Alternative Schools Audit Postponed
A letter was sent to principals announcing that the audit is postponed indefinitely because the district is busy handling the new student assignment plan and other big issues and they can't give the audit the attention it deserves.
The superintendent says that a letter will go out to parents at the end of the week. She also made a point of saying there was not ulterior or negative motive in the postponement and that she is committed to alternative education and is interested in strengthening opportunities for students.
Honestly, I don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved. We have a lot on our plate already this year trying to restructure after the capacity management issues of last year. I'd guess that Nova and Pathfinder are similarly burdened as a result of the move. The TOPS and AS#1 communities just got new principals that don't know the history of the schools or have the institutional memory necessary to answer audit questions. More time would allow us all to settle into our new situations.
On the other hand, I'd kind of like to get it over with and show the district (and others) that AS#1 does valuable work with kids that may not show up on any standardized test scores but has amazing results in following its alternative mission of creating socially aware, free and responsible learners.
The superintendent says that a letter will go out to parents at the end of the week. She also made a point of saying there was not ulterior or negative motive in the postponement and that she is committed to alternative education and is interested in strengthening opportunities for students.
Honestly, I don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved. We have a lot on our plate already this year trying to restructure after the capacity management issues of last year. I'd guess that Nova and Pathfinder are similarly burdened as a result of the move. The TOPS and AS#1 communities just got new principals that don't know the history of the schools or have the institutional memory necessary to answer audit questions. More time would allow us all to settle into our new situations.
On the other hand, I'd kind of like to get it over with and show the district (and others) that AS#1 does valuable work with kids that may not show up on any standardized test scores but has amazing results in following its alternative mission of creating socially aware, free and responsible learners.
Comments
I'm also glad that she's starting to recognize that many parents don't trust her and will assume any move is part of a plot. Knowing you have a problem is the first step to a solution.
Dear Principals:
A number of you have had questions about the scheduled alternative education review. As of today, that review is being postponed. After thoughtful consideration of all of our current strategic initiatives, most specifically our new student assignment plan, we do not have the capacity to take on such an important project and guarantee it can be done well. Therefore, we are postponing the scheduled October review by the Council of Great City Schools.
Though the review has been postponed, I maintain my commitment to alternative education, and continue to be interested in ways to strengthen opportunities for our students. I want this to be absolutely clear: there is no ulterior motive or negative intent in postponing this review—this is based solely on our capacity to undergo, and subsequently implement, such an important review.
The review was scheduled for October 12-14; a few parents were aware of this and may have contacted you with planning suggestions. I apologize that the information about postponing the review comes after the other information was announced. This has been an evolving process, and I appreciate your understanding.
I will be sending a communication to families about the decision to postpone the review by the end of the week; until then, if you have any questions please let me know.
As an aside, since the review has been postponed, you will not need to meet with Holly Ferguson after your cluster meeting on 9/22.
Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, Ph.D.
Superintendent Seattle Public Schools
The audit (or review or inquisition or whatever) will be done by outside consultants, not by District staff. What staff are called upon to participate will be principals and teachers at alternative schools, not people who are involved in the new Student Assignment Plan.
Moreover, the alternative schools are essentially unchanged by the new student assignment plan. They will still have no attendance area and they will still have pretty much the same tie-breakers as before. The only difference is the introduction of the preference for students in the walk zone.
So which personnel were working on both projects? And why? There is no overlap.
As for the idea that they lack the capacity to capacity to undergo, and subsequently implement, such an important review, that doesn't wash either. The APP Review was done two years ago and has yet to be implemented in any way. So it's not as if they feel any urgency to implement recommendations from these audits.
So the reason just doesn't wash.
This reminds me of the reason the she provided for not consulting with communities prior to assigning principals - that the capacity management project made it impossible. Absurd.
So I'm OK with the delay. However, I would hope that they put all alt school plans/changes on hold until the audit is complete. That means no re evaluation of AS1 this year, no new changes to draw or assignment at alts, etc.
They should probably get an exemption from any curriculum standardization this year too.
There are a lot of things MGJ does with which I disagree. However, I do think she has brought some basic management skills to a very disfunctional organization.
Charlie said something similar to this a few threads ago, so I'd like to say to both, I'm afraid I don't agree with the "management skills" Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson has displayed since she came to Seattle.
How does any of this add up to "good management":
The entire "Capacity Management Plan" from initial proposal to bumbling execution has been a test study in mismanagement.
It was rushed, poorly planned, disenfranchised parents, and may have ultimately cost almost as much to implement (in moving and program replication costs) as it claimed to have saved.
She closed, merged moved schools BEFORE the new Student Assignment Plan was established. Pretty much everyone agreed that was the wrong sequence of events.
The window of time between her initial proposal (mid/end of November) to her Final Recommendation (Jan 6) was quite narrow and encompassed both the Thanksgiving and winter holidays (and a major snow storm) when many families were not in town and not able to speak up or fight for their schools and programs. Some of us feel this timing was not a coincidence.
In this process, she and the District violated District policy by failing to give all affected schools and communities the required public hearings before their schools were closed, merged or split. (This has resulted in legal appeals against the District that are still pending.)
The Capacity Management Plan disproportionately uprooted, evicted or affected underprivileged kids, kids of color or kids with special needs. This has resulted in a discrimination legal action against the District supported by the NAACP which is currently pending.
Closing schools has resulted in overcrowding in various parts of the District, and in some areas (West Seattle, for example) the addition of portables to accommodate all the misplaced kids.
The reasons given for the closure, splits and mergers of the schools have been undermined by the results of the closures: overcrowded schools like Lowell are about as overcrowded as they were before; under-enrolled schools like Jane Addams were as under-enrolled as they were before (until, apparently, the District assigned a large number of kids to JA at the last minute); Nova was evicted from Mann because it was supposedly an unsafe building -- only to be moved to Meany which is in fact MORE unsound than Mann (which has already had seismic upgrades, btw).
She and the District apparently paid no attention to demographic predictions (or the statements by parents and a detailed Power Point report by one in particular) that clearly showed the north end of town needed more schools and the Central District is undergoing a baby boom (so it was unwise to close TT Minor and the Mann Building).
Consequently, she closed schools in the name of "capacity management," only to announce just eight months later that the District would need to REOPEN schools.
She RIFed nearly 200 teachers before enrollment figures were in, only to find that 1200 more kids enrolled in SPS than the District expected.
She has disenfranchised multiple school communities by playing musical chairs with their principals with no community input -- and giving a specious rationale for why.
She attempted what appeared to be an end-run around the teachers union and collective bargaining and potentially violated state labor laws by sending out a letter directly to the 3,000 teachers essentially ending their contract and threatening them to accept her terms.
That Certified Letter, by the way, cost the District (ie. we taxpayers) an estimated $15,000-$18,000 in postal fees.)
(And I believe the issue was ultimately resolved at the bargaining table, where it should be, making the letters an unnecessary waste.)
(continued on next post)
She has commissioned audits of various programs and aspects of the District, such as the APP audit (Dan Dempsey mentions another one as well), which I assume are not cheap, only to DISREGARD the recommendations of the audits.
She punished two SPS teachers for following the wishes of Special Ed parents. Once publicized, she and the District rescinded the punishment.
She has cried "fiscal crisis," closed schools, laid off teachers, and then turned around and asked for MORE admin staff at the John Stanford Center even though SPS already has one of the most bloated school admin offices in the state.
She did not deliver the quarterly report on the Strategic Plan to the City Council’s education committee on time.
The Jane Addams mess.
Ever-shifting bell-times and bus route roulette.
The unhealthy decision to ‘save money’ by discontinuing on-site lunches for middle and high school kids.
She initially planned to merge two high schools that harbored rival gangs. Ultimately that didn’t happen. But her decision to put Nova alternative high school and the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center kids together in (the seismically unsafe and inappropriate) Meany Middle School building not only reneges on promises made to both schools – an independent new building for SBOC, and a better building for Nova (Mann is safer than Meany) – but cohouses two potentially culturally incompatible groups.
She recommended a failed math curriculum for high school which has already been tried and REJECTED by San Diego's public school district and I believe Kirkland and elsewhere.
She and the District have not followed through with support or resources to give SPS kids the more sound and successful Singapore Math even though the Board approved it the same time they approved the more controversial and problematic Everyday Math.
She was criticized in her annual review (that was overseen by one of her own colleagues at the Broad Foundation, by the way) for lacking interpersonal and communication skills and not engaging with the parents of SPS well. Such skills are essential to good management, btw.
She is apparently trying to mend her ways with the District wide newsletters and this months coffees.
There is evidence that she has used her position to intimidate or retaliate against dissenters, including ordinary SPS parents who had valid concerns and grievances about her plans to close or split their schools apart. Those are not the kind of “management skills” that Seattle should ever applaud or embrace.
This past year by most everyone’s measure has been the most chaotic and disruptive in recent SPS memory.
So no, I don't see how this adds up to "good management" in any sense.
Okay, let's return to the main thread here -- the alt audit.
We have all been reeling from the top down decisions that have been made over the last two years.
Educators, parents, students and staff as well as board members have been in a reactive mode and one that cannot be sustained.
Nova went through an audit the early part of this year, then a move and was facing yet another type of audit within a period of nine months.
Now that the smoke has cleared, we have the opportunity to start thinking in a more proactive, constructive and creative manner.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=1700759739148195651&postID=8452921696342184327
There is an alternative school audit that is scheduled for October 12-14 and yet, as of last Thursday, a new project manager has not been assigned to the audit team and the audit team has not been selected.
As a community, we have great concerns about how this audit is being handled. The original project manager for the audit, Jane Dudley, who had met with alternative school representatives previously, was aware of our concerns and was willing to work with us on clarifying the process and criteria for the audit. Now with a new project manager yet to be assigned, we are concerned about having the opportunity to once again meet with the new audit manager and have discussions regarding how the programs will be evaluated and who will be doing the evaluations.
The goals of this audit have not been clarified as of today, September 16th and the audit is less than a month away. We do not know what information will be requested by the auditors or the set of criteria upon which our programs will be judged.
It has also been requested that the auditors, instead of meeting with just two parents from each school, instead participate in a round-table discussion with students, teachers and staff to receive a more comprehensive picture of the different programs. This approach is more reflective of the idea of shared governance upon which alternative schools are based. It has also been requested that to complement what will be short visits to each school, that each program have the opportunity to provide the audit team with written material regarding the program and, in the case of Nova, examples of students’ work.
We also request that before the audit report is presented to the Superintendent and the School Board, that each school have the opportunity to fact check the information about their schools. The design of the audit calls for individuals with no connection to Seattle schools to visit our schools for a few days, review written materials, conduct interviews, spend an hour or two in each school and then prepare a comprehensive report regarding what's happening in seven different schools and how well those schools are performing. It seems that the potential for misinformation to creep into the report is large and that one way to avoid that prospect is to allow those who are most familiar with the schools to fact check the report before it is finalized.
These are our concerns and we ask that they be addressed promptly.
If our schools cannot be provided with answers to these concerns by the end of this week, three weeks before the audit, then we request that the audit be postponed until next Spring.
Thank you.
My name is Chris Stewart. I am the parent of two SPS students. I was fortunate enough to stumble into an alternative school seven years ago, and naturally I hope the alternative school audit will highlight the great things we are doing in our schools.
I am concerned about the timing and scope of the audit. In response to an inquiry from parents, the superintendent wrote that the goal was “To gain a deeper understanding of the alternative schools within SPS by gathering information about our alternative schools and create a broad, shared vision of alternative education in SPS. “
First, we DO have a shared vision of alternative education. It was formulated by the alternative school communities together, and distilled as board policy C54.00, adopted in 2006. It would be appropriate at this time to assess how the programs and the district are doing at moving toward that vision. For the benefit of anyone who may not know, Seattle’s alternative schools generally follow a progressive, personalized, integrated and democratic education model. Although we welcome students who may not fit in well at traditional schools, we are not primarily safety-net or re-entry programs.
Second, although this audit seems to be coming too quickly, in many ways it is too late. In the past year, the two alternative programs have been ended, one is being restructured, and two are in the process of moving. To take a quick look at them in October is not sufficient. In particular, I would like to see some information collected on what was happening at the African American Academy and Summit K-12 until June 2009. Although the district leadership has judged these schools as failures, the fairness of this assessment, coming as it did before any audit was performed, is questionable. Even if these programs had their difficulties, there are lessons to be learned about what does not work. More important, there were undoubtedly some bright lights in these programs as well, and we should not let these ideas slip away as the communities are dispersed.
For the remaining schools, the issue is similar but more subtle. Let us tell you about the things we have done in the past, and things we would like to do. We have never received any active support from the district. Nevertheless, many schools flourished. Recently, all alternative schools have suffered due the centralization of academic control. At my school, we saw multi-age classrooms disappear with the onset of Everyday Math. Others programs have been assigned new leaders without community input. One is being in effect being punished for its pursuit of part of the C54 vision, alternative assessment.
We hope the upcoming audit will be a chance for the district to really consider what alternative schools can contribute to a public school district, especially when changes are being made to standardize and limit choice for families. I personally envision a district where alternatives have sufficient autonomy to innovate, and successful approaches can be integrated into the larger district, resulting in a continuously improving system that has options for many types of learners.
Hello award winning principal! As we indicated in our letter of 9/4/2009 – your school is being recognized as one of the 5% highest improving schools, over a 5 year span of time, in Reading and Math for the state of Washington in 2009 – what an honor! We are very excited for this remarkable progress in student achievement made through hard work and focused efforts in your school and in schools across the state of Washington . Congratulations once again!
Phi Delta Kappa of Washington state and the Center for Educational Effectiveness are co-sponsors of this award using the same methodology as used in 2007 and 2008 to identify the “Schools of Distinction”. The award from this year forward will be called the “Great Schools” award so as not to be confused with an OSPI-sponsored award. Later this fall, Superintendent Dorn will be recognizing schools with a new, more comprehensive award aligned with the State Board of Educations’ accountability index for Reading , Writing, Math and Science. What great news for our schools – they deserve recognition from multiple levels and organizations!
PDK-WA and CEE are honored to support schools and improvement and to say “thank you for all you do for the children of our state!” As stated before, at the PDK-WA luncheon during the “Schools of Distinction Institute” on September 26, we will be recognizing this year’s recipients of the “Great Schools” award. In addition, we will be visiting your district to present you with your certificate and banner:
Audit is so...fiscal.
Anyway, I just saw the more recent thread...AS#1 rocks!
I wonder if there are interesting and powerful possibilities that might arise from the synergistic coaxiulation (then yew, yes, a new word!) of the delay and the wonderful news of AS#1 (and others) experiencing such success on these big assessments.
A delay might prove beneficial to all if they play their cards right: expand the review, mandate its interest be in identifying strenghts that provide such demonstrated success, and support those strengths in growth while also helping remediate issues that the community identifies as areas that would benefit from remediation to make things even better.
eloquent statements, but this:
[Meany]"cohouses two potentially culturally incompatible groups."
Hmm, from what I know of Meany, and what I know of Nova, I think thse two "groups" will do rather well together, even if it's a forced marriage.
Not that they shouldn't have their own buildings...
Shouldn't part of the review be a measure of how well the District is meeting the demand for alternative education? Not that well if the alternative schools have waitlists.
Shouldn't part of the review be a recommendation on whether the language immersion programs or the Montessori programs should be Option schools to provide more equitable access to these non-traditional programs?
The building is designed to unify one school, there is no way to partition the building to separate the two programs. The library and cafeteria are to be shared and the hallways cannot be partitioned off due to building code regulations.
I believe that the people who decided this merge either didn't know or understand these two programs or didn't care to become acquainted with them.
Nova was told that the Mann building was unsafe and the Meany building would be safer. That is not the case either. The seismic issues in the Meany building are greater and were described in a report by a structural engineering firm paid for by SPS done 4 years ago. This report was discovered after the closures had been voted on. We brought this information to the board and the superintendent but we were told that we still had to move. Now, if a levy passes in February, the Meany building will undergo the necessary structural upgrades to bring it up to seismic code and it will then be safer than the Mann building.
I hope that clarifies gavroche's statement.
For a long time now, NOVA has been known as a (if not THE) safe school for gay and lesbian students. Consequently, a lot students who are members of sexual minorities choose NOVA. A great number of the students at the SBOC come from East Africa and other parts of the world where the culture and the people are hostile to sexual minorities. Violently hostile.
There is legitimate cause for concern about the continued safety of NOVA students
As with the Chief Sealth/Denny co-location, the District talks out of both sides of its mouth about the SBOC/NOVA co-housing. On one hand it recounts all of the ways that the two programs can coordinate and cooperate. Won't it be wonderful! But then, when confronted with concerns about the co-housing, the same District officials will resolutely state that the two programs will be completely separate and have no interaction whatsoever. It can't be both.
I am not as concerned about violent beatings, etc., as I am about the loss of faith from SBOC families in our City and Country by exposing their children to people of extreme opposite values and cultures way too soon, before they have had sufficient time to desensitize and acclimate to our tolerant culture at large. This is a recipe for disaster by posing a threat to immigrant's values, which is likely to produce resentment and resistance to assimilation. Dropping people right into the fire, so to speak, can do alot more harm than good, when they aren't ready for it. But it appears SPS couldn't care less.
Next, the SI says this:
"I want this to be absolutely clear: there is no ulterior motive or negative intent in postponing this review—this is based solely on our capacity to undergo, and subsequently implement, such an important review."
Okay, it's officially on the record. No ulterior motives. That's a mouthful for this SI to say.
My guess is that the upcoming Alt Schools Audits goals are already baked in the cake by the idealogue consultants, and it will consist of nothing more than a call to modify our current programs to fit national models following "best practices." This is what paid pro-reform edcuational consultants do. Look at the APP & Special Ed Audits. The "research" samples were far too small to be significant, but big conclusions were leapt to anyways. I have zero confidence that the audits performed by outside groups are anything more than sham excuses for initiatives already in the pipeline. Clearly that's what the APP Audit was.
For the sake of all the Alt Schools, I pray I'll be pleasantly surprised.
I think that if you had a child at Nova, you might feel a bit differently. Even the environment of uncertainty can be distracting. In the Mann building, everyone felt safe and all students could focus on what they were there for, to be educated. The SBOC students also felt the same way about their building.
I had conversations with two of SBOC's teaching staff during the design sessions and within the first hour, they were both sharing with me their concerns about the SBOC students. One staff member said that many of the students from Eastern Africa would be kept at home by their parents because they did not want to have their students exposed to alternative approaches to dress and lifestyle.
Another staff member told me that he was concerned that Nova students could be attacked because some of their students arrive from countries where they have seen a lot of violence and many of them will not be comfortable with what they will see within the Nova population. He was concerned about what might happen.
These issues are unfair to both student populations.
These concerns were described in a letter to the school board and the superintendent when I was also bringing up the structural problems of the Meany building but these concerns were not addressed.
If anything were to happen to one of our students, we have it in writing that the board and the superintendent were adequately briefed of our concerns.
Why the heck didn't they leave well enough alone and let Nova stay at Mann?
Added to this sorry picture is the fact that the Mann building is now sitting empty in one of the most crime-ridden parts of town which already has more than its share of empty buildings.
Reckless planning all round.
It's good that you've got Nova's concerns in writing, Dora. The District certainly has the potential for liability here.
You wrote:
"The building is designed to unify one school, there is no way to partition the building to separate the two programs."
Well, that clarifeis things. This would NOT be advantageous, given the distinct populations and systems.
But...I hear an awful lot of concern here about violence, culture clash, etc, and I have to say I just feel that both populations are perfectly capable of getting along just fine. Naive, perhaps, but I've seen many, many different types of students "cohabitate" in schools, and I think they're generally capable of great things. Frankly, I'm not worried about THAT. I'm much more worried about the huge rise in gang warfare in this county lately. THAT worries me no end.
The difference in how the schools are structured gives me pause, tho'.
What does it say or is there a link to the cartoon?
From http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/2008/11/conservativism-liberalism-and-independence.html:
"The willingness to consider alternative perspectives, think critically, and arrive at independent conclusions - hallmarks of liberalism, from Doonesbury's perspective - is the subject of the other Doonesbury strip that has been on / in my mind a lot lately. In this strip, a professor is lecturing to students, who eagerly write down everything he says, without thinking about or challenging any of the increasingly provocative statements he makes:
* "... and in my view, Jefferson's defense of these basic rights lacked conviction. Okay, any discussion of what I've covered so far?" [no response]
* "Of course not, you're too busy getting it all down. Let me just add that personally, I believe the Bill of Rights to be a silly, inconsequential, recapitulation of truths already found in the Constitution. Any comment?" [no response]
* "No, scratch that! The Constitution itself should never have been written! It's a dangerous document! All power should rest with the executive! What do you think of that?!" [no response]
* "Jefferson was the antichrist! Democracy is fascism! Black is white! Night is day!" no response].
After the professor slumps over the podium, decrying "Teaching is dead", two students turn to each other; one says "Boy, this course is really getting interesting", to which the other replies "You said it, I didn't know half this stuff."
Helen Schinske
I've changed my profile picture to something a bit more upbeat (so Melissa doesn't come after me): It's my friend Blue Bat Boy, a creation of my niece, driving my car down Route 1.
Hugs and kisses, everybody!
P.S. It works 98% of the time so I'll never give him up.