The Chosen Charter

From great reporter Rachel Baye, late of The Examiner, who now is writing for the Washington City Paper. Rachel, welcome back! We missed you!

The Chosen Charter At Sela Public Charter School, the newest idea in D.C. education—Hebrew—is three millennia old.
By Rachel Baye • August 2, 2013
A not-quite-single-file line snakes through a hallway adorned with artwork and class assignments. Flags and streamers dangle from the ceiling. A teacher attempts to calm a sobbing 9-year-old boy. Soon groups of kids will file into classrooms, take their seats, and, when prompted, greet their instructors: “Boker tov!” 

Inside the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, the trappings are colorful and slightly worn, the bustle is familiar, and the instruction, depending on the class and the hour, sounds positively ancient.
For now, this public school in Brooklyn, N.Y.—one that teaches Hebrew, explores Israeli culture, and is even adorned with Israeli flags—is a relative rarity in the wooly, experimental world of American charter-school education. But it provides a scholastic environment that’s about to become familiar to some 110 public school students in the District, once a similar building, Sela Public Charter School, opens on August 19 in the city’s Lamond Riggs neighborhood, near Takoma.

In its first year, Sela plans to enroll students from across the District in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade. In the 31,000-square-foot red brick elementary school, a former warehouse and high school, every classroom has an accent wall that matches the red, orange, or teal of the school’s slick logo. By its fifth year, Sela’s leaders intend to expand to fifth grade, and as many as 600 students will walk through the building’s red classroom doors each day.

At Sela, whose name is Hebrew for rock or foundation, school days will alternate between Hebrew and English. In math, for example, students will learn how to add and subtract in English one day, and the next day they’ll pick up where they left off in Hebrew.
For the entire story go here.

MontCo Owes Residents $2.5M in Energy Tax Credits

By: Rachel Baye Examiner Staff Writer 08/13/11 8:05 PM

A property tax credit program designed to reward Montgomery County residents for using renewable energy-based heating and cooling systems has a $2.5 million backlog of payments owed to residents, according to Joe Beach, director of the county's Department of Finance.

On June 30, the end of fiscal 2011, 501 people were on a waiting list to receive tax credit payouts from the county. Some of them might have to wait as long as six years for a payment, Beach said, since the county hasn't allocated enough money to pay before then. So far, 276 credits have been issued in the program's three years of operation.

and:

Though county officials said they regret not being able to pay residents, they also said it's unlikely that they can change that anytime soon.

"We're not sitting on lots of spare cash," said County Councilman George Leventhal, D-at large. "It's really unfortunate. This is a really good program."

Enacted in 2008, the program has an annual cap of $400,000 for renewable energy devices. One way to reduce the waiting list is to raise the cap, said Beach, whether temporarily or long term. But raising the limit means the cash-strapped county has to find more funds for the program.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/business/2011/08/montco-owes-residents-25m-energy-tax-credits#disqus_thread#ixzz1Uxu2pp44

Overtime Pay Spikes in Montgomery County

By: Rachel Baye Examiner Staff Writer 08/09

The four Montgomery County agencies that spend the most on overtime pay shelled out 26 percent more in the last three months of the fiscal year than during the same period last year, data shows -- defying the County Council's request that departments reduce overtime spending as they looked for ways to save money in a tight budget year.

In the last quarter of the fiscal year that ended June 30, the agencies that consistently spend the vast majority of the county's overtime costs -- Fire and Rescue Services, the Police Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Corrections -- increased the spending by about $3 million from the same time last year, according to a report by County Stat.

Top 10 spenders April 1-June 30
Department Overtime Fire and Rescue Services $4,662,492.17
Police Department $3,446,321.56
Department of Transportation $2,177,288.87
Department of Correction and Rehabilitation $1,147,116.33
Department of General Services $287,926.38
Department of Liquor Control $139,604.01
Health and Human Services $69,001.33
Department of Environmental Protection $35,986.44
Department of Housing and Community Affairs $17,447.33
Sheriff’s Office $15,515.35

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2011/08/overtime-pay-spikes-montgomery#ixzz1UvV1aP4E