Code of the District of Columbia

§ 38–2801.01. Definitions.

For the purposes of this subchapter, the term:

(1) "At-risk" shall have the same meaning as provided in § 38-2901(2A).

(1A) “DCPS” means the District of Columbia Public Schools, established by § 38-171.

(1B) "Educational specification" means a description, complete to the degree that an architect may use it as the basic document from which to create a school facility design, of the educational program that a proposed school facility and grounds are intended to support and the types of spaces needed to accommodate those educational program requirements.

(2) “Excess” means no longer needed for operational purposes for DCPS or another District agency.

(2A) "Feeder pattern" means the collection of DCPS elementary, middle, and high schools to or from which a student enrolled in a DCPS school may matriculate, by right, due to the student's geographic attendance zone.

(2B) "Full-funded cost estimate" means all projected costs over a capital project's entire active period, not limited to 6 fiscal years, including costs for necessary swing space and soft costs such as architectural design, engineering, project management, project contingency, moving expenses, and other pre- and post-construction expenses.

(2C) "Local education agency" or "LEA" means the District of Columbia Public Schools system or any individual or group of public charter schools operating under a single charter.

(2D) "Major construction" means a capital improvement to a school facility that is not limited in scope to the ordinary repair or replacement of an element of a school facility's central mechanical and electrical systems, water systems, building structure, physical plant support spaces, hard and soft landscaping, or building envelope, including walls, floors, roof, windows, and doors.

(2E) "Neighborhood cluster" means an apolitical geographic boundary made up of 3 to 5 neighborhoods defined by the Office of Planning for use in budgeting, planning, service delivery, and analysis purposes by the District government.

(2F) "Rough order of magnitude estimate" means an estimate of a specific project's level of effort and cost to complete based on preliminary observations, quantities, and a reasonably foreseeable scope of work. These estimates are subject to change as specific project scope is established based on educational specifications.

(3) “School facility” means a structure or real property that:

(A) Is under the control of DCPS; or

(B) Was previously under the control of DCPS or the Board of Education and is now under the control of the Mayor or another agency of the District government.

(4) “Significantly underused” means a DCPS facility that is used primarily for administrative purposes and uses less than 25% of the property’s available square footage on a daily basis.

(5) “Swing space” means a school facility reserved for future classroom instruction or DCPS administrative use during planned renovation, modernization, or construction of another school facility.

(6) “Utilization” means the ratio of current enrollment to the total number of students that can be served in a space based on programmatic and scheduling requirements.