Feigning Interest in Community Input
Seattle Public Schools is planning to radically revise transportation plans and school start and end times for the 2012-2013 school year after the Open Enrollment. They have told the Board that their plans are set and little, if any, variation is possible at this late date. This "late date" is four months before school begins.
Despite their total unwillingness to make any changes in their plans, the District regrets their complete refusal to offer any kind of community engagement whatsoever. So they are now trying to remedy that failure by soliciting public input on the transportation plans.
They have a web page about the planned changes to transportation.
From that web page:
Families urged to provide feedbackThis is a complete sham of community engagement. There is no possibility that anything gathered through this process will influence the plan in any way. They are only doing this so they can later claim, disingenuously, that they did some community engagement. This is disgusting and the board should reject it.
The transportation team recognizes the need for community engagement, but the time frame is short because the Superintendent will finalize bell times for all schools by the end of May. As a result, we urge families to provide their feedback via email at transdept@seattleschools.org.
For the short term, we are analyzing options aimed at both saving money and making our bus routes more reliable for our families.
The current proposal would:
- Standardize our bell times from 21 different times to approximately six.
- Make our ride times longer (from 25 minutes to up to 45 minutes) so that we can use fewer buses. Each bus on the road costs the District $46,000 a year, and our goal is to remove 21 buses from the road.
- Ensure buses are full, therefore more efficient.
The web page also describes the new Transportation Task Force, the one that they have been promising for over three years.
Task force to provide recommendationsYou will note that the Task Force is newly formed (does anyone remember a notice asking for volunteers?) The group's first meeting will be AFTER the board's vote on the transportation plan. There is a policy and a superintendent procedure that governs the formation of advisory committees. I'm curious about whether the policy or the procedure were followed.
For the long term, we have established a transportation task force that includes community members, staff from surrounding school districts, Seattle School District staff and special education parents. This group will help us determine a strategy for addressing transportation costs and efficiency measures for the 2013-14 school year and beyond. The group’s first meeting will be May 16 with the goal of providing recommendations to the School Board by fall 2012.
Comments
The announcement has no school specific changes, so it's hard to know what the actual changes are for your family and on what you're commenting. All of the scenarios seem plain awful for third tier schools.
annoyed2
Hmmm
annoyed2
Instead of "tier" substitute the words "bus trip of the day".
The idea is that each bus will run three routes each morning and afternoon. The bus will pick up students and drop them off at the first tier school, then drive around picking kids and drop them off at the second tier school, then drive around collecting kids and drop them off at the third tier school.
The District believes that by having each bus make three trips they will save money by using fewer buses and drivers.
The pattern goes like this:
1. School District proposes a plan that will save them money, make management work easier, or suit some obscure goal of theirs not related to improving outcomes for students.
2. The proposal makes things worse for students, families, communities and/or teachers. People howl.
3. The School District responds with an offer of some small concession that slightly mitigates the harm done by the proposal.
4. The School District moves forward with the proposal despite the popular opposition while bragging about how the mitigation is going to more than make up for the problem they have created.
5. The School District fails or refuses to actually provide the promised mitigation.
You've seen this pattern, right? It was all over the place with the school closures.
With transportation, the pain of going to three tiers came with the promise that travel times would be capped at 25 minutes. That was the spoon full of sugar that was going to help the medicine go down.
Now the District says that the 25-minute travel time promise wasn't realistic and they are taking it back.
@Charlie:
Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes.
And a new disgraceful twist on the parent radar this morning. Note how the page (and certain Board leadership) now blame the transportation problems on the most vulnerable: Homeless kids. SPED students.
Who ARE these people downtown? Do we have Professionals or Lord of the Flies reality show contestants running this district?
Are their rules for how many hours a school bus driver can drive in a given day?
Yes, that is low, isn't it? If SpEd and homeless are the cause of all these problems, then why isn't a fix proposed with the $$! cost avoidance/savings indicated? Wouldn't Boeing require that of its managers, Ms Carr?
At the Finance Committee meeting I sat in, the main reason given was the 25 min. ride time led to half empty buses. THAT was the cause. Quit blaming the vulnerable constituencies without a voice to talk back. I doubt they would make a similar statement re: Spectrum or APP.
Guess the crystall ball doesn't work as good as the numerous available and effective simulation/scheduling tools.
I think the majority of people have been very tolerant and have put up with a lot. All they ask is some consistent, reasonable schedule that allows for normalcy of daily life. We want to understand, so please tell us why this is so hard to put together?
-how can we fix this?
Nobody down there at JSCEE seems to look beyond 5 o'clock today, and so problems seem to LOOM, rather than arriving at the usual pace. Is there nobody there whose job involves, you know, planning?
All of this latest stuff is an attempt to fix the complete mess that individual made by refusing to listen to the people in his dept with the expertise.
25 minutes a route was NEVER possible - it just looked good on paper. But once the Board said go forth and do it....you get to where we are today.
in the know
"We projected that this new system would save up to $4 million (and budgeted for a $3 million savings), but instead transportation staff informed the Board in February that it saved only $2 million."
This was not what was said at the Board meeting. Go listen. It was late and I was tired. Maybe I missed it but nope.
Annoyed 2, Olga Addae of SEA did bring up the issue you thought of, namely, teachers contracts and who watches these kids when they arrive at school even earlier. Good thought and I wonder what the district has to say to that one.
As folks are providing feedback to the district about the transportation plan, I'd like to point out potential issues with the suggestion that a later MS/HS start time could mean sports practices before school. On the surface, this is a good suggestion, but I'll play devil's advocate and point out potential issues:
1) Coaches - many are not employed by the school, have other jobs, and work their personal/employment schedules around the team they're coaching. This may not be possible if the team trains in the morning.
2) Lighted field availability - for outdoor sports, some train on City Parks' fields; some of those fields are lit, some are not. The ones that are have a cost associated with it. Fall/winter AM practices would likely require lights, whereas afternoon practices do/may not.
3) Swim/diving teams - Again, their schedules may have to be reconciled with City Parks' pools.
Now before anyone jumps on me and says "why should we arrange middle and high school start times around a few, select athletic programs?", I'm not suggesting that we do. I for one would love for my middle and high school-aged students to start school at a decent hour based on their adolescent circadian rhythms. I'm all for it! Just wanted to point out the potential issues w/ what might seem like a simple solution (sports in the morning). It may not be as simple as that.
I personally don't see the problem with bumping both the MS/HS bell times AND sports/after-school activities to later times,and it's likely the latter would present challenges just as morning sports would.
Look at the timeline & contradictions:
1. On Feb. 1st, 2012 the Board approved the "Transportation Service Standards 2012-2013". Included is the statement, "Developing bus arrival/departure times and school start/end times must be coordinated, and approval of each must be completed PRIOR to the start of the Open Enrollment process." (Caps added)
2. Open Enrollment started March 27th- April 12th. Families commit to individual schools based on the district's assurances that bus and bell schedules are set for the 2012-13 school year.
3. A newly "Revised Transportation Service Standards 2012-2013" with major changes to bus schedules (and resulting bell times) was introduced to the Board on May 2, 2012 for Board vote on May 16th. This is in direct contradiction to the assurance that the district will not make any changes to bus & bell schedules after open enrollment has started.
4. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with this district?
How can the Board even make a choice based on the limited info provided by staff? There are no cost estimates for the various scenarios, nor any comparisons of returning to the pre-NSAP 2-tiered times. The number of schools impacted isn't even discussed.
The 25 minute timer starts when the first child gets on the bus. Each stop takes time for loading. Then there's the travel time between stops. Consequently, the buses can only make about five stops before they have to head to the school. There aren't enough kids at each stop so that five stops will fill the bus. As a result, the District needs to put more buses on the road because so many are running half-full (or less than half-full).
If the buses are allowed to take 45 minutes instead of 25, one bus can run a route that now takes two buses.
Of course, that means that the time between tiers needs to be expanded, which puts the first tier too early and the third tier too late.
Mom of 4
(that's a big "F" for both subjects!)
What we ought to be asking is what a realistic 2-tier bus schedule would cost, but the District's performance makes me think there's no one there can answer such a useful question as that.
For long term planning, I think we do need to re-examine the cost of transporting kids to our many programs(APP,alt/options/creative/innovative/STEM/STEAM), to interim school site, and use of metro and how all of this feeds into the complexity and overall cost and sustainability of the system. The other big cost is the cost of changing bus schedule every year. That speaks to inefficiency, wasted manhour along with $ cost.
Perhaps we need to confine guarantee yellow bus service (exception for spec ed and homeless) to schools within cluster/geozones only.
parent
Here's a few more dates to add:
12/15/11 Ops Committee (scroll to bottom)
2/8/12 Board Oversight Session on Transportation
3/15/12 Ops Committee
It seems I keep reading different reasons/solutions/explanations in every one of these. If you can't get the story straight, then we're not getting the truth.
It is obvious that much of this is being made up as they go along, without any real analysis to back it up. Why has this lack of professionalism been allowed to go on so long in this department? Where are the project manager types? Who is responsible for this mess?
I'm envisioning something like a park and ride... buses don't make as many stops picking up individual kids or small groups, but when they stop at a community stop there are more kids there. Buses would get filled, there are fewer stops, and (presumably) the ride time could still stay manageable. (If my kid was on the bus 45 or 60 min, I'd figure out a way to drive him or carpool or something... that's too long on a bus)
I wonder if most parents would be happy w/ taking shifts at the community stop. I think we're all looking for a compromise that will provide a reasonable start/ end time and not too long of a ride.
transportationally challenged.
Bus rider
To community stop proponents: Agree that it is a potential fantastic solution...buses are full, bus times actually do fit into 25 min segments...kids and parents build community at the stops...plus safety in numbers.
Which of course is why the transportation 'leader' and I use that term lightly, testified at the Wed board meeting in essence that "Ohhhhh noooo we can't do community stops. Won't work."
Bull)(*&&*. I'll be my 401K The department hasn't lifted even ONE finger to do analysis on the project. Somebody...ask them...have they? They should have at least a year of quantitative and qualitative data from my friends' school: TOPS. The school apparently suggested and most definitely piloted this program. Someone should talk to TOPS if the staff is going to baldface lie at a Board meeting saying community stops are not a possibility.
It is mindboggling how often staff says No We Can't when what they mean is No We Haven't Thought About It. The operations at JSIS stink like (insert your fave metaphor here).
If the board accepts lying to cover up lax operations, they are part of the problem and yes this is an explicit dig at the 2 board members - Carr, Martin-Morris - who cite their Boeing "operational excellence" experience ad nauseum. They have had months to steward and model program excellence on this subject and have blown it. They have actually managed to lead the district into doing less than nothing. They have led the district into yet another customer (family) revolt. Nice.
While the community stops are less convenient for some families, they understand that this saves money for the District. And, the feedback from TOPS parents has been extremely positive about the community building that takes place at the stops and the opportunity for parents to take turns waiting for the bus in the morning and meeting the bus in the afternoon.
I have written to the Board to let them know that community stops do work.
So I'm thinking that we already have next year's bus this year. Maybe nothing will actually change next year, except that they will change the official schedule to more closely match the actual schedule...
Third Tier
Here's an idea: At the meeting where the school board will vote on this insane transportation plan, how about if lots of SPS kids show up wearing their pajamas?
It would be a visual reminder to the board of what it means to roust kids out of bed earlier and earlier just to accommodate the transportation dept's latest crazy schemes.
(It would make a good photo opp...!)
This is nuts.
No gradeband should be on buses at - what - 6:15 a.m. 6:30 a.m.?!?! for a 7:10 bus arrival time. Not high school. Not middle school. Not elementary school. That means the district is asking families to be up every day at 5:30or somesuch? Cmon, it simply does not pass a reality nor a safety check.
No gradeband should be starting school earlier than 8. That middle schools start at 7:45 right now is flat out bad educational practice driven by an inability for downtown to handle logistics professionally. Walk into a middle school at 1st period sometime and see how much quality learning is happening. Honestly, it is a joke.
-skeptical-
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2012/05/start-school-later-for-more-learning/
-later starts for middle school
They may have picked all the right folks. They may be willing to add anyone else now who asks to be added (like Janis) but that isn't quite the point. If someone comes into my store, steals merchandise and then says nicely that he will put it back when I stop the theft -- it is still theft (by a nice-ish thief). If the District blows by the policy and just appoints a board willy nilly -- but then nicely agrees to add Janis and others who complain -- they are still totally out of compliance, and operating in complete disrespect of, the established policies (for no discernable reason other than laziness and complacency and utter lack of caring). I guess that makes them nice-ish rule breakers, but why couldn't they just care enough to follow the procedure. Look at FACMAC. It is not that hard to do.
ArchStanton has produced another classic skewering of SPS administration. All the dysfunction in one movie poster and a left hook to the Waiting for Superman lemmings, too.
Quote:
Edwards found that students who started middle schools an hour later in Wake County, North Carolina, saw their standardized test scores increase by 2.2 percentile points in math, and 1.5 percentile points in reading on average. The impact was greater for older students. Starting school an hour later had further benefits, he found: 12 fewer minutes of television-watching per day; nine more minutes devoted to homework per week; and an average of 1.3 fewer absences than other students.
See for detail...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/school-sleep-student-performance_n_1472440.html
- frustrated MS mom
I'm starting to wonder if someone in the UW College of Education got a big grant to study the impact of start times and they bribed someone at SPS to create a 'natural experiment' that they could mine for their analysis. (better dust offmy tin foil hat!)