Friday Open Thread
Reminders for Saturday:
Board Community Meetings:
DeBell from 9-11am at Cafe Appassinato
Family Symposium/Road Map to College Event at Chief Sealth High School from 10 am- 3 p.m.
Good News in SPS:
Hawthorne Community raised more than $11K to "reimagine" their library.
Roosevelt High School's Hands for a Bridge program received the World Educator award from the World Affairs Council. The program is being recognized for "its dedication to increasing global awareness and fostering dialogue about issues surrounding social justice."
SPS's LGBT Families Dinner is Thursday, November 9th from 6-8 p.m. at NOVA/World School at Meany. Dinner is provided. Questions and RSVP to Lisa Love at 252-0982 or llove@seattleschools.org with how many people in your group or for more information.
What's on your mind?
Board Community Meetings:
DeBell from 9-11am at Cafe Appassinato
Family Symposium/Road Map to College Event at Chief Sealth High School from 10 am- 3 p.m.
Good News in SPS:
Hawthorne Community raised more than $11K to "reimagine" their library.
Roosevelt High School's Hands for a Bridge program received the World Educator award from the World Affairs Council. The program is being recognized for "its dedication to increasing global awareness and fostering dialogue about issues surrounding social justice."
SPS's LGBT Families Dinner is Thursday, November 9th from 6-8 p.m. at NOVA/World School at Meany. Dinner is provided. Questions and RSVP to Lisa Love at 252-0982 or llove@seattleschools.org with how many people in your group or for more information.
What's on your mind?
Comments
- Let's really discuss this
Seriously, though. This district was not able to pull off an assignment plan based upon where the kids live (they couldn't figure out how many seats they would need, where,and when). I can see them coping with such a radical concept as year-round schooling.
Feeling very cynical this morning.
-North End Mom
-North End Mom
If I opt my child out of some MAP testing so they have only one data point each year, will this prevent the scores from being used against a teacher? Are children with no scores counted against the teacher (or principal) come evaluation time?
If the measurement error of the test is higher than the projected growth, how can the measured growth, or lack of, be a statistically valid measure of teacher effectiveness?
-debating about opting out
I think advancement should be on mastery, not seat time.
If you want to know more, follow the links on the website including to the Hands for a Bridge Movie.
CBA negotiations
We know how they like to interject themselves into our district's business.
If you are going to have your kid take the MAP at all, I'd take it whenever offered. There is enough noise (margin of error) in any single score that a single score is not that useful. My kids take it 3 times a year and now they've taken it 7 times I can see the trend in their performance. An individual outlier score is obvious, which it wouldn't be if we had taken it only once per year.
If I were going to opt out, I'd opt out completely.
SPS Mom
-Really not convinced what we get from the MAP
15 Reasons Why the Seattle School District Should Shelve the MAP® Test—ASAP
MAP test manufacturer warns: MAP test should NOT be used to evaluate teachers. — So why is Seattle Public Schools doing just that?
Opting out of the MAP test and a MAP opt out letter template just in time for Spring testing
- in seach of transparency
If the notes were posted it would be apparent that staff is making decisions that relate in no way to community input.
Sue in Zen Field
JP
Instead of one summer break where students fall backwards, they have 4 of them. A maddening regression.
One class per grade doesn't have their own classroom and has to rove from one open room to another every 3 weeks.
There is always one track that ends up being more appealing to families (usually the one with the 3 weeks off that fall in Dec. April and Aug). For the most part, everybody else just feels like they are getting the short end of the stick.
With the building never really being empty, the janitorial duties are never completed as effectively as they could be if the rooms were empty.
It makes prof. development and staff meetings very challenging when a 1/5 of staff in not working at any one time.
Walk to math, walk to reading..etc. no longer work because a 1/5 of the students are always missing but teachers must continue with the curriculum.
Transportation costs soar, as the busses are ALWAYS running.
Assessment is more challenging to organize when students are all on different pacing calendars. The state wants them all tested during one small window, so at least one or two tracks get tested with remarkably less school days under their belt.
Specialist schedules are really challenging to create. CA had an easy answer to that conundrum- eliminate most of them.
I'd make a list of PROS, but honestly, other than being able to vacation off-peak I can't think of anything else I liked about year round schooling.
If Seattle does it, people will flee the district, myself included.
TS
We're having trouble finding out from the District which other schools are having staffing cuts. If your school is, could you post the details here, or email me (stevepalbertson at gmail.com)?
Thanks!
- Steve
Coe is also on the other side of the equation, they are gaining a full time vice principal, an addition .5 teacher and an extra half day from the nurse.
QA Parent
open ears
whichever side of the equation you're on the big message at the district has no business making major adjustment the way it is in October. it's too hard to hire good new staff this late in the school year and get them fully up and running to serve kids, and it pulled the rug out from under programs that have already gotten going. the district haa to find ways to avoid these upheavals in the fall.
Emile
I'm pretty sure this question was worked through. If you review the WSS and the enrollment numbers from APP @ Lincoln you can calculate for yourself how many teachers should be assigned to Lincoln.
Count the number of students in grades 1, 2, and 3 and divide that number by the staffing ratio, which I believe is 26 for those grades. Then count the students in grades 4 and 5 and divide that number by the staffing ratio for those grades, which I believe is 28. Take the total of those two dividends and multiply it by .2 to get the number of PCP teachers. Add the number of classroom teachers and the number of PCP teachers and then round up to the nearest .5 FTE. That's the number of general education and PCP teachers the school should have.
Then add another teacher for the 14 SpEd students in the building. There are no ELL students so there is no allocation for ELL.
That's how many teachers APP @ Lincoln should have. Has the District budgeted for the correct number? If not, that should be the focus of your complaint - to get the right number of teachers following the WSS formula. If the number of teachers is right then you can stop complaining.
However, something is going to have to give. Many districts use either year round schooling or split schedules as a bridge strategy until they are able to build new facilities.
I sincerely hope we are not there yet. However, I do believe that the crowding at Eckstein is severe enough that a broader community conversation is in order.
IMO, the crowding at Eckstein was 100% predictable and families have a right to be outraged. This situation has dragged out much longer could be considered reasonable, with the definition of reasonable being a solution in sight.
Folks "hoped" that a 2015 Wilson Pacific School would be enough. It seems to me that what the community is saying is that 2015 won't work and there must be relief for 2013. Considering that more than 25% of the Eckstein's capacity is in portables and that the school is already larger than most high schools, relief is a reasonable request.
I should be surprised the district still has a problem with crowding.
But I'm not.
And I really do dislike having to address anyone that way, you really should have the you-know-what's to use some semblance of your name, can it be verified that opt-out students were forced to take the MAP test?
Please advise.
Dora Taylor
grr
When you refer to "Ham", do you mean Hamilton High School?
Dora
After bragging that they somehow “successfully advocated for significant changes to the 2010 contract” (how did they do that, one wonders? Did they have the ear of the District’s negotiators? Really?), they go on to say that much “of what happens in your child’s classroom is governed by the SPS/SEA contract. This includes class size, the length of the school day, how teachers are hired and evaluated, and how families can best interact with their school community”
Then, evidently, they did EXTENSIVE, I mean LOTS and LOTS of research:
“Based on research, best practices and extensive community input, together we have identified areas for the next contract to address”
I guess they forgot about class size, length of school day, and how families interact with the school, because all their survey questions relate to evaluation (each question has a space for comment by the survey taker, but no “rating” or anything – are they going to aggregate the responses qualitatively or what?) Here are the areas S360, uh, OSC has identified to lobby the district negotiators on:
"Aligned Professional Development:Restructure Professional Development to align with the recently adopted Danielson™ evaluation framework."
So there wouldn't be any PD except around Danielson? Great. How helpful.
"Career Ladders:Fully implement career ladders as agreed to in the current contract."
So some teachers can lord it over others, even though they won't get paid any more money, because there's no money for it.
"Peer Review: Include peer review in evaluations."
Right. Because teachers are in each other's classrooms so often.
"Student Feedback: Include student feedback in evaluations."
Yes, students are great at giving easy teachers glowing reviews.
"Student Growth Measures: Strengthen the student growth component in the current contract as required by state law (SB 5895)"
Because you just KNOW all those numbers really, really represent students.
"Accountability: Utilize performance as a key factor in staffing decisions, including placement, transfers and layoffs."
So those numbers, uh, "student growth via value-added computation generated from standardizeed test scores" will be used to lay people off. Fantastic.
"Hiring: End the policy of 'forced placement' of teachers in schools."
This one is particularly good: Don't want teachers displaced from a closing school to be able to work anywhere else in the district- there are TFAers to hire, damnit!
"Timing: Speed up the hiring timeline."
This one is actually a good idea.
Then there are a series of open-ended questions, which I'm sure S360/OSC will morph into further attacks on teachers and educators:
"What is the most pressing issue around your child’s academic achievement, if any?"
"What is the most pressing issue around your school’s academic achievement, if any?"
"What is the most pressing issue in the school district around academic achievement, if any?"
-Joe
_AGL
Steve
Based on supersecret (NOT) emails, LEV's sticks its finger in the CBA pie via "labor consultant" Lizanne Lyons, who was "chief negotiator" for the last CBA.
Why is SPS spending good money hiring a consultant who is just a tool of the the Gates/LEV/OSC/etc machine? Oh, let me guess, the Alliance probably picks up the tab. Ms Lyons kibitzes with Korsmo, MJ Ryan, Holly Miller, Shannon Campion, you know the REAL power behind the throne.
Maybe it's a dopey idea, but I think that's why it works that way.
FACMAC stands for "Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee", a volunteer committee to advise on BEX.
If you go here you'll see more:
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=229309
As far as what they do lately, they haven't posted any meeting minutes on that page since February, so we don't know.
I don't pretend to know the complexities of this, but there has to be a better way. I'm happy that a lot of schools are getting additional staff, but why can't they know that on the first day? And for those schools losing valued teachers after six weeks...as the kids say, "WTF"?
- Steve
H. middle school. I don't know about "forced", but yes, when a kid gets asked to go to the library and gets put in front of the MAP test with no warning they tend to comply, even if they opted out last year.
And I'm sorry I don't have the you-know-whats, but I've stuck with one pseudonym over the years. Safer that way and let's me keep my ears open in the schools.
open ears
I'm guessing the scores are wanted as part of the baseline for teacher evaluation, which brings up other issues of MAP scores. The reading portion of the test has a ceiling of 245. Once you hit the ceiling, you can't say with any statistical certainty that a score of 245 is any different than a score of 250 or 255. You can only say they all scored very high. Elementary APP students are hitting the ceiling of the MAP reading test. Once they hit the ceiling, using the MAP scores to evaluate teachers simply isn't valid. Using MAP scores in this way - to evaluate teachers, based on individual scores - is a problem on its own, but it's simply meaningless once they hit the ceiling. The test can no longer measure meaningful growth.
end of rant
No. That's not how sped services are calculated for schools. If all those students are designated SM1 - then that will drive in 0.8 sped teacher. This service is 18:1, and is doled out in fractions with enrollment. If the students are all related services only students, they will drive in 0 special education students, and they will get a visit from a visiting SLP and/or OT. So, depending on the IEP designations of each student, the school will receive between 0 and 0.8FTE.
If those APP students are SM2 or higher - then they won't be able to go to Lowell@Lincoln, because there won't be a sped program there to serve them. Despite the legality of that, it is what it is. The "SM" labeling of programs replaced the old levels in a complicated scheme devoted to obfuscation.
-sped watcher
Educate yourselves on the limitations of the test.
parent
(skeptical of MAP)
Review of Learning about Teaching
The report disputes some of the conclusions of the MET project and puts into question the "value of student achievement data as a significant component of teacher evaluations."
a reader
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/10/20/seattle-offers-boston-lesson-neighborhood-schools/FXtpAFHaHafpYgWXjAw72H/story.html