School Transparency Policy

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to improve accessibility of information for DC public charter school families and other stakeholders by a) increasing the amount of school information publicly available, and b) requiring that schools post this information on their own websites. The DC Public Charter School Board (DCPCSB) has historically posted several school documents on its own website.1 In addition to these existing documents and data, DC PCSB commits to including more information in the future and organizing the information to be easily accessible. However, not all stakeholders intuitively come to DC PCSB’s website when searching for school-specific information and, when schools make material changes to documents mid-year, the posted version on DC PCSB’s website becomes outdated. DC PCSB seeks to provide the public with more accurate information on public charter schools and, to this end, will require that schools publicly post certain documents to their own websites. Schools will be able to make corrections to documents on their websites as needed, whereas before outdated information remained on documents posted to DC PCSB’s website.

Policy

Pending revisions to DC PCSB’s Data and Document Submission Policy, schools will be required to post the following documents publicly on their websites. They will be referred to as “Required Website Documents” throughout this policy.

Required Website Documents

  1. Charter school Board of Trustees meeting calendar, including a notation of which meetings are open to the public, in full or in part

  2. Approved board meeting minutes

  3. School Calendar

  4. Student/ Family Policies, which must include policies around:

    1. Discipline

    2. Attendance

    3. Grievance Procedures

    4. Non-Discrimination

    5. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Notice

    6. Open Meetings

  5. Employee Policies, which must include board-approved policies around compliance with applicable employment law, including:

    1. Sexual harassment

    2. Equal opportunity

    3. Drug-free workplace

    4. Staff complaint resolution process

    5. Whistleblower

  6. School budgets

  7. Form 990s (non-profit tax filings)

  8. Current salaries of the five most highly-compensated individuals in the organization, if over $100,000

  9. Description of at-risk funding plans

  10. Annual report

  11. Contact information for the following school staff: Title IX Coordinator, McKinney-Vento Homeless coordinator; Special Education point of contact

  12. Student enrollment form(s)

  13. Names of all school board members, and contact information for, at minimum, the Chair and Vice Chair