Mantra

Here's a little something that everyone could add to everything they say or write.

"The State Auditor found that the School Board completely failed in their duty to enforce laws and policy and completely failed in their duty to oversee the superintendent."

I would add these words to every talk, add them to every email, add them to every testimony, add them to every letter to the editor, add them to every comment submitted on newspaper stories, add them to every single thing I said or wrote about Seattle Public Schools.

Comments

dan dempsey said…
Not to be missed is the fact that this applied to five members of the current school board not all seven.

Those five made the state auditor proud.... as they refused to do any oversight of the Superintendent ever by extending her contract an additional third year.

Really they have the State Auditor's document SMACK right in their faces with multiple violations of State Law by the Superintendent and they extend her contract.

Those directors are well trained to be "Arbitrary and Capricious" whenever possible.
dan dempsey said…
Charlie,

Perhaps I should appeal the decision to extend MGJ's contract as "Arbitrary and Capricious"

and have my Brief consist of:

"The State Auditor found that the School Board completely failed in their duty to enforce laws and policy and completely failed in their duty to oversee the superintendent."

and on 7-7-2010 they again failed to supervise the Superintendent by extending her contract from two years remaining to three years.

===============
Seemingly "Arbitrary and Capricious decisions are all this team can produce.

Recall five.
mirmac1 said…
You would think the local TV media would call out the Seattle Times for brazenly NOT reporting the SAO findings re: SPS but will go on and on about Port of Seattle screwups etc.

Or can we get the PI to talk it up enough for TV media to report?

Can or will CPPS issue a statement critizing the Board? Haven't they seen the light and joined the rest of us?
Jan said…
I think it may be time to tell the board that we are done, all of us, DONE! with accountability. Find a new slogan. Dont want to hear the word again from the lips of totally unaccontable people! Anyone in management (and any parent) knows -- you can't require of your subordinates allegiance to a standard that you are utterly unwilling to impose on, or live by, yourself. Based on the last few votes, Betty Patu and Kay Smith-Blum have a right to ask schools (and staff) for accountability. None of the others do.
MGJ has been here for 3 year now, and we are hearing that some year soon, now, we will see results? How is that accountable? She certainly didn't go into this telling us that there would be no material student progress for the first 3 years -- and that kind of lag was certainly not built into her salary or incentives. (If it had been, we should have been paying her $70 or $80 thousand to date -- and the rest should have been subject to her reforms actually working.) THAT would have been accountable.
But in the meantime, Charlie, I like your idea of including your language in every oral comment, every written submission.
What I agree with is keeping up the drumbeat. Do not stop, do not let this be a downtime when the audit findings can be hidden or forgotten. A constant and steady drumbeat of "this is our district?" needs to be heard over and over. Write at every blog you can find especially neighborhood ones. Challenge people when they say the Board and the Superintendent are doing good.

Do not let up; that's my new mantra.
SP said…
Mark your calendars for the next committee meetings (all in August)---
It's important that the community is attending & listening to the board's committee discussions about how the audit findings will affect both the committee and the board's operations.

8/11 Executive committee
8/19 Operations
8/23 C&I (regarding policies, especially)
8/24 Audit & Finance

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