Tis’ the season for agency performance oversight hearings! This week, DCFPI testified twice before the DC Council Committee on Education to share our feedback on the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and DC Public Schools (DCPS).
At the DCPS oversight hearing, DCFPI offered specific suggestions on what services could be expanded to increase opportunities for our most vulnerable students. DCFPI supports legislation recently passed by the Council to add additional financial resources for students considered at-risk, a recommendation that was echoed by a study commissioned by Mayor Gray. We hope DCPS takes this opportunity to convey a clear and consistent approach to student programming, and incorporates non-instructional services into their education plans. For example:
- Improve access to quality out-of-school time programs. There has been a lot of discussion on how best to build up DCPS schools, including the possible strategy of extending the school day or year. However, extending the school day could just mean more of the same programing offered during school hours, without consideration of how best to implement a high-quality program with those additional hours. DCFPI recommends that any strategy to extend the school day or year include expanded learning programs offered through partnerships with community-based organizations. These programs can align with and build off what students learn during the school day, with a range of activities that include mentoring, college preparation, arts enrichment, or sports.
- Ensure all students have access to school-based mental health practitioners. Research shows that locating mental health services in schools leads to increased accessibility and use of these services. The District’s school-based mental health program provides schools with a part-time or full-time mental health clinician, who provides a range of services ‘ from prevention and screenings to more intensive therapy and counseling. There is a need to expand the school-based mental health practitioners in our school system and DCFPI encourages the Council to consider investing resources into the Department of Behavioral Health to place clinicians in every school where there is a need.
- Adopt a comprehensive parent engagement strategy including home visiting services. Currently, DC is in partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation to deliver more robust parent engagement, but these programs operate in only a handful of schools and therefore have limited reach. The program is funded entirely with private resources, but will need to be supported by public funds if it is to be scaled up to additional schools. Flamboyan’s model costs an estimated $58,000 per school, or just $178 per student on average. DCFPI encourages the Council to continue to monitor the results of these quality parent engagement programs and to identify plans and funding to expand these strategies across DC’s schools.
DCFPI’s testimony on the Office of the State Superintendent for Education notes that OSSE plays a significant role in collecting and reporting data from early learning through adult education. At the hearing, DCFPI focused on the importance of continuing to build a culture of open data and transparency. In the past year, OSSE has made several gains in terms of better transparency and greater accessibility of the information they house. For example, the new Learn DC website is a terrific user-friendly resource, whose development was informed by the needs of the larger community. Parents can browse the site for individual school profiles, which offer details on student enrollment, college readiness, and student achievement across all DC schools.
The recent release of equity reports for all District funded schools was another sign of progress. This resource offers city-wide education data to compare information between individual schools and between the traditional public school and public charter sectors, including student demographics, performance, attendance, suspension and expulsion rates, and mid-year mobility for both sectors. One of the best features of these reports was the ability to download spreadsheets for indicators to conduct further analysis on your own. DCFPI would like to see this type of information shared in a more systemic, formalized way moving forward.
This morning, DCPS officials will testify and answer questions from the Council. To watch the 10:00 a.m. hearing online, go to: http://dccouncil.us/videos.
