D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled Tuesday a blueprint for the District’s annual spending plan for each student in its public and charter schools.
Even as D.C. officials deal with likely federal budget cuts, job losses and a loss of an estimated $1 billion in revenue over the next three years, public schools officials said they’ve made tough choices in the 2026 fiscal year budget that protect teachers and students.
The 2026 budget contains a 2.7% increase in spending.
During a budget briefing on Monday, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee and Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn said total spending on education will increase to $2.84 billion, up $123 million from the previous year.
“We are doing this in a way that ensures schools have everything they need to continue their successful path,” Kihn said. “Despite those very difficult budget circumstances, the mayor has decided to continue her and our strategic investment in public schools by increasing the universal per student funding formula by 2.7%.”
Spending per student on what District officials call “foundational” educational programs will also increase incrementally from $14,668 to $15,070 from year-to-year.
“The sustainability fund is designed to ensure that every school has what they need as it relates to the appropriate level of classroom-teacher and student to teacher ratio, based on the ratio for that grade range,” Ferebee said.
The budget challenges come at a time when officials project enrollment in the District’s school system will increase by an estimated 1,000 students to more than 101,000 by fiscal year 2026. If those numbers hold for both the D.C. public schools and public charter schools, it will mark what would be the fourth consecutive year of increases in enrollment.
In the last decade, total enrollment within D.C. schools has jumped more than 14%. City officials said the increase is in part due to the fact that parents who live in the District are confident their children will get a high-quality education in the system.
“We know one of the key foundations to a strong city is making sure that we have a strong public school system that attracts and retains residents,” said Jennifer Reed, director of the D.C. Office of Budget and Performance Management.
In addition to the increased enrollment numbers, officials also cited two other factors — building on the improvements they are seeing coming out the COVID-19 pandemic on overall student test scores and year-over-year sustainability.
“We are one of the few districts that has recovered in math and reading at the level we have, and I think you can see that in the results recently,” Ferebee said. “Enrollment continues to grow, and we also continue to retain effective and highly effective teachers at a high rate.”
However, the budget comes with some cuts. Officials estimate there will be some teachers cut and an equal number of employees at the District’s Central Office may lose their jobs.
“I think schools that are still working through their budgets, so it’s difficult to predict with great specificity where that would be, but I would say maybe 100 or 150 positions would be a rough estimate,” Ferebee said. “For Central Services, we are estimating about 95 to 100 positions, year-over-year. Some of those are granted-funded positions and some are funded locally.”
Regarding the city’s overall budget, officials said the federal government workforce cuts will have a “disproportionate impact on the city’s economy,” when they began working on the spending plan.
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