School updates: Residency requirements; elimination of full-time school nurses

What’s happening in our public schools? Two years ago, Ward 3 elected Ruth Wattenberg to the DC State Board of Education. Wattenberg is a watchdog of our school system and an advocate of the schools within. She periodically sends a newsletter update. Here are highlights from her latest:

Fillmore Arts Center is threatened with closure, which would leave kids from five elementary schools, including Stoddert and Key, without a decent arts program. Moreover, Fillmore is a terrific model that could benefit DC schools around the city. On both counts, closing it is a terrible idea. Read more here and sign the petition here.

New residency requirements, by which DC parents have to prove they live in DC, have been proposed by The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). The new regs could greatly ease the paperwork burden now put on parents, but they don’t close the loopholes that have allowed non-DC families to enroll their kids in DC schools. Read more in the newsletter and get a link to the full proposal and to weigh in.

Full-time school nurses could be eliminated, starting in January. The proposal from the Department of Health reflects a poor understanding of what schools need, and it was developed without virtually any input from either schools or parents. For more info, scroll to bottom of the newsletter.

The score drop at Wilson and Walls tells us little about whether the quality of education has gone up or down at the two schools. But it is a window on larger problems with how DC judges quality. See my op-ed in the Washington Post.