Education and quality of life took center stage at a recent forum with the two candidates vying for Ward 3’s seat on the DC Council: Democratic incumbent Mary Cheh and independent challenger Petar Dimtchev.
With the Nov. 6 election approaching, the two are scheduled for another joint appearance this week — just days after The Washington Post editorial board’s weekend endorsement of Dimtchev’s campaign, based largely on objections to Cheh’s push for changes to mayoral oversight of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. The Cleveland Park Citizens Association will hold a candidates forum Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library.
At the Palisades Citizens Association’s Oct. 2 forum, organizers stressed that the event was not a debate but rather a conversation. Candidates were encouraged to speak with the audience and answer their questions, rather than respond to each other.
Cheh has represented Ward 3 on the council since 2007 and has lived in the ward for 30 years. She is a professor of constitutional law and criminal procedure at the George Washington University Law School.
Dimtchev, a relative newcomer to politics, is currently employed as an attorney with the U.S. Social Security Administration, though he is on a leave of absence to campaign. Dimtchev — a graduate of DC Public Schools, Georgetown University, and the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University — stressed at the Palisades forum that he has strong roots in the District.
Dimtchev said that his experience from 2008 to 2011 as a Ward 3 community liaison for Mayor Adrian Fenty has given him the skills needed to achieve his goals as a council member. “I was responsible for city services, infrastructure repair, overseeing school modernization projects, the building of parks, revitalizing neighborhoods,” he said. “So I’ve learned how to get things done in Ward 3.”
Both candidates focused on education in Ward 3 and the District at large, agreeing that aspects of the current landscape are concerning.
Cheh referenced one of the public school system’s scandals brought to light over the past year — investigations into misleading graduation and suspension statistics.
“It’s more recently come to light that the whole program we’ve been operating under for the past 10 or so years actually is something like a Potemkin village,” Cheh said. Graduation rates had gone up because schools were advancing students to higher grade levels even when they hadn’t met qualifications, she continued.
The manipulation of graduation rates, revealed in part through the investigative reporting of WAMU and NPR, prompted inquiries by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Education and the DC Office of the Inspector General.
The District is allowing students who are functionally illiterate to graduate, Cheh claimed.
Dimtchev focused on the school system’s curriculum — which he described as “outdated” — as well as overcrowding in Ward 3’s public school buildings. He attended Key Elementary School, Deal Middle School and School Without Walls.
“It’s the same curriculum that I took many years ago,” he noted, “which doesn’t have an emphasis on STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math.” The curriculum also lacks vocational opportunities for students, he argued.
The candidates scuffled lightly over governance of the Office of the State Superintendent for Education. The superintendent is currently appointed by the mayor, but Cheh has proposed legislation to distance the position from the mayor and place the power of appointment with the State Board of Education, an elected panel of nine.
Dimtchev disagreed. “When I was growing up in the ‘90s, the school board dictated my education, and they did a terrible job,” Dimtchev said. He noted that the school year did not always start on time, among other problems, echoing some of the objections to Cheh’s legislation leveled by critics.
Cheh emphasized that the superintendent should be independent of the mayor in order to provide appropriate oversight of the DC Public Schools — which is run by another mayoral appointee, the chancellor. “The office of the state superintendent is the one that will gather data, and report accurately on data, and take actions for waste, fraud and abuse within the school system,” Cheh said. “I think something like that should have accountability, should be set to one side. Every other state does it.”
Dimtchev also suggested extending the hours schools are open, while Cheh separately decried an overfocus on testing.
The two differed in their responses to a question about the former Hardy School at 45th and Q streets NW in Foxhall. The school building has been leased since 2007 to the Lab School of Washington, a private school for students with learning disabilities; before that, it was leased to the now-defunct Rock Creek International School. Some in the area have suggested that the city retake the property after the lease expires in the near future, and use it to ease overcrowding at nearby Key and Stoddert elementary schools.
Cheh said that the former Hardy school has not been fully vetted for a return to use as an elementary school. At 17,626 square feet, it may not have the space available to significantly ease overcrowding, but it could be an early childhood learning center, she said. Cheh stressed that DCPS officials have said they do not want to use the building, and without their support, pushing the issue is fruitless.
Dimtchev said the building is still in play for use once again as a public school. “I have pledged to build a new school in Ward 3,” he said. If the Hardy property will not work as an elementary school, he argued the District ought to secure a market-rate lease and invest the money in building another school in Ward 3. “Too many times the city is giving away its valuable land without getting a good return on its investment,” he said.
Other questions for the candidates surrounded the hike in the minimum wage for tipped workers, Initiative 77 (which the council voted this month to repeal) and unsafe turf on neighborhood playgrounds and fields.
Cheh had been alone among her council colleagues in supporting the ballot initiative, which called for eliminating the two-tiered wage system for tipped and untipped workers. In an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at forging compromise with legislators backing repeal efforts, Cheh said, she proposed phasing out the tipped minimum wage incrementally over 15 years. The slow fade-out, she argued, would ease impacts on businesses and allow time for the council to respond to potential problems as they arose.
Dimtchev said he did not support Initiative 77, based on feedback from restaurant owners and servers. He cited it as an example of his emphasis on listening to community voices.
On unsafe turf, Dimtchev said the issue illustrates the city’s current inability to maintain property, noting that 15 fields were closed last year for failing a hardness test. He said he has sought an investigation by the Office of the DC Auditor into city spending on fields.
Cheh said she was personally disappointed with the performance of the Department of General Services, which maintains the fields, and has requested an audit of the entire agency. Cheh said she was able to convince the council to ban the use of tire rubber on fields and playgrounds — but an audience member countered that the practice was still occurring.
Cheh also noted that she has held oversight hearings on the issue and won commitments from the department to establish an improvement schedule and to create an interagency working group on the subject. Since the Oct. 2 forum, Cheh’s committee has scheduled a public hearing for Nov. 1 on environmental and safety standards at the DC government’s fields, play spaces and buildings, as well as on her legislation regarding safety testing for artificial turf fields.
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