D.C. earns ‘A’s, ‘B’s, one ‘C’ on AIDS report card

Appleseed changed the grade for the city’s HIV testing program from A to A-. (Screen shot dcappleseed.org

The Appleseed Center, a local watchdog group that monitors city services, gave mostly ‘A’s and ‘B’s in its 7th annual report card assessing the D.C. government’s response to the AIDS epidemic in 14 specific categories.

The report card, released July 18, shows the city boosted its grade from B to B+ in the category of AIDS-related grants management. The grade rose from C- to B- in a category assessing the AIDS-related programs of the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which runs the public school system.

In the only case in which a grade went down compared to last year, Appleseed changed the grade for the city’s HIV testing program from A to A-. The group praised the city for continuing to increase the number of city supported HIV tests and praised AIDS office officials for offering more tests in “non-traditional locations.”

It attributed the slightly lower grade to the “unstable availability” of HIV testing kits that the city’s AIDS office has provided community based organization retained by contract to conduct HIV testing.

The lowest grade offered this year – a ‘C’ — went to the city’s charter schools. “The available information indicates that charter schools as a whole lag behind in many areas related to HIV/AIDS,” the report card says.