Fillmore Arts Center Faces Funding Cuts

The Fillmore Arts Center faces "devastating" funding cuts under the proposed DC Public Schools (DCPS) budget for the 2013-2014 school year, according to a letter from the Friends of Fillmore.

The Friends group emailed parents of children who attend the program, housed at Hardy Middle School, asking them to sign a petition to get Chancellor Kaya Henderson to restore funding to the program. According to the petition, next year Fillmore will serve about 3,000 students across eight public schools, include Georgetown's Hyde-Addison Elementary and Glover Park's Stoddert Elementary.

The 2013-2014 cuts come after a series of budget cuts each year for four years, according to the Friends of Fillmore. The most recent round could mean cutting four of the remaining five full-time staff positions at the Arts Center.

Parents are asking Henderson to restore $300,000 in funding to return Fillmore to its 2011-2012 funding levels.

Why would DCPS take money away from a school that offers more in-depth programming—including an auditorium, graphic design lab and kiln—than any neighborhood school could provide on its own?

"DCPS is strapped for cash. It is easier for them to find money by taking it from Fillmore than from taking from any individual school," Peter Eisler, the treasurer of Friends of Fillmore, told Patch.

Fillmore lacks the same level of dedicated constituency that you might find in a neighborhood school in part because the children only attend class there once a week, Eisler explained.

DCPS says Fillmore's funding decreased because several schools dropped out of the program.

"It's pretty straightforward," Melissa Salmanowitz, a DCPS spokeswoman, told Patch.

But funding data from the Friends of Fillmore shows that between fiscal year (FY) 2011 and FY 2014, per pupil funding decreased by 40 percent, a change that is independent of number of schools involved in the program.

Next year, even after several schools leave, Fillmore will have about the same number of students as it did in FY 2012, but it is getting about $300,000 less than it did then. Instead of about $444 per student, Fillmore will have about $354 per student.

"I don’t agree with these kinds of cuts," Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans told Patch.

The school system gets a two percent increase in funding each year and Evans believes each school should be funded at at least the rate it was the previous year.

"They have a lot of money. They have to prioritize how they spend the money," said Evans.

Arts education should be a priority, he said.

Last legislative session, Evans introduced the “Public School Librarians, Art and Music Teacher Act of 2012,” would require each public school to have a full time librarian, art teacher and music teacher.

Salmanowitz said DCPS is providing an allocation to schools for arts and music teachers and that perhaps those funds made it possible for fewer schools to reply on Fillmore.

But, the Fillmore petition says that DCPS "prohibits new schools from joining the Fillmore program," something that would help Fillmore recoup some of its lost funding.

As of Friday evening, Salmanowitz was unable to comment on the changes in per-student funding or the prohibition on adding new schools to the Fillmore program to replace the schools that have left.

Should the budget cuts go through, Principal Katherine Latterner has created a new budget for the school that would require her to replace four full-time teaching positions with part-time hourly positions.

"Our fear is we are going to lose some of our very best teachers," Eisler said.

You can read the full petition here.