Arrogance, Poor Customer Service, or Both?

Here are a few examples of people interacting with Seattle Public Schools this week. Arrogance? Poor customer service? Or both? You decide.

  • A Spanish-speaking woman is signed up to be the last speaker at the School Board meeting on Wednesday. Prior to the meeting, the woman's friend had called the district asking for a Spanish interpreter to be present. The woman was told that wasn't possible unless the friend herself called and requested one. So the speaker called and requested one. The policy of not allowing someone else to call and request an interpreter is bad enough, but it gets worse! Not only was there not a Spanish interpreter present at the meeting, but nobody bothers to tell this woman that until she gets up to speak after waiting for an hour.

  • I asked Mark Green, "What chance is there of a rebuild of the Genesee Hill building getting on the BEX III Levy?" And he said "Zero." When I asked, "Why?" He said, "The decisions are already made about what is going to be on the BEX III Levy. There is no will to change that and no time to change that."

  • This Wednesday, the School Board is going to discuss redrawing reference areas, limiting choice, and restricting transportation. Those issues are completely linked to the issue of closure and consolidation. And, in preparation for the Board Work Session, you can be sure that district staff have already drawn up proposals about the changes they think should be put in place. However, no mention of these is being made to the public. The preliminary choice and transportation decisions might be driving some of the closure recommendations, but that thinking has remained hidden.

Comments

Anonymous said…
my impression is that there are pockets of excellence in the district that exists despite the overwhelming numbers of folks who do the bare minimum that their job requires . We talk about paying the teachers more, and we did take a chunk out of district funds so that we could do that, but other jobs in the district designed to support families pay much less.

I suspect that those answering the phones figure that they are giving their $10 an hour- no benefits worth of service.

It isn't that they are singling out families who need translators, or minority or poor families, most anyone who needs help from the district is treated the same way in our experience.

Ok scratch that( just checked the employment site)
From our experience how they hire/retain teachers for summer school programs and how they are only now looking for teachers for the evening school- underlies their lack of attention to students and families who most need it.

Shouldn't we have a cadre of teachers who have been identified as having the skills to work with students on the verge of leaving the system, rather than be hiring in October from the pool of teachers that haven't been able to find a job anywhere else?

They may say they are interested in reducing disproportionality- but like my mother always said- "actions speak louder than words".
9/24/06, 8:59 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more