In her fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget proposal, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) responded to public charter school teachers who were pondering whether they would receive funds matching what their counterparts secured in their contract negotiations with D.C. Public Schools (DCPS).
However, charter school leaders aren’t satisfied with the funding mechanism that only provides matching funds to public charter schools applying for a grant that requires them to post teacher salary and retention data online.
Other qualms involved back pay for public charter school teachers only going back two years — and not four, as is the case for public school teachers — along with the 12.5% pay bump not closing pay disparities between the two sectors.
Jendayi Wright, a first grade teacher at Friendship Public Charter School (PCS) Blow Pierce Campus in Northeast said she found the proposal disturbing.
Wright, a Friendship Collegiate Academy alumna, has been teaching at Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus for 11 years. During her tenure, The Washington Post recognized her as a teacher-of-the-year finalist. She said she owed her success to the systems put in place at Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus that help teachers develop their pedagogy.
Though she expressed great joy working in the charter network that educated her, Wright said that the uncertainty around pay might compel her to explore other options.
“District public schools can be given one amount but it’s like we’re stepchildren [in the charter system],” Wright said. “We’re really [a] high-performing [school]. We work hard, plan rigorous lessons, and have two professional development [sessions] a week. And we provide our data. It’s really unfair. A pay bump makes a big difference in what I can pour into my students.”
During the earlier part of February, leaders of the District’s 69 charter school networks signed a letter promising Bowser and Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn that the matching funds would directly go to teachers.
Last week, Ariel Johnson, executive director of the D.C. Charter School Alliance, said Bowser’s budget proposal violated the School Reform Act by allocating teacher compensation and transportation outside of the Universal Student Per Pupil Funding Formula. In a statement that circulated after Bowser’s presentation to the D.C. Council, Johnson said that Bowser’s strategy undermined Black and brown families seeking out-of-boundary education options.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said on Monday during an early morning WIN-TV live stream that the grant program outlined in Bowser’s budget proposal ensures that the matching funds go directly to teachers. He went on to suggest that Bowser, in years past, covertly funded District public school teachers more than public charter school teachers through IMPACT bonuses not accounted for in the budget.
Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus counts among 16 campuses under the Friendship PCS umbrella. It’s the District’s second-largest public charter school network with more than 4,800 pre-K to 12th grade students, for the most part, attending in-person classes under the tutelage of 400 teachers. In total, 1,000 staff members work in the Friendship PCS network.
In 2021, Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus made headlines when Dominique Foster, a pre-K teacher, was named D.C. Teacher of the Year. That happened around the same time that the school’s Parent Advisory Council started providing virtual yoga sessions, game nights and healthy cooking demonstrations for parents readjusting to the return to in-person learning.
Friendship PCS CEO Patricia A. Brantley said that the charter network has fulfilled much of what the grant process outlined in the mayor’s budget requires. She told the Informer that much of what Friendship PCS is able to accomplish happens through per-pupil funding, adding that without guaranteed matching teacher compensation, it’s unable to guarantee reimbursement for the raises it provides teachers.
Brantley went on to express her concern that, without parity in matching funds, Friendship PCS will have to make tough decisions in meeting obligations to teachers, paraprofessionals, staff members and conductors of extracurricular programming.
“We’re going to make it work for our students and staff, but there’s only one pot of money. You can’t make blood out of stone,” Brantley said. “The D.C. Council and the mayor need to dig deep and make sure the funding is in place to make our educators whole. It’s critical and a priority. I believe it can be done. What we hear at the budget hearings is that this is important and the council is willing to do the work so that it happens.”
According to data compiled by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), the public charter sector retained 62% of its teachers this year, compared to 78% in DCPS. At public charter schools, teachers rated as highly effective were retained at a “moderately higher rate” than their ineffective counterparts, according to OSSE.
As Gregory Spears takes stock of who among his teaching staff members will return to Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus next school year, he anticipates having to answer tough questions about compensation.
In the five years that Spears has served as principal of Friendship PCS Blow Pierce Campus, he led his campus through a pandemic and saw teacher’s mental well-being become more of a priority. He told the Informer that uncertainty about compensation can potentially exacerbate anxiety among his teachers and staff about the future.
“I can’t imagine what a teacher feels like when their city government tells them that they value them less than teachers who are doing the same work with the same children,” Spears said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s tough for me as a school leader when teachers ask me questions about things that are out of my hands.”
Teachers in charter schools also don’t have to be licensed. The teachers’ unions fight for years for bonuses, benefits, and backpay. They do this on behalf of their unionized and licensed teachers, and yet non-union teachers are demanding the same wins? The whole point to form a Charter is to allow creative approaches to teaching, management, fundraising, and hiring. If they receive additional funds, I see nothing wrong with ensuring it’s actually going to teacher pay. Common sense!