FYI about Tonight
Apparently Dr. Enfield had been scheduled to attend an event at Hamilton tonight. The word is that her appearance there has been CANCELED.
Obviously she is going to the Ingraham meeting.
I'm sure she will reschedule at Hamilton another time.
(This seems to be something that the Hamilton community wants known so I decided to put it up here.)
Obviously she is going to the Ingraham meeting.
I'm sure she will reschedule at Hamilton another time.
(This seems to be something that the Hamilton community wants known so I decided to put it up here.)
Comments
When I was appointed Interim Superintendent, it was with the clear charge to strengthen opportunities for all students to learn. You asked me to bring high levels of transparency and accountability to this effort. The decision I made last Tuesday about the leadership of Ingraham High School Principal Martin Floe reflects my efforts to realize these commitments.
However, I also know that a good leader listens. After extensive conversations with Ingraham High School staff and the community, I have decided to renew Mr. Floe?s contact for the 2011-12 school year, under the condition that he continue on a plan of improvement, which I, along with his Executive Director, will monitor throughout the year.
If Seattle Public Schools is truly to make gains for our students, we must hold all of our leaders to a high standard of performance. The work my team completed over many months leading up to my initial decision not to renew Mr. Floe?s contract was, and is, solid. As I have explained, I am not able to share with you the details of Mr. Floe?s performance evaluations or the work done with him to address performance concerns. I assure you that I made this decision after a fair and rigorous process.
Before a decision about terminating a principal?s contract is made, the evaluation process includes identifying areas of concern through a mid-year evaluation, building a clear and detailed performance improvement plan with the principal, numerous one-on-one performance meetings, coaching sessions, time in the school by my team, bi-weekly reports with feedback on progress and very clear guidance to the principal about performance expectations. Only after this process had been completed and the principal had been offered support and opportunities to succeed would a decision be made to not renew a principal?s contract. A principal must demonstrate ?unsatisfactory? performance on the performance improvement plan in order to be recommended for non-renewal.
We know high performance means not just high test scores but schools where every student has access to high-quality teaching in every classroom. That kind of performance depends on principals who work with their teachers day in and day out to improve the quality of their teaching practice. We rely on our principals for other things too, but this work with teachers?what I and others describe as ?instructional leadership?? must be their top priority if we are to achieve what we say we all want for all children in Seattle.
We should all have very high standards for our leaders, and our strong team of Executive Directors of Schools will continue to work with all principals to ensure that our students achieve at high levels. I am mindful of the community input and the turmoil this situation has created for the school. I am not backing away from our high standards for performance or the work that led to my initial decision. However, I listened to the community input and I decided it is appropriate to provide Mr. Floe with an additional opportunity to succeed.
I had a chance to meet one-on-one with Mr. Floe on Monday, and I believe we can all work together to see improvement at Ingraham. I also want to thank the Ingraham staff and community for your obvious commitment to the school. Given today?s announcement, I am cancelling tonight?s community meeting at Ingraham. My hope is that now we can move forward as a community to ensure all of our students receive the very best we can give them.
Sincerely,
Susan
Susan Enfield, Ed.D.
Interim Superintendent
Seattle Public Schools
signed, a very happy IHS parent!!!
We know high performance means not just high test scores but schools where every student has access to high-quality teaching in every classroom. ....
My hope is that now we can move forward as a community to ensure all of our students receive the very best we can give them.
No kidding, really?
Is she changing the k-12 Math instructional Materials and Practices?
Has she ditched the D43 revision for the Promotion / Non-Promotion Policy? .. Action expected tomorrow night.
Is the model for Special Ed being changed from the complete disaster that MGJ gave Seattle?
.... Where is Dr. Enfield's plan for improving her decision-making?
Perhaps the "interim title" should be a requirement for superintendents...... and they stay on one year-contracts, which may or may not be renewed each spring.
How does the Public mount effective rebellions against all the other insanity sponsored by the Central Office?
Where is that facebook for math program?
Where is that facebook for special education program?
Give the lady a break. She just did the right thing. She's been in the job for what, 3 weeks? I'm seeing improvement here.
Moving Forward.
In other words, keep your nose clean and your head down, buster, or you're really out.
I am not as happy about this news as I would like to be.
Helen Schinske
Enfield has been a Central Administrator in Seattle for a lot more than three weeks.... She was CAO remember.
She encountered huge opposition to her decision.
Lots of things could happen here (but not all of them are available, if the District really wants this guy out, and will only go through the motions next year).
1. Mr Floe can rally his troops (staff, parents, and kids), lay out on the table what the measuring stick is, and how he intends to meet the benchmarks -- and ask that his community help him get there -- honest feedback, etc., improvement where it needs to happen, etc.
2. If the measuring stick is "unfair," -- well, now would be the time for the principals (whoever negotiated their deal with Central administration) to call foul on a "rigged plan" and help work out/demand a better performance improvement deal. Remember how MGJ got rewarded for hitting 4 out of some ungodly number of improvemen measures? Well, what does Floe get credit for? Integrating the APP program successfully into the existing IB program? Attracting MORE IB/APP kids next year? Getting the school successfully through in-place construction?
And finally, if the gist of the letter is that his "instructional leadership" is in question -- is that legitimate? Or are the folks right who wondered whether maybe he is taking the fall for refusing to fire teachers who are (take your pick): good, but too expensive and could be replaced by TFA or other cheap newbies; or good but unwilling to put up with bogus pacing guide BS and other tripe inflicted on them by "coaches" -- and rather than helping to drive them out, he has been backing his staff.
If either of these is true -- somebody has to stand at the bridge at Concord and draw a line. His community has given him a second life -- he may have to put it on the line for this issue. Because if this is the kind of stuff going on (hope not, hope not) -- until someone is willing to daylight the issue (which may mean their job -- at least at that school), it won't end. But IF we are at that really bad place, rarely has the struggle teed up in a way better calculated to let parents and teachers see, and protest, the perfidy behind the curtain.
Here is what I hope: I hope that Dr. Enfield really, truly does want ALL her teachers and principals to succeed. (That fakey "we'll even throw a couple hundred bucks at them to "improve themselves" stuff that MGJ foisted off on teachers was beyond nauseating). I hope that this performance improvement plan, which is now a pretty public deal, is crafted in good faith and with a genuine desire to help a well-liked principal succeed and grow into a better administrator. I hope that the entire process is used to better inform the Ex Directors -- NOT how to screw people over more subtly, or to paper their files better, next time, but to improve what THEY do, to inform themselves better on more factors (like the sheer folly of using a principal to start a new APP program -- and then firing him AFTER the deadline for signing up for the program). I hope that every nice thing Kristen has ever said about Bree is true (and that all of the less flattering impressions others have had either prove wrong, or she wakes up tomorrow determined to commit herself to helping a principal improve and stay -- not to figuring out how to make him leave).
Toxic work environments can be changed. A necessary, but not sufficient, condition for that change is that the person/people at the top NOT be radioactive themselves. MGJ gave me no hope in this regard. Dr. Enfield -- well, I worry, because she has worked for some pretty toxic folks and if she adopts their management style, we are lost. But, I have hope.
Sorry, but until your group starts caring about all Seattle students you're the problem, not the solution.
You think high literacy with an APP kid is changing the world? Hardly.
You think schools are turning around by increasing their population of white, high performing students? Hardly.
Why don't you try to figure out how you can do the equivalent of reading "Goodnight Moon" to a disadvantaged, African American 15-year old who's grown up in poverty instead of assuming your precious, privileged child will make a school look better?
Finally, Cojones
But APP parent, just because the overall scores will go up isn't solving the problem. The problem is that this district has a systemic problem in raising minority student test scores.
That's what needs to be addressed in a real way.
You are on the mark! Now APP, IB, spectrum, honors parents, STAND UP for more than just your children. Let's see if this one-sided focus will start demanding excellence for children of color and sped children. I've yet to see that happen frequently on this blog.
First main agenda get rid of MGJ check
Get FLO rehired check
Now what's gonna be the next thing people here want to fight for? Oh yeah, Garfield dropped that 3rd year APP class while 3 students got hooked up with a 3 person Spanish class...
Sure can see privilege with the athlete but not what's gone on in this district for the kids whose parents scream the loudest or are in the aforementioned programs?
Yea, yea wheres my proof? Can't believe no one knows of students who got into those special programs or in the best class because their parent was on PTSA or had an in with the principal.
As painful as it is for people to say, that's not the minority parents or kids.
Some of us have both -- APP AND SPED kids. I am with MW here -- you don't have to attack APP Parent to make your point. We really need to come together and move the needle for ALL kids, not just our own kids' programs. And the children most in peril, it seems to me, are the minority kids who are struggling (not all are -- but those who are) AND the SPED kids who are struggling (again, not all do, but many do).
In my opinion, the two things needed most are:
1. A renewed commitment to direct intervention; and
2. A scrapping of the new SPED system that just dumps kids into classes with no support.
Nobody wants to protect their kids at the expense of someone else's - what's regularly awful in SPS is that district administrators pit parents against one another, and create a cage match between parents instead of making a responsible, informed decision that will benefit as many students - and as many kinds of students - as possible.
Full disclosure: both of my (Mexican-American-WASP) kids are in APP. I would be a little surprised if anyone threw stones at me accusing me of only looking out for kids in that program, though.
-Meg Diaz
Before you take the bait and jump all over that inflammatory and obviously over the top comment by "APParent," you might want to consider if that post is legit.
It's not that hard to throw Molatovs in the blogosphere under assumed names.
If it is a real, allow me to offer a counterbalancing perspective by saying I do not share the sentiment of that comment, and, for what it's worth, have a fairly good public record of advocating for many kids, schools and programs, and public ed in general.
But I will also speak up for highly capable/gifted kids, who come with their own emotional and academic complications and needs, and are no less deserving of support than any other kids.
Thanks.
--Sue Peters
founding member, Parents Across America; education blogger, Huffington Post, Seattle Education Blog, SPS & APP parent.
Ingraham is a lifeboat for APP families who are getting pushed out of Garfield and have nowhere to go. Thank God for the wonderful and welcoming community at Ingraham, without whom APP would be screwed.
Ingraham already had IB, a great staff, and a great principal. They need us? Like a hole in their heads. How about showing some gratitude and not alienating people before the first APP student sets foot on campus. Sheesh.
WSEADAWG
“on the APP-INCLUSIVE(?)COMMUNITY blogs either, wow.”
Also, my apologies for briskness in a previous post, allowing it to be read in a way unintended.
Not arrogant, just realistic. What I said was "HE needs us," meaning that APP test scores may benefit the whole school community, if the scores help to retain FLOE in subsequent years. We've been here before, the district did the same thing at Thurgood Marshall, two years ago when APP elementary student were sent in to fill an undersubscribed school with dangerously low test scores. This wasn’t done with the benefit of APP kids in mind.
I can’t even begin to address the racist comments, other than to say it is interesting and saddening, although not at all new or surprising, to see how quickly these comments are hurled at APP, everyone’s favorite scapegoat.
Finally, many APP families DO advocate for families with kids in other programs, this happens frequently. What I haven’t seen is someone outside of APP stand up in intolerance for the popular sport of slamming APP.
I'm thankful to say I have, many times, starting with Melissa. But it's easier to remember the stings.
Helen Schinske
I was at a coffee chat in the fall when the crowding at Garfield was big in the media, and it was here that I first heard, from a parent, the idea to explore creating an APP/IB program. In the spirit of creating an acceptable solution instead of having to accept whatever half-baked idea the district would have come up with, parents lead this effort, not the district.
Perhaps the district supported the idea because they saw the potential of it positively affecting data at Ingraham. But that was not the motivation for the program. Nor did Ingraham go out and ask for the program.
so I just don't see any legitimacy to the complaint that APP/IB at Ingraham is a cynical ploy created by the district to inflate test results. I for one am hoping it's a huge success. It also seems to be an all-too-rare victory for parents trying to find good, common sense solutions to the district's self-made problems.
I just have never understood why it so broadly tolerated within the Seattle Public School system to berate APP students and parents. It is the sheer impossibility of avoiding this kind of district wide prejudice of APP that breeds rabid advocacy. Slice us, dice us, jeer and throw things at us, and eventually we will growl. Somehow it seems publicly acceptable to label us, paint us with the same brush and deny that our students have a well defined need. To my knowledge, other groups who are identified as qualified for a specific approach, such as Special Ed or Bilingual aren't asked to withstand public roasting at every meeting where their group is mentioned. Are they?
Lori, you are mistaken that the idea for APP at Ingraham came from parents, it came from Bob Vaughn at the district. Although it is a great idea, has become an amazing reality, and has been embraced by APP families, it simply isn't something that APP families asked for. APP families overwhelmingly and consistently have asked to stay together so schools can't shut down classes, key to APP students, like Garfield is currently trying to do.