Wednesday, July 19, 2017

DCAYA stands with the Every Student, Every Day Coalition

Monday evening the Washington Post released an article, Some D.C. High Schools Are Reporting Only a Fraction of Suspensions, detailing the practice at various DCPS high schools of placing students on “do not admit” lists without properly documenting the suspension and without properly marking the student’s absence as excused. In short, actively denying students their right to a free public education. Tuesday morning, The Post released a supplemental article detailing their methodology.

DCAYA stands with the Every Student, Every Day Coalition in condemning this practice.

"The below members of the Every Student, Every Day Coalition condemn the pervasive use of undocumented suspensions and fraudulent attendance record-keeping practices at several DC Public Schools (DCPS) high schools.  Last night, the Washington Post released an article, Some D.C. High Schools Are Reporting Only a Fraction of Suspensions (Matos & Brown, July 17, 2017), detailing the practice at various DCPS high schools of placing students on “do not admit” lists without properly documenting the suspension and without properly marking the student’s absence as excused."

Read the rest of the statement here.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

🎶 Summertime, and the city’s steamy…

But that’s not stopping thousands of 14-24 year olds from participating in the District’s 2017 Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program.


Summer jobs have been a hot topic on the national scene this year, as research shows that they are in sharp decline. According to a recent piece in the Atlantic by Derek Thompson, “In the summer of 1978, 60 percent of teens were working or looking for work. Last summer, just 35 percent were.” Thompson quickly debunks a knee-jerk explanation: “kids are lazier these days!” In fact, data shows the number of youth in the US who are disconnected from education, employment or training has remained remarkably flat—meaning through one or more of these activities, youth are keeping busy. More likely (and obvious to those familiar with youth development) is a confluence of factors including increasing competition for entry-level and lower-skill work, greater pressure for youth to utilize summer months to get ahead or keep pace in their studies, the heavy reliance on unpaid internships for early work experience, and a national decline in federally funded summer jobs.

Thursday, July 06, 2017

A Fourth of July recap!

With such a short week, we thought we'd do a round-up of Independence Day highlights from DCAYA member organizations, for a 2nd year in a row.