Community Engagement Around the Strategic Plan

The much-touted community engagement around the Superintendent's Strategic Plan is not (or not yet) what I had hoped or expected. However, in the coming three weeks, there will be several opportunities to learn about and discuss the plan as it stands, with room for community input. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson and her strategic planning staff will present at CPPS, PTSA, and Alliance for Education events, and the district is hosting three of its own meetings. It is definitely in the interest of all of us to attend one or more of these meetings, contribute our thoughts, and push for higher levels of interaction.

CPPS has been organizing in the central cluster, where issues of equity, choice, and community support for schools are significant at the elementary and middle school levels. We've agreed to host the strategic planning team -- Carol Rava-Treat and Holly Ferguson -- for a workshop (description and discussion) on the plan TOMORROW, May 8th at 7:30 pm, in the Montlake Elementary School Gym. You need not be in the central cluster to participate, but we are hoping for some targeted discussion of regional issues. Contact me at stephaniej@cppsofseattle.org for more information.

The Alliance for Education Community Breakfast and Fundraiser, May 14th at 7:30am at the Seattle Westin, will feature Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, presenting context and elements of the plan -- Register online at https://www314.safesecureweb.com/alliance4ed/breakfast08/signup.aspx

And on May 19th at 6pm, the Seattle Council PTSA will give time for presentation by the superintendent on the plan at its Leadership Training meeting at Mercer Middle School. To participate or for more information, contact your local PTA leaders or check out reports on the web page at www.seattlecouncilptsa.org

The district-hosted outreach meetings will be held:
-May 14: Roosevelt High School, 7pm
-May 15: West Seattle High School, 7pm
-May 20: Aki Kurose Middle School, 7pm (meeting designed with bilingual families in mind) he For more information about these events, check the district's strategic planning page.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/strategicplan/index.dxml

Let's have a discussion on what we all hear and learn from these meetings!

Comments

Dorothy Neville said…
Does anyone else think it is funny and telling that the Seattle Times article about the Strategic Plan keeps calling it "strategic plan" small case and in quotation marks?

Does anyone believe that one can attend a community input meeting on May 20th and have their comments meaningfully reflected in the draft that is to be presented to the board on May 21st?
5/8/08, 7:08 AM
SolvayGirl said…
Dorothy seems to have it right. Once again the "community involvement" is nothing more than a waste of time. I live in the SE and would very much like to hear about this in advance, but it is so obvious that my comments will have no effect that it's not worth my going.
I also find it very telling that the event set up for non-English speaking families is the one that is so obviously not intended to have any influence on the plan!
My child has been at an independent middle school for the past two years. We did elementary at a public in the SE. We have been planning to return to public high school, but now I just don't know...
5/8/08, 8:20 AM
Charlie Mas said…
You can see the powerpoint that they are going to show at the community meetings. This is it: Excellence for All.

It is so vague as to be meaningless. It's impossible to determine what they mean by the most critical words (what do they mean by "accountability", "effective", or "high quality"? It's unclear. They set goals, but don't offer any suggestion of how they will achieve them.

This plan looks just like all of the other pie-in-the-sky plans we've seen from the District for the past ten years and more. They say it's different this time, but that's what they said every other time as well.

And, of course, as always, the community engagement piece is added on afterwards and is characterized mostly as a public relations effort.
5/8/08, 12:34 PM
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