Lowell and Lincoln APP still one school
From David Garrick, President of the Lowell PTA, in a message to Superintendent Banda, board directors, and others:
Mr. Garrick also fails to mention that Lowell is trying to become a Creative Approach School, and, if the two schools are still regarded as one school, then they will need the support of the Lowell at Lincoln teachers and staff to reach the 80% buy-in requirement. Such an approval would create a lot of risk for the Lincoln staff without offering them any benefit. There is good reason to doubt it.
I am the president of Lowell Elementary School's PTA and a parent of a student who has attended Lowell for the past four years. I am contacting you to inquire about a situation that has come to my attention, which affects the quality of education Lowell is able to design for its students. As I hope you are aware, parents at Lowell and Lincoln APP spent much of last year trying to convince the school district that separating the two schools was in the best interest of both parties. Thanks to their enormous efforts, last spring Susan Enfield announced that both schools would be separated in the interest of offering students the best possible educational experience. It has come to my attention that this has not happened. Due to this oversight, Lowell now must contend with a number of issues related to designing a high-quality experience to our students; two of which have been brought to my immediate attention:
First, academic goals for both schools are aggregated as a single entity. This leads the state, district, and individual campuses to set academic goals based of skewed populations. Considering that the APP population is specifically generated based on academic achievement, it is logical to determine that academic goals for students at both campuses will not accurately represent their actual populations. In reference to Lowell - our enrollment is much smaller than that at Lincoln and so our goals will be affected to a greater degree.
Second - and of immediate importance - is that this lack of separation affects state and federal funding of Lowell. Our student population qualifies for from 50 to 55 percent (depending on which district employee communicates this information) for free and reduced lunches. As I understand it, this threshold qualifies students at Lowell for funding under Title One funding from the US Department of Education. When the two campuses are linked as a single entity, Lowell no longer qualifies for this funding - directly affecting the services Lowell is able to offer students. In short - our children are not receiving the quality education they deserve due to a paperwork connection that links our two schools.
My request is this. Please rectify this situation. Families and faculty at Lowell are committed to design a high-quality experience for our students and only seek a fair chance to do so. We seek your help in getting to the bottom of this matter.
Please reply to me so that I can help inform our parent community about the progress being made to our parents as Seattle Schools lives up to its commitments to our students and families.Mr. Garrick is gracious in referring to this failure to keep a commitment as an "oversight". The simple truth is that Seattle Public Schools has never kept a single promise that they have ever made to students and communities. Such a perfect record cannot be the result of series of simple oversights; it must be deliberate. Want to know why the District doesn't have the public's trust? It's because the District isn't trustworthy.
Mr. Garrick also fails to mention that Lowell is trying to become a Creative Approach School, and, if the two schools are still regarded as one school, then they will need the support of the Lowell at Lincoln teachers and staff to reach the 80% buy-in requirement. Such an approval would create a lot of risk for the Lincoln staff without offering them any benefit. There is good reason to doubt it.
Comments
Another consequence of this is we received the recent data for test scores and the district would not divide the data between the two schools. We have to do the CSIP ( continue student improvement plan) which each school must do. We are supposed to come up with a plan with flawed information. Again, we are not able to help the students at Lowell because the district will nor do their job.
If the district employees can not do there jobs, maybe Banda should clean house and find people who can.
Watch out, because before long there will be no such thing as "schools". There will only be "programs" located in "buildings" - throughout the district. Your child will not attend a school. Your child will attend the "neighborhood school name" PROGRAM located at the "neighborhood school name" BUILDING. All bets will be off. No "program" will be safe from the lackadaisical and unprofessional meddling of SPS staff in orchestrating their "plates spinning on sticks" approach to management.
Oompah
-sped parent
If so that would be another reason the district would want to continue to hedge this issue.
Ben
It is wrong to manipulate the data to deny federal money to the Lowell children.
The Board cannot grant Lincoln school status until a formal proposal is presented to them by the district. I hope families from both schools, plus many others, will write to the district and demand an immediate end to this unfair situation.
If test scores are so important, you'd think there would be takers for that offer.
- Just Asking
How quickly could something like this be rectified, should SPS / Banda decide that they want to do something about it? Could this be taken care of quickly in theory?
--FedMomof2
Right now, North APP seems to have a pretty good situation: for all practical purposes, they have their own, self-contained school with its own budget, principal and staff. They have not been split up into pieces again, have a stable home for the next few years, and at least the possibility of moving intact into a new elementary at the Wilson Pacific site.
Can someone explain what APP might actually gain from a truly formal split from Lowell?
Very Curious
It's also been challenging to get equipment, like computers and overhead projectors and library books, and I heard that it took months longer than it should have to be able to actually hire a Vice Principal. Day in and day out, these issues create an extra burden and more hoops for school staff to jump through.
All of these things, however, pale in comparison to the fact that Lowell appears to be eligible for Title 1 funding that it cannot currently get.
The thing I don't understand is what the concern is over giving Lincoln school status in the short-term. The Board is in charge of "creating" schools but also closing schools. Should APP be too large to fit into a 650-kid school in 2017, the Board can "close" the school and divide the populations in two. Heck, even if it isn't and the Board wants to follow through with its nascent plan to create "equity" by placing elementary APP in 5 geographic regions throughout the district, they will still have the authority to "close" Lincoln in the future to make that happen.
Am I missing something here? Doesn't that make sense? Grant school status, which gets us through the next 5 years. Make changes when and if circumstances demand in the future.
Jane
1) Why doesn't the District acknowledge the truth, that Lowell at Lincoln is an independent school from Lowell?
2) How can that reason outweigh the harm that this situation is causing?
I think the answers are pretty simple. The district officials would have to do some work - not much, but some - if the two schools were separate. They would also have to do some work to allocate additional resources to each - library books, PE, and music equipment to Lincoln and Title I money to Lowell. They don't want to do the work of creating the school or the work of re-allocating the resources.
This outweighs the harm done to the students because the harm is done to the students and not to the staff who would have to do the work. So the staff don't care.
1. Management made and announced this decision.
2. The actions required by the decision have not been carried out.
Who, specifically, in SPS management is responsible for carrying out the actions necessary to implement the decision? Who is the direct supervisor of the responsible party? Is the position vacant? If that is the case who, specifically, is responsible for fulfilling the duties of this vacant position until filled? Seriously. Names. Of the managers that continue to draw salaries - increasing salaries - because they are "taking on additional responsibilities" and because they are "underpaid".
Sue in Zen Field
But in the meantime, they need to spend the time to give us separate test scores, so that we can create a school designed for our students, which is very different then APP North. I was sitting in a NOT meeting, when the principal put a box full of the test scores on it. In bold were the words "SORRY BOTH SCHOOLS SCORES ARE IN HERE" It's taken a tremendous effort by principal Smith to get an electronic copy, so that we can create our own data.
Why in gods name, do we have to do this. The district employees should just do their job.
This should be a fairly straightforward exercise. It is unfortunate that such a straightforward exercise should prove so challenging to the managers and administrators of this district.
"SORRY BOTH SCHOOLS SCORES ARE IN HERE"....but wait...I thought they were not separate schools!
Who is not doing their job?
Who is the supervisor of the person not doing their job?
Who does this supervisor report to?
Seriously. Names.
Whoever is responsible for following up and ensuring the separation into two schools is now messing about with federal money. Sorry, but WTF is the problem here?
Sue in Zen Field
ELB
Well, that's certainly ONE way of putting it.
APP at Lincoln an "elite academy?" How is that? It's a temporary site for a program that is open to any student who tests in.
They did NOT choose to be located alone - the district did that. That "question of equity" would need to be directed at the district. And how is it them being housed alone is inequitable? Are they getting more resources? Not that I'm aware of.
"Pretty good situation"? They have been and continue to be in an endless holding pattern. That they have made the best of it is to their credit. (Just as Pathfinder put up with a lousy building for years and years as has Arbor Heights).
And it's not what APP would get but what the Lowell students would get - access to Title One funds they want. You are welcome to go ask Lowell parents about this issue.
Jane
Banda should step in and make an executive decision and give both schools what they want and deserve.
I just don't get why they do not just say that App is in Lincoln and in five years just move them to whatever school they will be going to. Don't they do this all the time. Maybe they want to break up the group but are afraid to piss off all of those parents, or they want to cohouse them with another school, but realize there are no other schools that can absorb 500 kids, or even two groups of 250, so they do nothing instead and 700+ kids are impacted by their inability to make hard decisions. They should focus on the problems at hand instead of getting excited by shiny new schools in the future.
When Dr. Enfield made that promise it was a promise from her personally, not a promise by the District. So when she left, so did your promise.
For parents, we have no leverage. Our "money" goes in in the form of taxes -- tied to nothing, and thus spendable at will, or our votes -- again -- which are only for board members, not staff.
Note. Charters do not help this. In fact, they make it worse.
It doesn't matter whether the promises are personal or institutional. They are not binding. You can call them "promises," you can call them "fig newtons." They are not enforceable.
I wonder if the Lowell PTA and / or Lincoln APP PTA have considered getting together and filing a FOIA request with the district to find out who is responsible / get all correspondence/paperwork pertaining to this issue. Would be a starting point and possibly enough to nudge the district into action.
And wouldn't it just serve the district right if 1040 passes and both these schools (programs) apply for charter status? (That doesn't mean I advocate it.)
Winston
With her gone, however, the communities can't even get that close. They can't even try to hold her accountable for it. The promise is honestly broken, it is dishonestly denied and there is no accountability at all.
But gifted charters do exist in other States... It is a slippery slope. Creative types often figure out 'work arounds' when sufficiently motivated. I have no idea what would happen here if it passes, but I do know I don't want to find out (eg. I hope it doesn't pass).
-- yes, somehow, some way, betcha it could happen
If charters are intended to meet the needs of students whose needs are not met in the public schools, there you have it.
Sue in Zen Field
"It will be interesting to see how the APP community responds to this. I think they already know the district will not give them school status. That would basically create an elite all-APP academy in the North End. Other APP programs are co-located with regular education programs, so this immediately creates questions of equity."
I would ask you to please not jump on the bandwagon of calling our school "elite" because it has testing requirements. The kids in our school learn differently from typical kids. Their brains simply don't work the same way that other people's brains do. They have special educational needs.
If they had special educational needs because of cognitive impairment or physical differences, I will bet that you would never accuse them of being elite. You would not likely disdain them for wanting their own school with programming that targets their special needs. You would not think that they have it "pretty good."
However, as your comments implied, most people seem to think that highly capable kids don't deserve the compassion that other kids with special needs deserve.
We see this at the district level all the time - this patronizing attitude that because our kids are "smart" they will turn out OK even with repeated splits and school changes and instability. NO KID does well living in a state of constant transition. ALL KIDS want things to be predictable.
We want this for our kids too. We want our school to have a home so we can settle in and build a solid school comunity. And to not find out on the first day of school that our cafeteria tables got carted off someplace because someone at SPS forgot we were here. Or that 1/3 of our teachers didn't have computers for the first 2 weeks of school because we don't have a separate school number. We want what other schools have. In effect, we want equity with the children in neighborhood schools.
Many of our children and families still have ties to Lowell Capitol Hill. We do want what is best for them, esp. in terms of Title 1 funding, and we have been arguing in favor of a complete split for the past year. We are hoping that the district will treat both campuses fairly.
Mom of APP 2nd grader
The rules in other states are different from the rules here. Other states do allow entrance criteria while Initiative 1240 would not.
So how could it happen? The same way that Washington charters under I-1240 could create schools without many students with IEPs - don't serve them and they will leave.
Just create a charter school, we could call it "All People are Powerful", and tell people it will be an academically challenging school in which the curriculum is keyed at least two years ahead.
Any student can enroll. Accept them all, and, if the list gets too long use the lottery to choose them.
Them teach to the APP expectations. Offer no support to the students who can't keep up. Give them bad grades. Do a lot of parent conferences in which the parents are told that this isn't the right school for their child. They will, in time, leave. When they are gone you will have an APP school.
Another way to do it is to test the students and segregate the classes between eligible and non-eligible. Then do nothing with the non-eligible students. Put them all together - regardless of grade or age - in one class with one teacher and babysit them, but don't bother to teach them. They will leave.
Please understand that I'm not recommending these tactics; I'm just answering the question.
If you're disgusted by these tactics, then I suggest you think about what is happening to students with disabilities in schools all around the country all the time.
You are correct. Typically developing children and advanced learners will rarely face the challenges and prejudice that students with disabilities do. However, advanced academic learners often are challenged socially. For that disability, they do deserve compassion.
Sped student parent
In fact, they are considered, under I-1240, "at-risk" kids so a charter opening a school for gifted students would (allegedly) get a preference. (The initiative says they do but then says ZERO about how that is applied either by the authorizer. Not much of a preference if it's not spelled out.)
Now, could they have testing to get in? No but they could write their charter to have high expectations and if your child couldn't cut it, he/she could be exited (much as they do in KIPP but for behavior).
- Grrrr