A Last Look at Committee Recommendations

Before Wednesday’s budget vote in the Committee of the Whole, we thought we would do a quick rundown of what made it thru the Committee Markups. So here we go…


Committee on Human Services: Jim Graham, Chairman
Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA)
Employment
-“The Committee directs the agency to work with the advocacy community and foster youth to develop performance outcomes specifically for the Subsidized Employment Program. The agency shall also submit performance outcomes to the Committee by October 31, 2013. Additionally, the agency shall submit the “Subsidized Employment Program Quarterly Report” on the achievement of performance outcomes. The report should detail services all activities related subsidized employment programs, job readiness programs, and vocational training programs. The report should indicate expenditures for each activity, the number of unique youth served within each activity, types of jobs obtained, and the types of vocational trainings youth are enrolled in and have completed. The first quarter report shall be submitted to the Committee no later than January 31, 2014.”

Housing
-Transfer $550,000 from CFSA Personal Services to the Flexible Family Services Fund within CFSA: CSG 50, Activity 3010 (Child Placement), Program 3000 (Community Services). The following populations will be eligible to access the Fund:

- Homeless families who are unable to be served by the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center or the DHS Strong Families Program because there are no placements available and additional family services are needed to avoid their children being removed from their care;
- Families brought to the attention of CFSA due to excessive absenteeism from school;
- Homeless youth ages 16-24; and/or

- The Committee supports the proposed budget allocation of $1,397,000 for the Rapid Housing Program, which maintains the FY 2013 funding level. This program provides short-term subsidies to families for whom the lack of assistance may act as a major barrier to family stabilization, and likely result in an increased number of homeless families and children being brought into care. Additionally, the program provides housing support to young adults transitioning out of foster care. This support is critical to ensure that young adults who need housing support receive it. There has been a steady increase of in the number of homeless families, headed by youth, who recently emancipated from care. Continued support of this program will ensure that leaving foster care is not becoming a pathway to homelessness.


Department of Human Services (DHS)

Homeless Youth Services: “The increasing number of District youth experiencing homelessness is a concern for the Committee given the fact that homeless youth are at especially high risk of for exploitation; dropping out of school; and having health, mental health, and substance abuse problems. The Committee strongly supports the addition of $1 million in the proposed budget for homeless youth services for a total FY 2014 budget allocation of $3.4 million. The Committee notes that the Mayor has also provided $500,000 in FY 2013 funding for youth homeless services. The Committee wants to ensure that additional funding allocated to address the needs of homeless youth is used to expand services for homeless youth who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Questioning (LGBTQ), unaccompanied youth up to 18 years of age, and young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age. The Committee is pleased to accept $486,000 from the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, chaired by Councilmember Mary Cheh, to expand shelter capacity for LGBTQ homeless youth.”

Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (CYITC)
The Trust held steady with the $3 million dollars of funding allocated in the Mayor’s budget being approved by the Committee.

Committee on Workforce and Community Affairs: Marion Barry, Chairman

The full committee report is available here.

Department of Employment Services (DOES)

Programming dollars did not change from the Mayor’s proposed budget which means slight increases to the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Institute and the Summer Youth Employment Program and about a $4 million dollar bump to year-round employment programs. Our policy recommendations were also included in the Committee’s report (pg 27):

-“The Committee additional feels strongly that the agency must begin to build an outcome framework measuring “work readiness” for SYEP and the Office of Youth Programs and create an articulated mission, performance targets, and make public available outcome data and should begin to report outcomes by age range including for 18 to 24 year olds in their adult quarterly outcomes.”

-“It has also been suggested that Summer Youth Employment Program should be built out by take 50 youth and placing in the year round job opportunities to begin to give them a yearly opportunity.”


Department of Park and Recreation (DPR)

Programming dollar amounts suggested in the Mayor’s Proposed Budget held pretty steady in the DPR budget. As with DOES as number of DCAYA’s policy recommendations and concerns about operations rather than dollar amounts made it into the Committee report (pg 32):


-“ Staffing: Staffing continues to be a concern within the Department of Parks and Recreation. In FY2013 oversight hearings, the previous Committee received several complaints about the relocation of staff and programs. Additionally, last year they were concerned with the high number of vacancies, which stood at 68. This year DPR currently has 61 vacancies, which the agency commits to the Committee will be filed by July 2013. These positions are the same positions the agency had a tough time filling last year. In addition, the Mayor in the FY14 budget added an additional 38.2 FTE’s to ensure that there is adequate operational capacity that exists at new facilities and pools expected this upcoming fiscal year. The Committee wants to see the agency focused on filling the hard to fill positions and will work with the agency to address hiring and staffing issues.

Permitting/Field Space Use – DPR moved their permitting system to an electronic system where customers receive status updates on applications that go through the permit process. While it is great has made it easier for residents to sign up for permitting the Committee still has received complaints about an electronic system that is still hard to navigate when applying for permits and additional concerns have stemmed from equitable field use between recreational groups.

In addition, the Committee wants to see an improved permit fee structure. Many residents and Friends groups describe an expensive permit fee for residents compared to non-residents paying for DPR’s recreational facility. The Director of DPR has committed that the agency has begun to resolve this issue and has drafted a restructured permit fee plan that has gone to the Executive for review. The Committee will follow the progress of finalizing a new plan for the District’s permit fees.

Master Plan – DPR has begun the planning process for a new Parks and Recreation Master Plan. The initiative will create a 10-year strategy that will assess the capital and programmatic needs of the Districts parks and recreation system. The Committee is excited by this new endeavor because the plan will allow for DPR begin to strategize and prioritize funding and support for the city’s parks and recreation facilities and programs. “


Office of Human Rights

The biggest change here is the “transfer of $205,983.45 from the DOES to the Office of Human Rights – Equal Justice Program (2030) Investigations to maintain day to day operations in the Office of Human Rights; to implement the Mayor’s Bulling Prevention Task Force Act 2011 and Unemployed Anti-Discrimination Act; maintain civil rights testing an investigative duties; language access annual report; hiring of an office mediator.”


Office of Latino Affairs

The Committee did not fund this recommendation but nevertheless raised concern about a reduction in grant funds for the “Gang Intervention and Prevention Program; Pro-Urban Youth Program; and Youth Incentive and Empowerment Program. These programs totaled around $1.3 million. These programs were successful at reducing gang activity and violence, and created meaningful employment, career and educational opportunities for young people. The Committee is committed to working with the Executive and the agency in looking at other alternative ways in order to address these issues.”

The committee recommended that “ An additional $780,000 be allocated to community grants for a gang prevention and pro-urban youth program in order to reducing gang activity and violence” if funds could be found.

Committee on Education: David Catania, Chairman

Report Here.This budget experienced a lot of changes this year. Maybe the most important lines of the Committee report are here: “The Committee has identified $4,500,000 in savings internal to the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), along with $135,000 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME), to support the following:

- Stabilizing DCPS schools that received more than a 5% gross reduction to their budget
from FY13 to FY14;

- Investing additional resources in summer academic enrichment programs, including the
summer bridge program for rising 9th graders;

- Restoration of reductions in library services for those schools impacted by the change in
policy regarding small school status; and

- Implementation of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) at Woodson
High School.

Other highlights:


-“The Committee has identified $75,000 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor of
Education to support a dedicated liaison for the PCSB to work with government agencies for
purposes of educational planning and to help coordinate the delivery of programs and services at
the individual charter schools.”

-“The Committee has identified $279,671 in savings from the Office of the Deputy Mayor of
Education and the Non-Public Tuition program to support the re-establishment of the Office of
the Ombudsman for Public Education.”


What’s important to remember is that none of the Committee recommendations will be final until tomorrow’s Committee of the Whole vote on the Budget Support Act. It is possible (and in some cases likely) that not all of these recommendations will go through and that by Thursday morning we will have some substantial changes to report out on. In the meantime if you have questions feel free to contact the DCAYA policy team!


And don’t forget, all our recommendations and copies of DCAYA staff and member testimony are available online at dc-aya.org

Skimping on Special Education

Policy Director Suzanne Greenfield from Advocates for Justice and Education guest blogs on the FY 2014 Budget proposals will have on D.C. children with special needs.

According to the District of Columbia Public Schools, there were approximately 8,200 students receiving special education services, this figure does not account for the number of children receiving services in the Public Charter school system.

The District of Columbia estimates that it expects to record a savings of approximately $30 million dollars by bringing special education students back from private school placements. What the District’s budget fails to acknowledge is the cost associated with creating and implementing programming sufficient to meet the needs of those same children.

The budget as proposed by DCPS provides little reinvestment to support students with special needs. Students in the District of Columbia are not placed in private school placements solely due to the will of their parents. The primary reason is that the District has failed to provide adequate services and supports to ensure that the needs of their children are met. 

These savings are not being reprogrammed into special education. A part of the savings is being used to increase the per student formula and the other part will go to support the expansion of services for Early Intervention students between 3 and 5 who have been identified as needing special education. While we whole-heartedly support the expansion of early intervention services - it does not address the needs of the students coming back to the system. We believe that any savings should be proportionately directed to improving and sustaining effective programs, programs that will genuinely support both the students returning from non-public placements and those future students. 

Advocates for Justice and Education (AJE) provides support, education and advocacy for students with special needs. As the Parent Training and Information Center for the District of Columbia we have two major goals: to work collaboratively with schools to improve educational outcomes for children with special needs and to ensure that all children have access to a free and appropriate public education. 

The Mayor has made bringing students back to the city and cutting the cost of non-public placements a priority. While we too would like to see those students have an opportunity to receive their education in a neighborhood school, we see no evidence that the school system is developing the programs to meet those student’s needs let alone the needs of students that are already in the schools.

Special education savings need to be directed to fully funding high quality educational programs. The schools are presently struggling to provide appropriate placements, services and supports for our students – adding more to the mix without first creating programs that are capable of supporting the students they are already serving seems self defeating at best – and truly immoral at worst.

In this city neither school system (DCPS or the charters) has the reputation for ensuring that students with special education needs are being served in an appropriate way. While we have seen individual schools support the needs of their students, we have never seen the school system support the needs of the schools. The issue mirrors the larger education issue in that there is no over arching plan, decisions are not based on actual best practices, and the results are too few and too limited and nothing is sustained long enough to see value. We believe much more needs to be done to improve quality of the programs in place and to ensure that schools are meeting the needs of all their students.

To learn more about Advocates for Justice and Education check out there website at http://www.aje-dc.org/

This blog is brought to you by DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. To stay up-to-date on youth issues in DC visit our website at www.dc-aya.org. You can also FOLLOW and LIKE  us on Twitter and Facebook!  

Reinvesting Savings To Support DC’s Fragile Families

For the fiscal year 2014 budget, Children’s Law Center urges reinvestment in children and families to prevent negative outcomes and avoid more expensive interventions in the future. Changes in policies and practices mean extra savings for the District: $30 million from sending fewer children to non-public schools and about half that amount from the reduction in the number of children in foster care. But these families will still need help from DC’s child- and family-serving agencies. The savings should follow the families and their needs through reinvestment in the education, early childhood, child welfare, and mental health system.

Education

The mayor’s office is planning to bring hundreds of students back to DC public schools (DCPS) from nonpublic placements and saving an anticipated $30 million in FY14 in tuition. While Children’s Law Center shares the hope expressed by Mayor Gray that all DC children be able to attend local schools, in our experience DC schools are already struggling to meet the current demand for special education services. Returning hundreds more children with disabilities to DCPS can only succeed if there is a major financial investment in expanding and improving DCPS’s existing special education services. Rather than such a meaningful financial investment, what is in the budget is simply a small increase to the foundation level for the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula. This increase is no more than what is necessary to account for rising teacher salaries and operating costs. The proportion of the DCPS budget going to special education is unchanged.

Early Childhood 

The FY14 budget for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) includes a significant increase in funding for one of the most critical components of the education system – services for infants and toddlers with developmental delays. Research shows definitively that children’s experiences during their first years of life set the groundwork for their future success. Children who do not receive the specialized supports they need as infants and toddlers have a much harder time making up lost ground later. However, when young children do receive the supports they need, the payoffs are enormous, with long lasting and substantial gains. OSSE has recently expanded the eligibility criteria for DC’s early intervention program and the proposed FY 14 budget provides the funding necessary for this. While DC’s eligibility criteria are still more restrictive than those of 32 other states, this is an important step forward.

Child Welfare

There have been remarkable, positive reforms in DC’s child welfare system. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) Director Brenda Donald and her team have been successful in realigning the agency’s philosophy and practice to remove fewer children from home, place more children with kin, and ensure shorter stays for children who ultimately must be removed and placed into foster care. This is a positive change for children and has resulted in a lower foster care population. With this decrease, it is not surprising to see some decrease in CFSA’s budget, simply because it costs less when fewer children are in foster care. However, the savings should be reinvested in programs that meet the needs of these still fragile families. While children and families are disappearing from the District’s foster care rolls, their needs remain as visible and as striking as ever.

CFSA’s budget proposal includes several reinvestments, to:

• add Family Assessment units to the differential response program
• maintain recently increased subsidies for grandparent caregivers
•  fund substance abuse treatment for families receiving in-home services
• contract for legal services for families before their children are removed

Reinvesting in these and other prevention-focused programs will build stronger families and continue to reduce the need for out-of-home care.


Mental Health

A properly functioning mental health system provides services to ensure children reach developmental milestones, aid their academic achievements, reduce their stays in foster care, and cope with the trauma in their lives rather than repeating the cycle of violence. The money we are not investing in mental health services today is reflected in the money we spend in our special education, foster care and juvenile justice budgets.

It is a positive step that the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) budget has been increased to raise provider reimbursement rates and allow for an increase in other services. Unfortunately, the budget for DBH’s specific children’s programs is flat this year, although the current budget for these programs does not come close to meeting the needs of children with mental health problems in our city. Despite many improvements this past year DC children still have insufficient mental health services to assist them as they struggle to address problems in their families, schools, and community.

The District is seeing savings from reforms – but this money should be reinvested, following the fragile families from one program or one agency to the next. Their need for services is not going away; neither should the funding to serve them.


Judith Sandalow is the executive director of Children’s Law Center, which works to give every child in the District of Columbia a solid foundation of family, health, and education. CLC serves more than 2,000 at-risk children each year. Learn more at www.childrenslawcenter.org or review Children’s Law Center’s testimony at www.childrenslawcenter.org/news-events/testimony-comments.

It's Time We Stopped Paying Mere Lip Service to Youth Workforce Programs

I start every testimony I give in front of the Council with an explanation of who I am, a brief description of who and what DCAYA is, and a quick summary of why we care about about whatever agency or piece of legislation we're about to testify about. When we testify at hearings that deal with youth employment (DOES, WIC, UDC etc) I always include a line or two about how quality youth workforce development programming has the capacity to profoundly affect the life trajectories of thousands of young people here in the District.

Councilmembers usually nod their heads in agreement when I say those words. After all, who in their right mind would disagree with that statement? OF COURSE workforce development programming helps put young people on the right track! It seems fairly simple really,the city pays for programs that help prepare young people for the workforce early on in their working lives and the result is supposed to be that we have a well prepared workforce by the time these young people hit age 25. We have a problem though, and its not exactly a little one. 

Youth  between the ages of 20 and 24 experienced an unemployment rate of 17.7% in 2011. Teenagers (16-19) experienced a rate of 48.2%. The highest unemployment rate for any other age group in the District is 11% ( adults ages 45-54 and 55-64 both experience a rate of 11%).We also have thousands of 16-24 year olds who are not in the labor force at all. Often this is because young people chose not to work because they are full time students (high school or college), but we know from American Community Survey data that at least 10,000 young people are neither in school nor working. These are all indicators that we are doing something wrong.

So, going back to the capacity of youth workforce development programming to profoundly affect the life trajectories of young people; the devil is in the details. We can't just offer workforce development programming and expect it to have the positive effects we want it to. We have to be more strategic and not just because we're spending millions on these programs every year. The young people who take part in these programs do so with the expectation that they will help prepare them for a self-sustaining adulthood. Its with that in mind that DCAYA will be making the following recommendations at tomorrow's FY'14 budget hearing for the Department of Employment Services (DOES) and the Workforce Investment Council (WIC):

Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP)

It'll come as no surprise to followers of this blog, that SYEP is at the top of our list.

SYEP has improved greatly under Director Mallory’s leadership, however, there is much that could still be done to ensure program effectiveness. 

DCAYA Policy Asks: 

1) Use part of the existing SYEP budget to implement a SYEP participant outcomes framework that can measure the “work readiness” knowledge and skills gained by participants as a result of their participation in the program. Implementing an outcomes framework will allow DOES to more accurately gauge which host sites are contributing to young people’s ability to be "work ready" and will allow DOES and the Council to track the effectiveness of the program from year to year.

2) Use part of the existing SYEP budget to require an annual third party evaluation of SYEP so that DOES can continue to build off of the successes of the last three years and foster a culture of continuous improvement. This was done in FY’10 and FY’11 by Brandeis University and the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp (respectively). http://cyc.brandeis.edu/pdfs/reports/DOES%20REPORT%20Unfinished%20Work%20Final.pdf.

Year-Round Programming

The District has a seriously lop sided strategy when it comes to youth workforce development programming. We currently serve about 14,000 youth ages 14-21 during the summer months, but just a few hundred are engaged in year-round opportunities. SYEP should only be a part of the District’s strategy for ensuring young people have early exposure to the world of work and training opportunities to ensure youth are prepared for living-wage jobs. 

DCAYA Policy Asks:

1) Pilot a SYEP “build out” program that takes a subset of SYEP youth and connects them with year-round opportunities for employment using the same model of subsidized employment as SYEP. A small pilot (50 or fewer) could be taken out of the current SYEP budget whereas a larger pilot would require additional funds. It should be noted that while a program for in-school youth would certainly be advantageous for the District, there are currently relatively few opportunities for out-of-school young people to make positive connections with the workforce.

2) Standardize a referral system for SYEP participant that connects participants both in and out of school with year-round opportunities. DOES began to do this last year and referred a number of young people into pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training opportunities, but this work could be further expanded. If we knew this process was happening in a standard and formalized way, DOES could even use the number of referrals made to other programs as a measure of success for SYEP.

3) Ensure young people are appropriately supported in programming by better targeting services. A key reason this isn't happening now is because DC has a dearth of program options. We have SYEP in the summer, but then as we mentioned we have a small fraction of those 14,000 slots during the year. Young people over 18 can access "adult" services, but are not always appropriately supported by these options. In- school youth can enroll is different options like afterschool or college preparation programs, but these are not necessarily focused on workforce preparation. We need a more extensive menu of services that can serve different populations of young people, and to do that more funds must be invested in year-round programming rather than SYEP.

Performance Metrics and Outcomes Reporting

 Much like SYEP, many of our year-round programs (PYAP, High School Internship Program, Youth Connection Center) run by DOES currently lack of performance outcomes which would allow the city to accurately gauge program performance and effectiveness. 

DCAYA Policy Asks:

1) All programs overseen by the DOES Office of Youth Programs (OYP) should have articulated missions, youth outcomes frameworks, performance targets and publically available outcomes data. It’s not enough for DOES to run programs we need to know they are quality! Once outcome measures for all programming are established DOES should report out on those measures quarterly with their adult outcomes.

2) To facilitate this OYP must create a new strategic plan for “Youth Workforce Development”. Essential elements of such a document to ensure utility include: a) An articulation of how all of DOES youth programs and adult programs for 18-24 year olds fit into a larger web of service provision and what other agencies they connect to for wrap-around supports and or connection to academic outcomes (where appropriate) b) A clear mission/vision for each of the youth and young adult serving programs and an explanation of how each program directly or indirectly contributes to a well prepared District workforce c) A set youth outcomes framework for every program that OYP operates that includes data such as attrition rate, number of youth achieving academic benchmarks (grade level gains, GED/diploma attainment), work readiness benchmarks, employment gains/retention d) A budget breakdown of the costs associated with setting up program monitoring and data collection for all youth and young adult programs. This should include a breakdown of how much internal staff time needs to be dedicated to managing and monitoring different programs.

These recommendations cover a wide spectrum of issues and will take a lot of work on the part of DOES, especially the office of Youth Programs to implement. It won't be easy, but as a city we must stop paying lip service to the importance of youth programs and services and actually start managing for long term success. Our current approach may be working for some, but it clearly isn't working for enough. Here at DCAYA, we really do believe that youth workforce programs can have lasting positive effects for young people, but that can only occur when individual programs work strategically as part of a larger system of workforce readiness and preparation. We look look forward to hearing what plans DOES and the WIC have to make a "youth workforce system" a reality at tomorrow's hearing.

The witness list for tomorrow's hearing is available here.

This blog post was written by DCAYA Policy Analyst Anne Abbott.

For more information on DCAYA's work around youth workforce development please visit us online at dc-aya.org.

You can also follow us @dcaya or like us on facebook here.

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Time Limit Exemptions Give Young Parents the Time to Prepare for Good Jobs

When thinking about the District’s TANF program, one overlooked fact is that many of the families receiving benefits are headed by a young parent (one who is 24 years of age or younger). Research has consistently found that youth need a different set of services and supports than older adults to succeed, and thus we should not assume that the current TANF time limit policy — which applies to all families regardless of their situation — will fit the needs of young heads of household.

Instead, young parents would be much more likely to succeed if the District created time limit exemptions to allow them to finish job training or education without losing the benefits they need to support themselves and their children.

Service providers who work with young parents in the District see the time extension as a common-sense policy. Lena Heid, Case Manager and Parent Educator at the Latin American Youth Center’s (LAYC) transitional living program for young parents says that many young parents are still trying to get on their feet, adjust to new roles as parents and finish school. “If the TANF benefits are not extended youth may have to choose between working full time and going to school” she said. “TANF is the only thing that allows some of our young parents to finish school.”

Since young parents are still in the process of transitioning to adulthood while managing the demands of a family, offering them the additional support makes sense. Patricia Santucci, Director of Student Support Services at the LAYC Career Academy says that the added financial assistance will affect youth’s choices to continue in education programs versus leaving programs to go to work or stay at home with the kids. “If we are trying to encourage young people to be responsible parents and more productive in the community and care for themselves . . . an extension offered while youth are doing something productive is something that would be helpful” Santucci said.

Another important distinction for young parents is the need for more time to acquire skills and education than many adults. “When older parents fall on hard times, they may have had the time to gain the skills or education, and TANF is temporary assistance” said Lena Heid.

“Young people may not have work experience or even the time to obtain work experience” says Patricia Santucci, “while adults who have kids have had the time to do this. We don’t want young people to get to 30 or 40 years old without education or work experience.” Santucci said.

“This is a good thing for our parents, that they can receive benefits and work on their education and hopefully in the future …see higher advancement in a career … it takes that pressure off of them, instead of thinking, ‘how am I going to survive?’ and then repeating the cycle [of intergenerational poverty].” said Eric Collins, Manager of Residential Programs at Sasha Bruce Youthwork.

Recognizing that young people have different needs than their adult counterparts, the District should align its time limit policy with the needs of young families.

For more information on DCAYA’s work around supporting young parents please visit our policy and advocacy pages at www.dc-aya.org.

This post was written by DCAYA Policy Associate Susan Ruether. To stay up-to-date on current youth issues, make sure to FOLLOW us on Twitter and LIKE us on Facebook.  

OSSE,Deputy Mayor for Ed. and State Board of Education Hearing Re-cap

It seems like only yesterday we were asking our members to preemptively get budget season on their minds and yet a couple months later here we are in the middle of the FY'14 budget season. Yesterday's OSSE/DME/SBOE hearing put us just over the halfway point for hearings so we thought we would share some of the highlights for those of you who couldn't make it or didn't tune in to listen to all 76 witnesses (big shout out to OSSE here for organizing so many of their grantees and supporters!).

So, onto the major points on the youth front from yesterday's hearing:

1) Fund Pathways to Adult Literacy: Many of you may know that the Mayor's "wish list" of funding proposals includes a $4 million dollar bump to the Office of Adult and Family Education at OSSE, but many constituents (DCAYA included) testified today to take that priority off the "wish list" and move it into OSSE's operating budget for FY'14. The Youth-Friendly DC readership may remember the blog post we did around the time of OSSE's performance hearing on why "adult" literacy services could also be considered youth literacy services, but beyond that its also important to fund these services at an appropriate level because one of the number one predictors of K-12 students academic success is their parents literacy level. Many of the witnesses at yesterday's hearing were their representing OSSE's adult basic education grantees and they gave some very moving testimony on why funding adult literacy services is of the utmost importance.

2) Support is High for the Dual Enrollment Fund: As the always eloquent Nicole Hanrahan from DCAYA member org LAYC mentioned in her testimony, the Dual Enrollment Fund that was established by OSSE earlier this year has made college level coursework a reality for dozens of students in the District. Dual enrollment is an often cited strategy for decreasing high school dropout, increasing college access and retention and is a very promising strategy for students who are seeking to earn an alternative high school credential such as the GED. A number of students, CBOs and even representatives from local post-secondary institutions like Trinity, Howard and the Community College testified on the importance of this fund. Chairman Catania did voice a willingness to find funding to bolster the Dual Enrollment fund in the future, but he did say today that his current funding priority is the Pathways to Adult Literacy Fund.

3) Ensure the Career and Technical Education Line Item Holds Steady: As you may have read in our first take on the budget a few weeks back, the CTE line item in OSSE's budget is set to experience a cut of about $300,000. We have spoken with OSSE about this cut, and it sounds as though this cut is not a true cut and current programming levels will hold. It is important to recognize thought that for OSSE to carry out the recommendations of the CTE Task Force that met last fall, more funds will likely be needed. DCAYA's testimony raised this point in conjunction with a few other stakeholders.

4) Fund the Education Ombudsman Office:There was some chatter late last year about re-funding this office and here at DCAYA we are generally supportive of funding an office in the education cluster who has the sole responsibility of being responsive to parents and students who are having issues in both DCPS and Charters. The District is legally required to have and Ombudsman, however the position was only ever funded for one year. Both Chairman Catania and Council member Grosso seemed to support bringing back an Ombudsman.

There were a number of points made by various stakeholders at the hearing about the early education expansion planned by OSSE for FY'14. Sharra Greer's testimony from Children's Law Center, gives a fantastic overview of some of the planned changes. This however is not DCAYA's area of expertise so we'll leave that one to the experts to cover.

This post was written by DCAYA Policy Analyst Anne Abbott. To contact her with questions or concerns you can email her here.

Don't forget to FOLLOW DCAYA on Twitter and LIKE us on Facebook so you can stay up-to-date on youth issues in the District.

Prepping for the FY'14 CYITC Budget Hearing

 Hopefully everyone reading this has already signed up to testify at Thursday mornings budget hearing for the Children Youth Investment Trust Corporation, and you’re amping up to explain to Council why investments in our youth intermediary and expanded learning sector are important. On the off chance that you’re still working on your testimony, or want a little more information before you take the plunge we thought we’d use today’s blog post to hit on the budget highlights that will impact expanded learning programming and provide some additional food for thought on crafting your testimony. 

The funding stream to support expanded learning programs is diverse, however recognizing that we already touched on DCPS last week, we’ll focus this analysis solely on CYITC ( the Trust). The Mayor’s proposed budget has kept the funding to the Trust flat at $3,000,000. At this mark:

· The Trust will be stretched to sustain support for the 3,100 youth who received Trust funded programming this year;

· The availability of summer grants will depend entirely on year-end savings or a budget surplus (as has been the case the last two years and is never a safe way to plan funding or programming);

· The Trust will remain unable to provide training and technical assistance, capacity development support, research, and evaluation to understand what works and what to grow within the youth serving sector; all of which are a primary components of the Trust’s mission and mandate.

At the same time however, the Mayor has indicated that an additional infusion of operating funds to the Trust is a priority if the money can be identified in the FY’14 Budget; and Council is still deciding how to allocate the FY’13 supplemental funds. This means we have the opportunity to make a thoughtful ask and clear recommendation at Thursday’s hearing.

The ask: We ask for an (at minimum) infusion of $2,000,000 into the Trust’s FY’14 Budget to ensure that the current level of school-year programming is sustained and high performing organizations can scale up additional services to reach far more youth (point of reference- a $1,000,000 increase would serve an additional 1,430 youth in year round programming); it would help to ensure the availability of youth development programming during the summer of 2014; and would provide the Trust with the necessary operating funds to reinvigorate their work as a capacity builder, trainer and data hub able to support and report back to key decision makers about the needs and opportunities within the field of youth development.

The recommendation/Where should the money come from: The Mayor’s proposed supplemental budget includes over $118,000,000 for Department of Parks and Recreation facilities.Obviously this is an admirable investments; but the removal of $2,000,000  will have a minimal impact on these projects while significantly expanding the availability and quality of youth development programs that we know will reap academic, social, emotional and health rewards for years to come.

The final question is, how do we make the case? The first step is being present on Thursday to give your testimony and show your support for the importance of a solid public-private youth development intermediary. We strongly encourage you to check out our talking points on this hearing which can be found here. If you’re feeling especially ambitious, we encourage you to recruit others (parents, youth, volunteers, board members, alumni) to do the same.

If you can’t make it Thursday, a second option is to commit to getting 10 people from your network (personal and professional) to call or email the members of the Committee on Human Services and their council member to tell them why expanded learning is important and why they should invest in the youth development programming and services. The opportunities presented by the supplemental budget, while not a guarantee beyond next year, shouldn't be forgotten in our advocacy work or asks this budget season- but as always, it will take a collective and loud voice to make this happen.

This blog post was written by DCAYA's Executive Director Maggie Riden. For more information on DCAYA's work in the fields of positive youth development and expanded learning please visit the Policy and Advocacy section of our website.