Phil Brockman Promoted
I believe we will see ever-changing org charts for several months as Banda gets the lay of the land and new hires/shifts are made. That makes two Ex Directors changed (Aurora Lora, leaving SPS, and Phil Brockman, moving up).
From SPS (via a reader, thanks!) (Does anyone know what the High School Graduation Grant Initiative is? Sounds good.)
From SPS (via a reader, thanks!) (Does anyone know what the High School Graduation Grant Initiative is? Sounds good.)
As
we continue to plan for the 2012-13 school year and beyond, we
recognize the need for increased collaboration between all departments.
Providing all students with
an education that will prepare them for college, career and life is our
mission, and along with that comes many operational duties.
Additionally,
coordination between departments is essential as the District begins to
discuss system-wide changes that impact schools and families, such as
school
boundaries, bell times, instructional programming, athletics and
transportation. To ensure this, today I am pleased to appoint Phil
Brockman to a new position: Executive Director of School
Operations. Phil, who has served as Executive Director
of Schools for the Northeast Region since 2010, starts this grant-funded
position on July 1.
Thanks
to a Department of Education grant, called the High School Graduation
Grant Initiative, Phil will be able to use his academic expertise to
support both instructional
programming and the operations team’s system-wide initiatives. In
addition, Phil will provide support to schools in the High School
Graduation Initiative, promoting student connectedness, school
attendance and graduation. This new role will also establish
a bridge between the regional Executive Directors of Schools and
operations to ensure collaboration and provide support to schools during
academic and operational system changes. He will report directly to the
Superintendent.
Phil
brings to this new role more than 30 years of experience at Seattle
Public Schools. He started his career as a math and physical education
teacher at Rainier
Beach High School in 1983. He served as an assistant principal at
Madison Middle School from 1992-1997, as principal of McClure Middle
School from 1997-2000 and as principal of West Seattle High School from
2000-2004 before returning to his alma mater, Ballard
High School, as principal for six years. In 2009, Brockman received the
Alliance for Education’s Thomas B. Foster Award for Excellence for
outstanding leadership.
Human Resources will soon post an opening for Phil’s current
position, which we hope to fill next month.
Please join me in congratulating Phil on his new appointment.
Sincerely,
Bob Boesché
Interim Deputy Superintendent
Seattle Public Schools
Comments
- southpaw
I think this may be a good move for high school improvement and outcomes.
I've had input from a number of families who have found Brockman to be weak and ineffectual with regards to holding principals to their duty to special education students.
Ditto that Maureen. I'm surprised that Boesche, as his parting act, would fill this position. He could've waited until Banda was fully on board.
Reader
Phil will be a tremendous resource to Mr Banda as he gets familiar with the district. Best of luck to both of them.
I have found that the special ed issue are deeply entrenched and dysfunction and beyond the scope of just one person. I have worked with Phil Brockman on several of these issues. We were not nearly as effective as I would have liked to have been. However, we were more effective than I have been with any other administrator.
I spoke to him multiple times about how IEP are delivered in minutes but staffing is delivered by the number of bodies with an IEP and about how that creates wildly uneven case loads.
My bar might be low but he actually understood the problem and tried to make changes. He did not succeed. However, I have spoken about this same issue for years and he was the first administrator that both understood the problem and even attempted to see if there was help.
- north seattle mom
I do know that Middle College needs to rent some space. That would be operational support for a school, it would also promote student connectedness, school attendance, and graduation.
And BTW, kudos to the interagency program staff.
Where will I be able to see this Auditors report regarding the questionable use of SPED funding. Can you send a link ?
Special Education wants Ed Directors to own how principals manage special education. Special Education says principals are in charge of special education in the buildings. Ed Directors are having none of this. No way. You go to them, they say you have to go back to Special Education and good luck with THAT.
What we do know is that principals have to do pretty much nothing to pass whatever bar there is for how they manage special education. Their performance criteria must be something like getting points for not putting the kid into the broom closet, if that.
Signed, also hoping Banda will see through this current crop of Ed Directors
to go. As a charter school zealot with a phony admin degree and inane ed reform credentials she is pushing an agenda that will hurt SPS.
How do you know what the report will say and how BHS will respond ?
Vey interesting... if it is illeglal why wont they be punished more severely and forced to stop ?
Please post a link to the report.
-- Reality is never simple
I find Mr Brockman to be affable and approachable. I wish he had the chops to do the right thing.
Fey
I felt the same way about a lot of the downtown folks under MGJ. It was hard to tell who was incompetent and who was an actual gem struggling to survive in a cesspool of a system.
Am I just being hopelessly optimistic here, or is there any credible basis to believe that, under a better Superintendent, Mr. Brockman may be a success in his new position?
When I encounter situations like this, and I did recently over program placement, I like to bring both people into the same room. I turn to one and say "You said that this is his job, but he says it is your job. Who's job is it? We're not leaving until I know who has responsibility for this."
The problem in this case, of course, is that there is no Special Education Director. The second problem is trying to get these people into a room together.
Two suggestions:
1. Use email routed to each of them. That brings them into the same virtual room. You can even include Mr. Banda and a Board Director in the room this way.
2. When the Education Director says it is the Special Education Director's job, ask them for that person's name. Ask them how an empty office is supposed to effect change.
Jan, that is it. In a dysfunctional, slimy environment of fear and intimidation, WHO gets promoted, WHO seems to float to the top. I say it is those who are willing to go with the flow and are unwilling to take a strong stand. This would seem to explain the complaints I have heard about Brockman.
I see that the FY13 proposed budget has monies for a deputy superintendent (along with our cluster of asst. supts). Frankly, Mr Banda is very experienced and does not need a deputy. Is Brockman being positioned for that role (with minimal say from Banda)? Perhaps he would serve well and protect the civil rights of students, but that would suggest that he is as changeable as the tides.
Charlie, you make it sound so simple but many very smart parents have been jerked around by these &*$%@!
What happens when they don't open the door? Or even acknowledge that you knocked? Yeah, you have a paper trail but there are already plenty of those.
It requires a lot of grit, patience, and dogged determination. It can take months to drag these people into the same room and even then they may conspire to confound you.
You can request meetings. You can threaten litigation. You can go to the press. Try everything. There's still no promise that any of it will work.
You may have to ambush them - that's what I did to Pegi McEvoy and Cathy Thompson over Program Placement when they each denied any involvement in any of the decisions. I caught them at a District public meeting on BEX IV. Even then, they each managed to point at the other.
I am hoping Mr. Brockman's years of experience with SPS will bring an insight and wisdom to JSIS HQ and all his positives that have been mentioned here will shine through.
But I can't help but wonder if he wasn't put in place by Enfield & co. as a parting act for some other purpose -- perhaps to influence (help control?) Mr. Banda, perhaps as the representative of the ed reform business clique who are trying to run this district behind the scenes and need point-people to help them do that (after all, Banda was not their choice for supt. and hopefully will not want to be their puppet), & as SPS Leaks has revealed. Having been sucked into central admin. the last few years, I worry that P.B. may have come under some influences whose interests are not those of the greater SPS community.
I would love to be wrong about this.
As for money in the budget for a deputy superintendent, I am sympathetic. I have been told (but haven't verified) that many districts our size and larger have a chief of staff. Certainly Treat had a busy job in his role and Banda might see having that position filled will give him more time to deal with the bigger picture. We will see.
. . .waiting for that link to the auditor's ruling . . .
The SAO audit was presented today with the expected finding re: misuse of restricted funds. They announced the report would be on their website Monday. Can you google? If not, sorry to hear that.
From mirmac 6/26 10:39:
"mirmac1 said...
There will be a link tomorrow"
Just taking you at your word. My deepest apologies for such an egregious mistake.
Why does he, and why do all the Ed Directors, get a free pass when it comes to Special Ed? They like to throw up their hands as if they and their principals have nothing to do with the low expectations but they are all about "we like you if you don't ask for anything" treatment of families.
Of course Banda was integral to this hiring/promotion decision. But what does it say that he didn't ask for somebody who shows that business as usual for the District's most vulnerable students is not OK?
Baffled taxpayer
As far as I know, Phil Brockman is a man of integrity. The challenges with special ed are serious and real and there are many people to hold accountable for that.
As far as I know, I have never heard anyone speak highly of anyone with regard to special ed leadership. Is there some unknown superhero out there. If there is, now would be the time to shine a light in their direction.
- north seattle mom
Sorry, I was overcome by a case of the snarkies.
D wade, you can do your own homework.
Frankly, it sounds to me like delivery of special ed services is in complete tatters in the SSD (which is such a shame -- 10 or 15 years ago, we had programs that were so widely admired, nationwide, that people were moving here from out of state to get access to some of them). That's the bad news. The good news (for Mr. Banda) is that he gets to pretty much start from scratch. So much has been dismantled or watered down, there is not much left to preserve or even sort through. At least that is my impression. As long as people are willing to concede that he cannot rebuild this Rome in a day, it seems to me that he has nowhere to go but up.
I have to say -- this entire thing makes me want to go iron my ears like Dobby, in shame and penance. Yes, I know there were fires to put out everywhere, but how I could have done so little (except try to float my own SPED kid through the shoals) while the District ignored and dismissed its most vulnerable kids, and dismantled their programs -- well, I have no defense.
Why ask about Special Ed leadership? The problems in Special Ed START and FINISH in General Ed.
It is a nonstarter that this is just a mattere of better Special Ed leadership. The superhero idea is also a distraction. We just need a Superintendent who is going to lead for change and business as unusual for Special Ed in this District.
Baffled tax payer
He is also a lead ed reformer in the District and will now be well positioned to carry on the work of MGJ, Susan Enfield, and all of their corporate supporters.
Parents, beware; he is an effective politician and knows exactly what to say face-to-face. His words and actions are hard to link, however, and most often are not the same.
~A fly on the SPS wall
Any one know him well enough to actually glean: the truth of his expectations for the role?; the degree of authority Banda has assigned to this new $145K+ position?
I am not asking about special ed leadership. I am am asking if ANYONE does a good job leading special ed.
I am the parent of two special ed students myself so I actually speak from some experience on this topic. If folks are going to try stones at someone because "he failed" at special ed, all I am asking is for anyone to provide an existence proof of someone who "did not fail" at special ed.
If there is no existence proof of "not failure," then the entire conversation is about who has failed the least. And that has been my experience in special ed.
- north seattle mom
I am not asking about special ed leadership. I am am asking if ANYONE does a good job leading special ed.
I am the parent of two special ed students myself so I actually speak from some experience on this topic. If folks are going to try stones at someone because "he failed" at special ed, all I am asking is for anyone to provide an existence proof of someone who "did not fail" at special ed.
If there is no existence proof of "not failure," then the entire conversation is about who has failed the least. And that has been my experience in special ed.
- north seattle mom
IMHO
~A fly on the SPS wall
ITK
That has been my experience too, North end mom.