Hugh Allen, Candidate for
Wards 3 and 4 Representative to the Board of Education in the
November 7, 2000, General Election
Parents United for DC Public Schools questionnaire, October 2000

What are your three highest priorities for the Board? What will you do about them?

1. Teachers and Principals

Unless we improve their working conditions, we will continue to lose good teachers and principals and not be competitive in hiring outstanding teachers and principals. We have to pay them more and pay them on time. The current payroll system must be overhauled and separated from the city’s payroll system. Adequate supplies and updated textbooks must be available and delivered timely. Additional instructional aides must be employed to assist teachers in classrooms. A first rate professional development and training program must be available for teachers and a two-year executive development program should be established for recruiting and promoting new principals.

2. Special Needs Populations

We are expending an extraordinary amount of the school system’s budget (approximately 200 million dollars) on special education. Approximately 48% of this expenditure is paid to private institutions outside the school system. Our public school system needs more programs to meet the special education needs of our children. We can correct this inefficient expenditure of funds by creating quality special needs programs. Through the leadership and experience of

Dr. Paul Vance in managing Montgomery County Public Schools’ exemplary special education programs, the School Board will request him to design and develop new and improved special education programs for DC public schools.

3. Facilities

The average age of the school buildings is approximately 65 years old and they are functionally obsolete to meet today’s educational needs and requirements.

All schools must be either modernized or replaced and alternative uses must be identified for excess space. I recommend that next year we issue contracts for modernizing or rebuilding 8 schools. In addition, we need a comprehensive maintenance and repair program to respond timely and adequately to current school building needs. Additional custodial staff must be hired to help maintain these buildings.

What is the role of parents in the DCPS at both the individual school and city-wide. Should the Local School Restructuring Teams be continued and if so, how can they be made more effective?

Individual School - Be supportive of the teachers and principals to provide an excellent education and learning environment for your children; keep informed about school activities in which your children can participate (field trips, sports, music, plays, and clubs); and identify how you may volunteer to support your local school, for example, join the PTA, offer to tutor students that need help with their studies, sponsor an open-house for new parents at your school, volunteer to help read to students, provide language translation at school meetings, assist in the library, and link supportive community resources to your local school.

City Wide - Join in coalition with other parents and stakeholders to ensure that the DCPS, the City Council, and the Office of the Mayor provide adequate resources to provide excellent education in all our public schools. Such organizations include the DC Congress of PTAs, parents United, and The Senior High Alliance of Presidents, Principals, and Educators (S.H.A.P.P.E.)

Absolutely, the LSRTs should be maintained and supported to continue their advisory role at the local school level. They are a critical component of good local school management. The school system can help the LSRTs be more effective by providing them with technical assistance in such areas as, budget development, long-range planning, developing a local school plan, team building, and in understanding their role and responsibilities as an advisory body to the administration of their schools.

What is your view of the facilities planning process now underway?

As a member of the Committee of 21 (parent/citizen advisory committee to the Board of Education for long-range facilities plan), I believe the facilities planning process is a positive step in developing, for the first time in 30 years, a long- range plan to modernize and replace all our aging schools.

This planning process has constructively engaged the stakeholders (parents, administrators, teachers, business leaders, community leaders, ANCs, and faith-based organizations) in planning for the best educational facilities for our children. It will enable us to identify the financial and other support resources we need to build new or refurbished schools. For the first time, this process has helped us to develop building standards to meet the needs of students’ present and future public education.

Also, the facilities planning process has clearly demonstrated that we need a comprehensive maintenance and repair system while the school buildings are being modernized or built new. It has provided abundant information about the status of each of our schools, student population trends; and as participants in the process, we are receiving expert advice to help us make decisions about current local school building needs as well as future needs.

What has been your personal involvement with DC Public Schools? Have your children been enrolled and for how long? Why are you interested in this position?

I have over 20 years of parent involvement and local school leadership in DC public schools. My participation includes the following:

• DC Congress of PTA’s - current Board Member
• 1997 - 2000 - Co- President - Woodrow Wilson PTSA and Local School Restructuring Team (LSRT)
• 1999 - Member of Principal Selection Committee for Wilson
• 1996 -1997- Vice President for Special Projects -Wilson PTSA
• 1988 - Community Representative - Woodrow Wilson PTSA
• 1985 - Education Committee - Alice Deal Junior High PTA
• 1979 - Co-Chair of Fund Raising - Hearst Elementary School PTA
• 1981 to present - Member of Parents United

Our three children attended DC public schools. Our oldest graduated from Woodrow Wilson Senior High in 1988 and our youngest graduated in 1999.

I want to bring my years of public school experience and success in working with parents of all backgrounds to the position of the new District 2 School Board Representative. I will welcome the opportunity to join in partnership with our outstanding Superintendent, Dr. Paul Vance and the new School Board, to provide the policy support and the necessary resources for the Superintendent and his staff to carry out the following actions:

1. improve the working conditions of teachers and principals which includes paying them more and on time; hiring more instructional aids for the classroom; providing adequate classroom supplies; and establishing first-rate professional development training for teachers
2. provide smaller, nurturing learning environments of 20 students to 1 teacher
3. make schools into community learning centers with state of the art libraries, technologically linked to all classrooms
4. develop a five (5) year budget to stop the annual budget fight;
5. develop a comprehensive school building maintenance and repair system link more of DC’s abundant community resources to schools
6. start rebuilding or modernizing in 2001, a school in each ward and continue each year until the master facilities plan is complete
7. link our schools to more supportive community resources.
8. overhaul the management systems (payroll. personnel, budget, finance, and procurement)

As a Senior Advisor in economic development at the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the skills that I bring to this elected position include project financing, contract management, and asset/facilities management.

How can you avoid the acrimonious relationships between board members, and between the School Board, Superintendent, Mayor and Council that have prevented a concerted effort to bring to our children’s schools all of the resources needed to provide the high quality of public education our children need and our city needs for them?

1. The new School Board and new Superintendent should enter into a Memorandum of Understanding concerning the goals and priorities for achieving educational excellence for all our children. The MOU should outline the process and procedure for resolving differences, not only with the Superintendent, but among the School Board members.
2. The new School Board should have orientation sessions and training about how a policy-making body operates and governs itself. The new School Board should develop procedures for initiating and creating policies, monitoring, and evaluating the impact of their policies.
3. The Superintendent, the School Board, the office of the Mayor and the City Council should negotiate and develop a five-year plan and budget resolution for providing the money and necessary support resources for meeting the educational needs of our public school children. This plan will provide, the community, the Mayor and the City Council, an opportunity to evaluate the annual progress of the DCPS in achieving its goals and priorities. It will reduce the tension and the acrimony of the budget fight that takes place each year in determining the budget of schools.