D.C.’s mayor is sharing some of the details of her new proposed budget — specifically changes coming to schools.
Mayor Muriel Bowser plans to fund resources to support students’ mental health and increase substitute teacher pay effective this school year.
Bowser called her investment as part of the fiscal year 2023 budget historic, with an increase of 5.9% to the universal per-pupil funding formula for public schools.
“This increase will make sure our schools have the resources they need to support the increased and individualized needs of students during this time,” Bowser said.
As the primary funding source for D.C. schools, the uniform per student funding formula (UPSFF) total investment is $2.1 billion, which is completely funded by local dollars.
“We need to keep investing in schools, and after two years of living through a pandemic, our young people have a wide range of needs, which we have invested in through school-based social and emotional learning and mental health programs, increased funding for out-of-school time providers, and a multi-year investment in $27 million to the Department of Behavioral Health to ensure all schools have a school-based mental health clinician,” Bowser said.
The director of that department, Barbara Bazron, spoke about the urgent need to ensure every child can be assessed for the emotional and behavioral changes that may have taken place due to the stress of the pandemic — but that perhaps do not rise to a level of diagnosis.
“So we have to provide those prevention services that promote resilience and that allow young people to get the support they need, so that they can deal with the stress and the trauma related to the environment,” she said.
Part of recovery is stabilizing the school system, which has seen rounds of changes to policy, staff and modes of teaching throughout the last two years. The new budget has $36 million allocated for stability and recovery.
“What that means for DCPS Local School advisory teams — as you plan for your budgeting process this school year — you will begin with a budget that is no less than what was submitted to the council as a part of the mayor’s budget last year,” said Chancellor Lewis Ferebee.
“So that will be your starting point. In addition to that …we will have additional one-time funding through the mayor’s recovery funding. This will allow us to maximize school buying power as well.”
Also threatening stability in the classroom has been protest from substitute teachers, who have been asking the District for an increase in wages for some time.
“We will propose to deliver another pay increase for our DCPS substitutes to make them among the highest-paid public school substitutes in the region. So up to $20 per hour for a regular daily substitute and $25 an hour for a long-term substitute who will teach for at least 30 consecutive days in our classrooms,” Bowser said.
The administration is making the proposed budgets for each school available so principals and advisory teams will be able to begin planning within the new budget model.
“We also are embedding in this process, an updated model that represents significant feedback from our school communities in an effort to ensure that we’re more transparent, our budget is easier to follow, and we continue to uplift our principles of equity and stability,” Ferebee said.
Some factors to be considered as schools receive their budgets are enrollment, Ferebee said, and the availability of resources to meet student and family needs.
