By Guest Contributor, on November 27th, 2012 Cross-posted from The Washington Post
By RootDC Staff
D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson stepped into her first major controversy when she announced last week that she wanted to close 20 public schools. Immediately, hundreds of parents and activists lined up to oppose her. One of the organizations that has worked long and hard to stop previous school closings is Empower DC. In an interview with The RootDC, Daniel del Pielago, an organizer for the group’s education campaign, argues that the closures will have a negative impact on thousands of school children largely because 40 percent of the students threatened with displacement this time were also affected by the 2008 school closings.
“Our school communities need stability, not repeated upheaval,” Vanessa Bertelli, chair of the Garrison Improvement Project Committee, with Milo Negri, 4, (in dark yellow), Leo Sank, 3, and Richard Sowell, 3, try to stay entertained at the Wilson Building as D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson talks during a review of school closures in Washington. Negri and Sank attend Garrison Elementary and Sowell attends Francis-Stevens Elementary. (Katherine Frey – THE WASHINGTON POST) he said in the interview. Calling the schools marked for closing “dead schools walking,” he said Henderson’s plan will have a detrimental impact on teacher and student morale.
Pielago said that the group has called for an immediate “moratorium on all school closures until a community driven process is put in place to make these tough decisions and a true study on the impact school closures have had on our city’s students and communities.” He added: “We are concerned that thousands of students left DCPS after the last round of school closures, the biggest dip in enrollment in recent history. This coupled with the uncontrolled growth of charter schools does not give us any confidence that more closures are necessary.”
A second round of public hearings is scheduled to be held Monday evening. Here are some further excerpts of his interview:
Why you are opposed to the school closings laid out by Chancellor Henderson?
This continuous cycle of school closures and attrition will lead to the loss of neighborhood public schools of right. Additionally. school closures have disproportionately affected communities of color. Of the 6,300 students affected by school closures in 2008, only 15 were white, while 99 percent were African American or Hispanic. This year, [based on a study done by local data analyst Mary Levy], out of the 3,800 students who will be displaced, only 36 are white students. Once again, the higher concentration of school closures are in Wards 5, 7 and 8. We feel this is unjust and actually leads to the destabilization of communities.
Some have argued that it’s ineffective to keep schools open that are (a) underperforming and (b) below capacity. In your view. what should be done with these schools, given the attendance/performance erosion cited in some schools?
Firstly, I think the communities who will be directly affected by these threats need to lead the conversations on solutions and not just be nominally included once decisions are made. For example, a school like Garrison Elementary, where parents are fighting and being active to improve programming so it can in turn raise enrollment, is not being given the time nor resources to make this happen.
A recent D.C. auditor report shows how the last round of closures actually cost our city more than originally estimated. The public has also not seen even a basic accounting on how much was saved from the last round and how it was used. I think we need to look at cutting down the inflated DCPS central office before we start to close the institutions our students and communities depend on.
I also think the mayor and City Council need to have a comprehensive plan for public education. This should include any DCPS school closings as well as recommendations for school boundary and feeder pattern changes. Charter school openings and closings should also be considered.
In an op-ed that appeared in The RootDC on Monday, Kevin Chavous, a former D.C. councilman and a senior adviser to the American Federation for Children, writes the following: “If school closures simply mean overcrowding already overburdened schools with more children and fewer resources to go around, we’re doing no better than when those underperforming schools were around in the first place. We must provide families with a legitimately better-quality option in lieu of where they were, and it’s also not fair to overburden teachers and students at . . . → Read More: D.C. school closures: An activist’s view
By Liane Scott, on November 13th, 2012 
DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is announcing the list of schools on the chopping block today. This despite the growing demand for a moratorium on school closings which haven’t resulted in any improvement in test scores or student achievement. In acknowledgment of today’s announcement, I’d like to remind Chancellor Henderson, the entire administration of Mayor Vincent Gray and public school stakeholders across the city of just a few reasons why this is such a contentious issue.
The epidemic of school closings is not limited to the District of Columbia. Education Week has published an article on school closings as a national issue. Part of that article is reproduced below.
School Shutdowns Trigger Growing Backlash In five cities, groups wage war on school shutdowns Crossposted from Education Week Written By Jaclyn Zubrzycki
As school closures are increasingly used as a remedy to budget woes and a solution to failing schools in many cities, debates are intensifying about their effect on student performance and well-being, on district finances, and on communities and the processes districts use to choose which schools will be shuttered.
Student and parent groups in Chicago, the District of Columbia, New York, Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia gathered in Washington late last month to call for a moratorium on school closings and filed separate complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights. In those complaints, the groups allege that in previous rounds of school closings, their districts have not been transparent and have been influenced by outside interests, such as charter school operators. They also argue that the closings have had a harmful and disparate impact on minority students and communities. Each of the districts has predicted new closures for the coming school year.
“This has become the strategy of first instance, not of last resort,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has affiliates in the cities…
The rest of this article can be found at the EdWeek.org.
The backlash described in the Education Week article made its way to Washington, DC and took the form of a march called the Journey for Educational Justice, which Grassroots Media Project Producers Ben King and Stephan Scarborough report on below. This is a longer version of a video that we posted on the blog a couple of weeks ago.
Finally, from the DC-based education blog Truth From the Trenches I’m cross-posting this article which I think is particularly relevant to today’s announcement. It should be noted that the creators of Truth From the Trenches are two DCPS teachers who go by pen names so as to avoid retribution for reporting their observations and opinions about DC Public School “reform.” What does that tell us?!
On the Chopping Block
Crossposted from Truth From the Trenches Written by Florence
While everyone is anticipating the proposed DCPS closure list set to be announced tomorrow, those of us who are working at schools that are at risk for closure have endured months of anxiety and turmoil. When a school is on the short list of closures, the academic year begins not with excitement but steeped in a cloud uncertainty that pervades every aspect of the learning environment. It is not an exaggeration to describe the feeling of working at a school that may be shut down at the end of the academic year similar to someone with their head in a guillotine waiting for the blade to drop.
It is important to note that many of the schools on the list have been on the chopping block for years. Not surprisingly, these schools usually have the least resources with the highest concentrations of academically and behaviorally challenged students. In most of these schools parent participation is minimal to non-existent and, therefore, unlike other schools with more involved and more well off parents who can raise tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) a year, these schools at risk for closure are not able to raise outside funds to supplement the schools’ budgets. Plus with low enrollments and DCPS recent per pupil spending cuts many of these schools do not have the adequate staffing and support needed for their high needs populations. With such uncertainty there are increased numbers parents jumping the sinking ship. Why stay in a school that is dying a slow death?
Instead of seriously trying to support these schools, most of the time it appears as if the chancellor makes a half hearted effort for show because in reality she wants . . . → Read More: Stay Tuned: DC Public School Closings Imminent
By Liane Scott, on October 15th, 2012 
On September 20, 2012 education stakeholders and advocates from all across the nation gathered to demand that a moratorium be placed on public school closings. If you weren’t able to make it, the short video below, produced by Grassroots Media Project producers Stephon Scarborough and Ben King, will give you a sense of what you missed.
Mayor Gray and DCPS will be announcing DCPS school closures this Fall. If you want to help fight school closures in Washington, DC, join Empower DC’s Education Outreach Day Saturday Oct. 20th. We are working to to push back against the narrative that Mayor Gray and Schools Chancellor Henderson are using to justify more school closures. Here are the details:
EDUCATION OUTREACH DAY Saturday, October 20, 2012 @ 1:00 PM Meet in front of the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station If you are able to join us please contact Empower DC Education Campaign Organizer Daniel del Pielago at 202-234-9119 ext. 104 or Daniel@empowerdc.org.
For more on the resistance to school closures, I’ve cross-posted the following Washington Post article by Emma Brown
DCPS to propose school closures as resistance simmers By Emma Brown
A long-anticipated round of proposed school closures will be announced in the next few weeks, Chancellor Kaya Henderson said Wednesday.
Then there will be a series of community meetings where residents have a chance to challenge the proposals. And by December, DCPS hopes to make final decisions about which schools will be shuttered. Protesters rally against the coming round of school closures at DCPS headquarters Thursday morning. (Emma Brown/The Washington Post)
“We want to build in the time to hear from you,” Henderson said, speaking Wednesday before residents of River Terrace, a community that’s still smarting from the closure of its elementary school last spring.
In 2008, then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee moved swiftly to close 23 schools, sparking angry protests, political backlash and long-lasting distrust.
Henderson is banking on the idea that communities will be more willing to accept closures if they’ve had the chance to hear and respond to her proposals and rationales.
But resistance is simmering. Dozens of protesters gathered at DCPS headquarters Thursday morning to rally against the coming closures, calling them a veiled attempt to destabilize communities and speed gentrification of poor neighborhoods.
Parisa Norouzi, executive director of Empower DC, which organized the rally, said she doubted that DCPS will really listen to residents. “We have no reason to trust the process that Kaya Henderson has laid out,” she said.
Parents — many pointing to a report issued this year that recommended closing many public schools and replacing them with public charters — described the closures as part of a larger attempt to destroy the city’s traditional public education system.
“The answer is not charter schools, the answer is fortifying traditional public schools,” said Schyla Pondexter-Moore, a Ward 8 parent of four. “I think children deserve a quality education at a school they can walk to.”
Henderson, meanwhile, has long argued that closures are a matter of fiscal reality. The city operates 225 public schools — including traditional and charter schools — for 76,000 kids. Meanwhile, Fairfax County has the same number of schools — and more than twice the kids.
The D.C. protesters were joined Thursday by activists from Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities where charter schools are thriving and public schools are closing.
This reporter left the rally just before noon, when perhaps a hundred activists were chanting and singing in front of DCPS headquarters. Organizers said their numbers later swelled into the hundreds as they marched to the U.S. Education Department to call for a five-year moratorium on school closures nationwide.
By Liane Scott, on September 17th, 2012 
Empower DC member lobbies City Council.
The District of Columbia City Council returns from its summer recess this Tuesday, September 20, 2012. It’s time for them to set their legislative priorities for the upcoming year.
The question is, will those priorities include issues that are important to long-time DC residents? Will the laws and policies they ultimately implement positively impact low- and moderate-income communities or will they continue to force folks out of the city in search of a friendlier, more affordable environment? Will families be able to raise their children in the District knowing that they will have access to quality and affordable housing, health care, child care and schools that are responsive to the needs and wishes of the community?
Members of Empower DC’s Education Campaign are working to make sure that Mayor Gray, Schools Chancellor Henderson and the city council are accountable to all the residents of DC and not just those that fund their campaigns. Education campaign members are concerned about the threat of public school closures in our city. School closing have not improved educational outcomes and have not yielded the savings that we were promised. Mayor Gray and Chancellor Henderson continue to publicly express that closures will save money which will be reinvested in schools that stay open, but as we have seen from the recent DC Auditor report, the last round of closures in 2008 actually cost us $30 million more than expected. Time and time again, community members are shut out of the process leading up to the closing of a school. (See Bruce Monroe Elementary School & River Terrace Elementary School)
Education organizer Daniel del Pielago says, “what we need now is better planning to ensue that Public schools are strengthened and are a viable choice for DC residents now and for the future.” To that end, Empower DC will visit the city council this Tuesday demanding that they do the following:
1. Place a Moratorium on school closings, turnarounds and transfer to charters for 5 years.
Why this demand? Because the only data which the city has made public to inform “right-sizing” the school system is the IFF report. a report prepared by a pro-charter, real-estate organization who’s single indicator analysis test scores) on school performance lacks any real information on why students score poorly. Their recommendations to close/turn over public schools to charters needs to be refuted. we need this moratorium to plan and execute an accurate building needs assessment and to develop a process which is more inclusive of parents, students, teachers and the community at large.
2. The council needs to have the evaluation of PERA (Public Education Reform Act) as soon as possible.
The DC Public School System has been under mayoral control since 2007 without a valid evaluation of its actual effect on the schools. Many decisions have been made (namely, school closures/turnovers to charters) that have not resulted in any considerable improvements of DCPS. We cannot wait until September 2014 (changed from September 2012 by the 2009 Budge Support Act) for this evaluation.
3. The council needs to hold hearings and vote on any school closing proposed this year.
Currently there is no process to involve those who will be directly impacted by closures and for the community at large to weigh in on these decisions. We need council leadership to ensure that DC residents aren’t left out of this process.
Join Us… Tuesday, September 18 10 am ’til noon John A. Wilson Building (City Hall) 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW (meet in the lobby)
In addition, SHARC (Shelter, Housing and Respectful Change) will be joining Empower DC members as we visit the council. They will be focusing on the displacement of the poor, highlight the impending threat of losing 1,200 or more shelter beds in 2013 and demand affordable housing for ALL low-income residents of DC. The District of Columbia Government and business community (including landlords) are creating and instituting policies that displace tens of thousands of low- and no-income residents, many of whom have called DC “home” for a long time. At least 39,000 Afro-Americans have been gentrified out of DC over the past 10 years by high rents. Schools, libraries and clinics have been closed or relocated away from the communities that need them most. High-priced amenities such as street cars have been brought to poor neighborhoods, forcing the rent up and many residents out. Social services are being eliminated and 1,200 to 2,000 of DC’s 7,000+ homeless people may . . . → Read More: Welcome Back City Council. Here Are Our Demands!
By Liane Scott, on February 18th, 2012 
Students and Parents Protest the Demolition of Bruce Monroe Elementary
School officials certainly make a show of being willing to ask; they even appear to listen. At a public hearing about the proposed closing of River Terrace back in November, DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said, “if every community had this level of engagement, DCPS would be the best school district in the country.” So why should Kaya Henderson, who clearly knows how important parental and community involvement is in the success of a school, be perfectly willing to close down schools with very active school communities such as Bruce Monroe and River Terrace? How is it possible, that these communities are simply ignored by the government that’s supposed to represent them? Answering the why would force me into speculations about racism and classism among DC elected and appointed officials, but Empower DC education organizer Daniel del Pielago has some clear ideas about how communities get left out of the decision making process. According to del Pielago:
Key decision makers do not engage in meaningful dialog with their constituency, do not return emails, calls and requests to meet. Elected officials cancel meetings and do not deliver on commitments they make when you are finally able to meet with them. Government officials (and the developers who support them) “wait out” parents and other community members as community interest and action wanes. Ultimately, decisions are made and presented with no input from the community that will be affected.
Clear examples of this are demonstrated in a brochure that he and a number of River Terrace Elementary school families have been sharing with the rest of the community, which I’ve posted below for your consideration.
River Terrace: This Is Our Moment of Truth Save River Terrace Elementary School
Closing our school harms our students, disrespects our parents and assaults our community. If we truly love our school and our neighborhood, now is the time to show it. Know the facts and let’s stand up for ourselves.
Throughout the year, we’ve been reaching out to keep everyone informed of this attack on our community. We’ve contacted our elected officials and decision makers through calls and emails, clearly demonstrating our support for River Terrace Elementary and for keeping it open. We’ve asked for meetings with the Chancellor and other public officials. with only two exceptions, we were ignored.
River Terrace Elementary Timeline of Events
December 2010
DCPS issues a letter stating their intention to close River Terrace Elementary School at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. River Terrace parents meet with Special Assistant to the Chancellor of DC Public Schools Margery Anne Yeager.
January 2011
Over 100 River Terrace community members meet with Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander and Chancellor Kaya Henderson at a public hearing to voice their unanimous support for keeping the school open. The River Terrace Elementary Support Committee visits council members and the community writes letters in supprt of the school. River Terrace community members and allies give testimony at the Ward 7 State of the Schools Public Hearing.
February 2011
DCPS issues a letter stating that River Terrace Elementary has been given a year’s reprieve to build enrollment.
March 2011
River Terrace Elementary Support Committee meets with the Cluster 1 Educational Superintendent Barbara Adderly. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee gives testimony at Mayor Vincent Gray’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Hearing for DCPS. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee holds an enrollment fair. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee reaches out to council members for support to keep the school open.
June 2011
Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander cancels a meeting with the River Terrace Elementary Support Committee. At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelsohn offers support to the school community. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee meets with Varick AME Church and the River Terrace Alumni Committee.
September 2011
River Terrace Elementary Support Committee collects signature of support at the River Terrace Reunion Picnic. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee meets with Councilmember Alexander who commits to arranging a meeting between them and Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
October 2011
River Terrace Elementary Support Committee continues to follow up with Councilmember Alexander about her committment to set up a meeting with Chancellor Kaya Henderson. River Terrace Elementary Support Committee meets with Councilmember Alexander and Chancellor Kaya Henderson. Henderson announces that River Terrace Elementary will close in June 2012 and the decision is final.
We can still save our school but we need to take ACTION NOW! We have tried to call on the . . . → Read More: Stand Up for DC’s Neighborhood Schools
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