The Functions of the Washington D.C. State Board of Education
The District of Columbia State Board of Education (SBOE) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the Government of the District of Columbia. It plays a crucial role in shaping the educational landscape of the District. The SBOE works to advise the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), which is the District’s state education agency.
Composition and Election of the Board
The Board is composed of nine elected representatives, each representing their respective wards, with one member representing D.C. at large, in addition to two student representatives. The District of Columbia elects members to four-year terms on the State Board of Education in all even-numbered years. Members representing the city at large and wards 2, 4, 7, and 8 are elected on presidential election years, while members representing wards 1, 3, 5, and 6 are elected in midterm election years.
The qualifications for serving on the board are laid out in § 38-2651e of the District of Columbia Code. Board members must be eligible voters living in the ward they represent who have lived in that ward for at least one year prior to the election. They must not hold other elective office or serve as an employee of the municipal government or of the board itself.
Vacancy Appointments
The procedure for vacancy appointments is laid out in § 1-1001.10e of the District of Columbia Code. In the event of a vacancy on the board, the District of Columbia Board of Elections calls a special election to fill the vacant seat. In the event of a vacancy of an elected member of the State Board of Education, the Board of Elections shall hold a special election to fill the unexpired term of the vacant office. The special election shall be held on the Tuesday occurring at least 70 days and not more than 174 days after the date on which the vacancy occurs which the Board determines, based on a totality of the circumstances, taking into account, inter alia, cultural and religious holidays and the administrability of the election, will provide the opportunity for the greatest level of voter participation.
Duties and Responsibilities
The duties of the board are laid out in § 38-2652 of the District of Columbia Code. The board is tasked with advising the state superintendent on educational matters as well as approving academic standards. The board is also given authority to oversee the Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education and the Office of the Student Advocate.
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The State Board is responsible for advising the State Superintendent of Education on educational matters, including: state standards; state policies, including those governing special, academic, vocational, charter and other schools; state objectives; and state regulations proposed by the Mayor or the State Superintendent of Education.
The SBOE's role is to advise the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (another new body created by PERAA). The SBOE does not have the authority to initiate policies. PERAA specified that the SBOE would “advise the State Superintendent” or “approve” policies on matters such as state standards and state policies in particular areas.
Compensation
Compensation for members of the board is laid out in § 1-611.10 of the District of Columbia Code. It empowers the District of Columbia City Council to establish compensation rates for members of the board.
Vision and Mission
The Vision Statement of the D.C. State Board of Education is that all District of Columbia students acquire the skills and knowledge to lead healthy, productive lives as engaged global citizens in a democratic society.
The Mission Statement of the District of Columbia State Board of Education is to provide policy leadership, support, advocacy, and oversight of public education to ensure that every student is valued and learns the skills and knowledge necessary to become informed, competent, and contributing global citizens.
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The State Board views its role in the achievement of this mission as one of shared responsibility, whereby it engages families, students, educators, community members, elected officials and business leaders to play a vital role in preparing every child for college and/or career success.
The Equity Framework
The State Board believes all students deserve access to high-quality instruction and necessary support to meet their full potential according to a range of academic and 21st-century learning standards. By utilizing an Equity Framework, the State Board aims to provide a common vocabulary and protocol for evaluating and filtering policies, proposals, and decisions. By adopting such a framework, the State Board acknowledges these areas as priority on a perpetual basis. The Equity Framework stands to serve as an institutional guiding force for the State Board’s work through changes in its leadership from year to year or the numerous issues that arise any given year. The Equity Framework’s focus areas are intentionally broad so as to not overly limit the State Board’s actions.
Historical Context
Historically, the District of Columbia Board of Education was the central policymaking entity on education matters.
Authority for the establishment of public education in the District of Columbia was granted by the United States Congress in 1802, when the existing Commissioner system of government was abolished and a mayor-council government created. Two years later, a 13-member Board of Trustees was established to oversee schools in the District. Seven members were appointed by the mayor, while the remaining six were elected by those citizens who had donated funds to the city's school system.
The City Council divided the District of Columbia into two school districts in 1816. One was governed by the existing Board of Trustees, and the other by a board appointed by the council.
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For most of the 19th century, the District of Columbia was divided into three distinct legal entities: The Federal City (consisting mostly of the area south of Florida Avenue), the town of Georgetown, the town of Alexandria, and the County of Washington (that part of the District not included in the previous three entities). In 1842, Georgetown established a seven-member Board of School Guardians to oversee private schools receiving public funds. Two years later, the Federal City's two school boards were merged into a single 13-member board. Three board members were appointed by the council from each of the city's four wards, while the mayor served as the board president.
Schools in the District of Columbia were segregated by race from the beginning. Although the city's first school for African American children was created in 1807, it was not until 1862 that an oversight body was created for these schools. That year, the United States Secretary of the Interior established and appointed a Board of Trustees for Colored Schools.
In 1864, Congress enacted legislation establishing a seven-member School Commission to oversee public schools in Washington County. The District of Columbia's first Superintendent of Education was created by the City Council in 1869.
In 1871, Congress merged the county, Georgetown, and Federal City into a single legal entity (Alexandria having been retroceded to Virginia in 1846). The new "territorial government" retains school boards for the Federal City, Georgetown, and old county, and appoints a superintendent of education for each board.
Congress abolished the territorial government in 1874, and created a three-member commission to oversee the District of Columbia. Congress also abolished all the city's school boards and replaced them with a single, 19-member Board of School Trustees. Congress also required the commissioners to appoint two superintendents of education, one for white schools and one for black schools.
Congress reduced the size of the board to nine members in 1882, and required that three of them be African Americans. The commissioners attempted to take over the duties of the board of trustees in 1885, but protests from city residents forced the commissioners to return many of these powers to the board.
After a political struggle for control over public schools led to a congressional investigation in 1900, Congress significantly reformed public school governance again. New legislation established a seven-member Board of Education (BOE) whose members were appointed by the city's three federal commissioners. The BOE was given complete control over the public schools, and had the sole authority to appoint a superintendent and two assistant superintendents (one for white and one for black schools). The BOE also had the authority to hire and fire teachers and other school employees.
Dissatisfied with the political nature of the commissioners' appointments to the BOE, in 1906 Congress reformed the Board of Education yet again. The board was expanded to nine members, three of whom were required to be women. The authority to appoint board members was turned over to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and the authority of the BOE was strengthened and clarified (although budgetary authority remained with the commissioners). A tradition emerged in which three of the BOE's members were African American (two men and one woman). In 1936, Congress changed the name of the court to the District Court for the District of Columbia.
In 1954, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Bolling v. 497 (1954), which desegregated public schools in the District of Columbia.
In 1966, local school activist Julius Hobson sued the public school system, arguing that black-majority schools in the District of Columbia were being deprived of resources. He argued the judges were caught by a conflict of interest by appointing the BOE and then later ruling on desegregation lawsuits involving the city schools. In Hobson v. Hansen, 269 F.Supp. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in Hobson's favor. (An appeal by the superintendent of education failed in 1969.) The Hobson ruling led to widespread criticism of the existing BOE and governance structure of the D.C.
In 1939, writing on behalf of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, Superintendent Frank Ballou denied a request by contralto Marian Anderson to sing at the auditorium of the segregated white Central High School. As justification, he cited a federal law from 1906 requiring separate schools for the District. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from that organization in protest, author Zora Neale Hurston criticized her for remaining silent about the fact that the Board had also excluded Anderson. “As far as the high-school auditorium is concerned,” Hurston declared “to jump the people responsible for racial bias would be to accuse and expose the accusers themselves. The District of Columbia has no home rule; it is controlled by congressional committees, and Congress at the time was overwhelmingly Democratic. It was controlled by the very people who were screaming so loudly against the DAR.
President Lyndon B. Johnson abolished the commissioner system of government in 1967, creating a new mayor-council form of government (albeit one appointed by the President of the United States). The following year, Congress enacted legislation creating an 11-member elected Board of Education. Fifty-three candidates ran for election to the board. With no clear winners, a run-off election was held on November 26, 1968. Hobson himself was elected to the BOE as an at-large member in 1969.
With the city mismanaged and nearing bankruptcy, Congress enacted legislation in April 1995 creating the District of Columbia Financial Control Board. Budget authority over the public school system was stripped from the city, and given to the Control Board. That same year, under pressure from Congress, the Council of the District of Columbia enacted a package of educational reform proposals which included the establishment of charter schools in the District of Columbia for the first time. The reform legislation also created a new, independent District of Columbia Public Charter School Board to oversee these new schools.
In November 1996, the Control Board seized control of the D.C. public school system. Superintendent Franklin L. Smith was fired, and Lt. Gen. Julius W. Becton, Jr. was hired as the new superintendent. The BOE was stripped of nearly all its authority, and a new, nine-member Emergency Transitional Education Board of Trustees (appointed by the Control Board) took control of the school system.
With the city's finances stabilizing, Congress enacted the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997. The BOE's deliberations proved rancorous in 1998. Beginning in April 1998, the chairman of the council's education committee, Kevin P. Chavous, led a nine-month effort to reconstitute and reform the Board of Education. After a long battle with mayor-elect Anthony A. Williams and other council members, the Council approved a Chavous-backed plan to reduce the size of the board from 11 members to seven. Two of the city's political wards would elect a representative to the new board (for a total of four members), while two members and the board president would be elected at-large.
Ultimately, voters approved a "hybrid" board consisting of nine members-- four elected by four new school election districts combining two wards each, one at-large Board President, and four mayoral appointees-- in a close vote in June 2000.
The Control Board gave up its governance authority over the BOE in January 1999, after Anthony A. Just nine months after taking up his second term in office, Mayor Williams introduced legislation to strip the BOE of nearly all its power, giving this to the mayor. Under Williams' proposal, the mayor would have the right to hire and fire the superintendent, principals, teachers, and other workers, and would gain significant new powers to reconstitute programs, operations, curriculum, and even entire schools.
The "Public Education Reform Act Amendments of 2007" (PERAA) replaced the existing Board of Education with a new State Board of Education (SBOE).
Current Focus
The D.C. State Board of Education will advocate for and take action to expand access to culturally relevant pedagogy within D.C. schools and anti-racist professional development opportunities for D.C.
All students, parents, educators, and community members are invited to provide testimony at public meetings, which are held the third Wednesday of every month at 5:30 pm.
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