D.C. finds funds for new charters

Washington, D.C., will use a $7.5 million education reserve fund to pay for the seven former Catholic schools slated to reopen as secular charter schools next month. The Catholic school conversions are unusual because most charters spend 12 to 15 months between approval and opening to find buildings and staff. The seven campuses are ready to accept students. The schools are estimating enrollment at 1,255, higher than the 1,094 originally forecast.
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FROM JUNE 2008: The Washington, D.C., Public Charter School Board has approved a proposal to allow seven financially struggling Catholic schools to reopen as secular charters this fall. The schools have a total projected enrollment estimated at 600 to 1,000 students. The board's unanimous vote continues the steady growth of the city's charter sector, with 57 schools and more than 20,000 students across 88 campuses this fall.
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FROM NOVEMBER 2007: The Archdiocese of Washington says it plans to convert seven Washington, D.C., Catholic schools to charter schools, a decision that angers some parents, students and teachers who worried over the fate of their parochial schools. The schools are elementary-level, have nearly all-African American student bodies and are in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. To become charter schools, they would have to make changes such as ending school prayer and removing religious symbols. But as charter schools, which are independent public schools, they would receive operating funds from the District.
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FOLLOWUP: The announcement by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington that it plans to convert seven Washington, D.C., schools to charter schools has forced teachers, students and parents to begin contemplating something that seems unreal: what a Catholic school education would be without religion.
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EARLIER: Washington, D.C., Roman Catholic Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl is considering plans from three Catholic schools that want to continue operating as parochial schools instead of being converted to charter schools. Representatives of St. Francis de Sales and St. Gabriel schools will meet with archdiocese officials this week to flesh out their plans, and St. Augustine School already has filed its proposal. Five other schools have not submitted plans and probably will face conversion. Last month, Wuerl proposed that eight of 12 Catholic schools operating as the Center City Consortium convert to charter schools -- a move that would allow them to operate with public funds. (Washington Post)

Catholic officials in Washington, D.C., are proposing to convert eight of the city's 28 Catholic schools into secular charter schools. The archdiocese says can no longer afford to keep the schools open. Officials say the only way to avoid closing them and would continue the education of thousands of low-income city children without interruption is to strip the schools of their core religious identity and turn them over to a nonsectarian entity to be run as charter schools. (Washington Post)