Next NW Executive Director of Schools?
Could it be Michael Starosky, current principal at Whitman?
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.)
Comments
What ever that is.
There is still plenty of work to be done at Whitman. We need him there.
(WV says proppe)
However, the district had better not mess up the school by assigning some principal reject from the displaced pool to Whitman. My greatest fear, having already had my child survive a strong school who was assigned a terrible principal, is that the district will do it again.
Signed, Worried
Unless there have been some significant changes, the Whitman community has a fairly active parent group and the stakeholders in that school community can clearly voice concerns and work to ensure a good replacement is found for the principal.
In my opinion, the search would not need to be too extensive as a fine candidate currently works in the school. The assistant principal, Sue Kleitsch, is one of the best I know of and she has not yet become a principal simply due to the cronyism and backward politics that reigns in the district. She is one of the most dedicated and hardest working administrators I have observed...and extremely knowledgeable.
I would seriously doubt that Whitman could find a better principal to replace Mr. Starofsky. Of course, those in headquarters with their infinite wisdom may already have somebody in mind to slip into that position....but the Whitman community would do well to fight for the candidacy of Ms. Kleitsch.
Isn't it a Regional Director's job to coach principals?
And I disagree with Ed Doc. It is the OTHER Whitman AP, Melissa Schweitzer who has done the lion's share of the AP work and is deserving of a promotion.
Mr. Starosky will leave his role as Principal of Whitman Middle School at the end of the school year, and we are starting a search for his replacement. We thank him for his nine years as an administrator in the Whitman community.
In Mr. Starosky’s new role as the Human Resources Consulting Principal, he will serve as a peer coach to principals to improve and support the professional practice of principals. This position is funded through the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant, and the search committee included members of PASS. With Mr. Starosky’s strong leadership in building positive relationships with administrators, staff, students and the community, I know he will be a tremendous resource for principals, and will help advance our focus on instructional leadership and ensuring that every student in every school is achieving at high levels.
Mr. Starosky will also work closely with the Executive Directors of Schools on continuing our focus on instructional leadership. He will develop and maintain a close working relationship with the HR Manager of Leadership Development. Mr. Starosky will be a member of the TIF team, reporting to the TIF Director, Jessica de Barros.
In addition to exemplifying strong instructional leadership in his building, Mr. Starosky has served the district in many capacities. He is a member of the Principal Evaluation Task Force, which selected and helped to create the new principal evaluation tool for SPS Principals and Assistant Principals. He is also a member of the Principal Professional Development Design Team, the Principal-AP Interview Team and he participated in the Superintendent's Initiative for Leadership Development.
Before becoming a school administrator, he taught and completed his principal internship at Mercer Middle School. He has been a part of Seattle Public Schools since 1994.
Please join me in welcoming Mike to his new role!
Sincerely,
Susan
Susan Enfield, Ed.D.
Interim Superintendent
Seattle Public Schools
Also worried
Looking at the high school principals, the only person with a good reputatiton and more than a few years of experience (who hasn't already been demoted from downtown) is John Boyd at Chief Sealth. He certainly has transformed that school. Mr. Starosky was the middle school star. Andra Lutz from Mercer is off to DC. Any other middle school principal worthy of moving up? How about at the elementary level?
How is a consulting principal different from an Ed Director? I thought we were trying to cut cost in central office.
Have we always had these positions previously? We currently have instructional coaches that don't do diddly for teachers and students. Now we need principal coaches. What's next? Coaches for Ed Directors?
I believe that some UW extension program provides the district with coaches for the directors, two or three apiece and it would be interesting to learn the source of money for this extravagance. How many coaches does headquarters provide for teachers? We need to put an end to the fashionable and whimsical use of taxpayer money and resources.
Instead, the district will continue to suck the general fund dry.
Why don't we keep our effective principals where they do their best work- in the schools?
Can we hire a coach to coach a coach?
Lets suck funds from the General Fund for another Regional Director.
This is BS.
No, the District is not really trying to save money on administration. The real game is CONVINCING US that they are trying to save money on administration.
Its interesting to note the scores of pay raises ("reclassifications", "market adjustments", new positions created, etc.) given to administrative staff over the MGJ years.
As a matter of fact, it is common knowledge that administrative staff in a number of departments have been getting these all along. HR got their latest round in February as did the General Counsel's office.
What? Didn't they tell us? Oooops, another "oversight"..............
Principals are in charge of their buildings. Period. Ed Directors are in charge of the principals. Period. This is the chain of responsibility.
Yet between the principal and the ed director there is a "coach"? Why? Does this person work more closely with the principals, helping them meet the district's needs within their particular building? Isn't this the job of the director? If responsibility for working with principals falls on the coach, what will the director do, and how does that intermediary coach fit into the chain or responsibilty?
Maybe I'm dense, maybe the coach can merely advise, give a little support...
Maybe the coach, like coaches for teachers seem to be becoming, is intended to coach those being coached in how best to meet the evaluation "rubric" (whatever those are, or end up looking like...) Maybe the principal's coach tells them how best to use "the data" (whatever those points are, or end up being...) to keep their job, uh, to report to the director...
Maybe someone can help me out with all these coach positions: What kinds are there, and what are their jobs? Particularly the
What is the HR Manager of Lesadership Development? Is this new, too? What did I miss? Do they develop the leaders? That wouldn't be their job, others TRAIN, HR hires...I guess it's someone who FINDS leadership, then hires them? Or advises leadership on who to lead on leading new leaders to leadership?
Ach, it's taxing. I think I'll mow the lawn.
Word Verifier became more taxed figuring this all out: WV was put into a comaten, the most powerful sort of coma ever (except for Spinal Tap's comaeleven.)
I know the PTA likes him but not everyone agrees with PTA agenda.
Like many schools, there are known weak teachers which he has done nothing about. Also the math is not good at Whitman. Many parents who can afford to, send their kids to private tutoring. Hence the decent scores on the MSP. The dirty little secret is that the achievement gap is HUGE! If you look at the 2009-2010 6th grade math MSP scores - 69.7% of the free-and-reduced lunch students failed the test and 40% of those students are at Level 1. Nothing to be proud of here.
Having four new members will be crucial in the process for selecting the next superintendent for our district. We need to get the message out loud and clear that for the sake of our students and millions of taxpayer dollars the district operations must be brought to function and order. Do all that you can to support the strong opponents to the incumbent board members, let them begin to pack up and clear out in August.
After Charlie wrote about it, I went to the website of the state agency that issues findings in labor dispute (PERC.wa.gov).
In the most recent "Examiner Decision", the case against the principal at Hale is pretty outrageous. The union won the case against her in part because in an attempt to railroad a union member out of her school,, she produced 3 or 4 fraudulant performance appraisals. None of these was the real one but HR kept sending the union different phony versions hoping to justify her intent.
Good grief, this from a "professional person"?
And we taxpayers pay to defend her?
We think that rather than hold her accountable, the administration felt some additional "coaching" might prevent this happening again.
New vista's indeed.
SPS teacher and Whitman parent
TerryB