also received Distinguished Educational Leadership Awards. A full list is here.

The presentation ceremony for teachers at the Post Tuesday evening was filled with stories from students and colleagues of long hours, meticulous preparation and devotion. Nicholas Martino enlisted the school nurse and security guard to help transform Mountain View High in Stafford, Va. into Ellis Island so that his social studies class could gain a vivid understanding of the immigrant experience. Julian Hipkins III brings subjects like Hiroshima alive for his eleventh graders at Capital City Public Charter School in D.C.with first hand testimony from survivors.

DCPS has a reputation among its stakeholders for a lack of transparency in budget and financial matters. Here’s a little window onto why.

On April 11, Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced “Proving What’s Possible,” a new $10 million grant program designed to spur innovative ways of boosting student achievement. Officials are especially interested in funding schools that want to extend the academic day, leverage technology to improve learning, or upgrade staff.

All praiseworthy objectives. But what caught my eye was the $10 million. In a budget season when local and federal funds are in decline, and school librarians are an endangered species, how was this being financed?

It took nearly two years, but it appears that DCPS is finally prepared to comply with the early retirement provision of the contract it signed with the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU). The 2010 collective bargaining agreement says that teachers with good evaluations and 20 years of service who lose their jobs in the annual “excessing” process are eligible for early retirement with full benefits.

But when eligible teachers tried to exercise the option, they were told that DCPS didn’t have the money. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M Gandhi said that was not true. In any event, WTU announced late last week that it reached an agreement with DCPS that will allocate $10.2 million over the next five years to fund early retirement benefits for excessed teachers.

Earlier this month, DCPS delivered excessing notices to 333 teachers, meaning that their jobs have been eliminated because of enrollment declines, budget reductions or program changes. Officials expect about 60 percent of those impacted to find other jobs in the school system.

The U.S. Education Department’s critique of the District’s application for relief from No Child Left Behind, which officials have been inexplicably sitting on, will be available to the public by the end of this week, promises State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley.

Mahaley said she is waiting to release the critique so that the District’s response can be made public at the same time. “We think that’s a much more productive way of doing it,” she said.

The education department has been offering waivers from portions of NCLB (such as 100 percent reading and writing proficiency by 2014) for states that come up with their own rigorous accountability plans. One of the department's issues with the D.C. application involves how Mahaley’s agency will make sure that charter schools use teacher evaluation systems with multiple measures, including student test scores. Some charters, many of which operate as their own separate school districts under the law, have been pushing back at the prospect of revamping teacher assessments.