Wednesday Open Thread
So, some high drama tonight at the Board meeting.
From the speakers list (with a long wait list), we see most of it is over the resolution for a No on 1240 from the Board. Judging from the names I recognize that would seem to be in agreement with this resolution, the Board will get lots of encouragement (although I do see a few that will disagree and I'll be interested to hear their argument).
Unfortunately, there are 4 TFA people on the list apparently to endorse the latest hiring of one TFAer (which no one else is protesting). It sure would be nice if they gave up those spots to parents with BEX concerns. If I hear enough good words in support of the No on1240 resolution, I will give up my spot.
I am actually hoping the Board, while discussing the resolution, does make some statement about groups that try to stifle their right to speak out on election issues that directly affect our district and the Board's work overseeing our district. Neither Stand for Children or any group has the right to tell the Board they cannot speak out.
That was a good debate last night; I wonder how women can get into Romney's "binders full of women."
One new event to make note of that you might want to attend is tomorrow night (Thursday, October 18th) at Queen Anne Elementary. They will have a double-header event:
6:30-7:15 pm - discussion of the Creative Approach process (and QAE's proposal)
7:30-8:30 p.m. - debate on I-1240 to create Charter Schools
It sounds like a good chance to hear more on both subjects. They do want you to RSVP.
From the speakers list (with a long wait list), we see most of it is over the resolution for a No on 1240 from the Board. Judging from the names I recognize that would seem to be in agreement with this resolution, the Board will get lots of encouragement (although I do see a few that will disagree and I'll be interested to hear their argument).
Unfortunately, there are 4 TFA people on the list apparently to endorse the latest hiring of one TFAer (which no one else is protesting). It sure would be nice if they gave up those spots to parents with BEX concerns. If I hear enough good words in support of the No on1240 resolution, I will give up my spot.
I am actually hoping the Board, while discussing the resolution, does make some statement about groups that try to stifle their right to speak out on election issues that directly affect our district and the Board's work overseeing our district. Neither Stand for Children or any group has the right to tell the Board they cannot speak out.
That was a good debate last night; I wonder how women can get into Romney's "binders full of women."
One new event to make note of that you might want to attend is tomorrow night (Thursday, October 18th) at Queen Anne Elementary. They will have a double-header event:
6:30-7:15 pm - discussion of the Creative Approach process (and QAE's proposal)
7:30-8:30 p.m. - debate on I-1240 to create Charter Schools
It sounds like a good chance to hear more on both subjects. They do want you to RSVP.
Comments
I am wondering 3 things:
>>Who spoke for both sides
>>How many people were in the audience
>>Whether a particular argument for either side seemed to resonate with the audience
EdVoter
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/10/17/08washington_ep.h32.html?tkn=UNYFmTwsPao2nHvb5SP4936yQ8xyos5QN1lD&cmp=clp-edweek
http://seattletimes.com/html/northwestvoices/2019447987_charter17lets.html
Public School Parent
- it was not a debate but a discussion so they didn't feel the need for "sides". That said they had Ramona Hattendorf, the WA State PTA Governance person; Holly Ferguson who had been the District's Governance person; Phil Brockman, Executive Director of Schools; and Chris Eide, head of some teachers group and an avid supporter of charters and 1240.
So when you have an avid supporter of an issue on a "discussion" panel, it is a bit suspect.
- audience - low turnout, mostly PTA members on boards at their schools/Seattle Council Board members. No media that I saw.
- Ramona had handed out a document that is the Washington PTA's "basics". I read through it and found it truly lacking so by the time we got thru Banda and to the discussion and Ramona got started, I couldn't take it. (I also had not been feeling well.)
So I can't tell you about the discussion. I do know someone who was there and I'll ask her for her input.
He gave his usual stump speech then entertained questions. Unfortunately he deferred many to one of the interim interims who tended to deliver campaign speeches(the other interim interim SpEd director has yet to bother to show up to any SpEd community meetings).
One thing I notice is Banda is far more focused on, as he puts it, equity and access to programs/services, and far less focused on "closing the achievement gap" jargon. That gives me hope.
Marysville special education PTSA
hosted debate.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20121015/NEWS01/710159933/0/SEARCH
Public School Parent
Are any other schools having to deal with similar staffing cuts? And I'm sure there are schools with higher teacher-kid ratios - but 1-25 doesn't sound horribly low either. And because we're in a former high school, the classrooms are physically much smaller than other elementary school classrooms. I don't know how they're going to squeeze 30 kids into the rooms. I know there are schools with lower ratios - so I don't understand why Lincoln is being targeted.
Does anyone know where we can find the Oct 1 enrollment data?
APP@Lincoln Parent
APP@Lincoln Parent
Kids are being reshuffled all over the district. At Bagley, where classrooms were overcrowded for the crucial first five weeks of school, we're getting a new teacher. Now tiny children in grades K-3 are going to be moved around to redistribute class size.
Unacceptable.
Registrars know what the next year's enrollment will be in JUNE. Enrollment paperwork is due in MAY. It is unacceptable to me that our district can't adequately and accurately staff buildings until October 1.
I sympathize with the disruption you're experiencing BUT you lost me at the argument over room size. I've seen the classrooms at Lincoln and they are completely normal in size. Sadly yes your kids will still fit into the existing rooms and receive their education. Your only real hope on that score is a violation of the teacher's union contract or the fire code which is unlikely in this case. Also, overcrowding is pretty much par for the course across the district.
My school's principal tends to err on the other side and start with over large classes (My son's K class was originally 33 kids) and wait to redistribute which is still disruptive but apparently gives more choice in the hiring decision.
I'd love to see the district become more flexible too since some of the class size splits it forces are uncomfortable. But of course that costs money and the district is still in a deficit on top of everything else.
Ben
Ben - is having 2nd grade classes with 33 kids pretty standard for other elementary schools?
APP@Lincoln Parent
More likely they will make a split grade for the lower grade and/or larger upper grades (4 & 5) with >30 kids. This happened to us. Not pretty and disruptive at the beginning, but at the end of the year, it all worked out. Good Luck.
another mom
Do you have any details on what Ms. Geoghagan plans to do? From the outside this looks really clumsy on her part or she's expecting the noise from the PTA to save the day.
I also don't mean to sound harsh. It sounds like 2 people are going to get fired mid year which is dreadful. The classes are going to get shuffled which as I said before is highly disruptive and when all is said an done there's going to be a higher kid-teacher ratio which no one ever wants.
Ben
a. Maintain an average SPS ratio of students to full-time equivalent teachers at no more
than 26:1 for grades K-3, 28:1 for grades 4-5, and 150:1 for grades 6-12...
b. Elementary Class Size Building Ranges: The SPS will take actions to limit class size to a
building range of 28 or less for grades K-3 and of 32 or less for grades 4-5...
...Beginning 2012-2013 in situations in which the limit is exceeded in a regular class in
grades K-5 by one (1) student, following the October 1st enrollment count, SPS will
address the overload. The preferred solution is to reduce class size to the negotiated
levels;...The individual teacher will be compensated for any days after October 1 during which he/she
has an overload.
Is the district considering APP@Lincoln a "building," separate from Lowell, so the class size ranges are taking into account only classes at Lincoln?
Also, per contract language, split grade classes are supposed to have 2 fewer students than average and not be given to first year teachers.
SEA Teacher Contract
Class size info starts somewhere around p 80.
a reader
More discussion of the Lincoln budget cuts is going on at the APP blog for those interested.
We hired as the district told us too. In fact, we hired one teacher fewer than we were originally thinking. We did not artificially create small classes. Our classes range from 23-27 students this year, I believe. We came in 6 (Yes SIX) children short of the projection, and the district is now telling us to reduce our staff by 1.5 FTE. Similar sized schools are not being asked to eliminate staff.
Yes, I think if this decision is followed, a split will be created. Given that most of our staff is new, this is going to be very difficult.
Lincoln parent
I realize this question implies that the District would be have rationally and transparently. Argh.
APP@Lincoln Parent
SPS is facing a funding gap of $15M. Vote NO on 1240 which would divert funding from local public schools.
On the APP side, 6 kids short equaling 1.5 FTE lost smells pretty bad.
I used to sit on the BLT and this stuff used to confound me and this was before they switched to WSS. More recent BLT members, please chime in as it has been a while for me.
My understanding is you cannot look at staffing ratio based on overall number of students. You need to look at WSS for each school and see how that the number of FRL, blingual, and spec ed students affect budget and staffing. If a school has higher number of these kids (fed dollars), they will get higher budget allocation for resources, including staffing. To compound the confusion, some schools may have grants and additonal PTA funding to help with staffing ratio (frowned upon officially).
x-blt
We did have a good turn-out at the PTSA/SEAAC meeting, and I thought Banda made more of an effort to listen and respond than I have experienced with any administrative figure from SPS. So that was all good. I was also hopeful in the language used regarding the need for training in de-escalation and restraint and the need to have a system to maintain records. In addition, it was nice to hear that someone thinks it would be nice to notify parents about when their kids are restrained or secluded. This is in contrast to what I have heard previously from the interim exec director of SpEd. But whether any of this will actually boil down to a records system, policy mandates on training and parent notification and, of course, the necessary money to make any of that happen, is yet to be seen.
Question for the APP@Lincoln folks -- where was the enrollment drop-off? Grades 1 and 2 are so much smaller than the upper grades. Is this normal, or is it a new thing? Just curious, no axe to grind or dog in this issue.
APP parent
Grade 1 - 53
Grade 2 - 93
Grade 3 - 137
Grade 4 - 135
Grade 5 - 106
The elementary staffing ratios, per the CBA, are "26:1 for grades K-3, 28:1 for grades 4-5"
The total of K-3 students is 283. Divided by 26 is 10.88. The total of 4-5 students is 241. Divided by 28 is 8.61. By this reckoning, APP @ Lincoln should have 19.49 classroom teachers. Add 20% PCP and you get another 3.90, for a total of 23.39 teachers. Round that up to the nearest .5 and you get a total of 23.5 classroom and PCP teachers.
Here is the budget for APP @ Lincoln for 2012-2013. There are a total of 25.0 classroom and PCP teachers. They appear to be 1.5 teachers over the line.
The District is right to reduce the staff there.
The school was staffed with five 2nd grade teachers for 93 students. That's an average class size of 18.6. With four teachers the class sizes will be 23, 23, 23 and 24. That is well within the 26 per class ratio required by the contract. One of the second grade teachers at Lincoln should be re-assigned.
The staffing ratio for Level 2 Special education K-5 is 1:18. Given the 14 students at Lincoln with IEPs that would mean one more teacher for a total of 24.5. There are no bilingual students there. This staff allocation is independent of the general education teacher budgeting.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/oct/17/another-shot-for-charter-schools/
Public School Parent
No, here's a list of current staff: http://seattlenorthapp.org/school-staff/
There are only four second grades. We have too many 3rd grade classes--6. But if there are 5 3rd grade classes, the number of students is above the recommended 26 students.
That budget projected 22 classrooms for 550 kids.
We currently have 21 classrooms for 524 kids.
Thus, one cut was already made from when that budget was designed last year and when school started in September.
The original projection supported a student to teacher ratio of 25/1 (550/22). Our current ratio is 24.95 (524/21).
They are cutting 1.5FTEs because our student/teacher ratio fell 0.05 students short.
Charlie's bottom line is that based on 524 kids, some of whom have IEPs that affect the WSS, Lincoln should have 24.5 FTEs, consisting of homeroom teachers and PCP.
The reality is that we currently have 24 FTEs, consisting of 21 homeroom teachers and 3 FTE for PCP.
The district's cut takes us to 22.5 teachers, consisting of 20 homeroom teachers and 2.5 FTE for PCP.
If Charlie's calcuations are right, then the district is NOT giving Lincoln what it should get under the WSS.
I don't see how this applies under the NSAP. My understanding is that a kid can just walk in the door at their neighborhood assignment school now and get a seat. I agree that it is hard on kids to have to rearrange after school has started, but I think a school is generally better off having enrollment underestimated and get to add staff in October vs. overestimating and having to fire someone (see the situation at APP@Lincoln.) Of course, both are hard on the kids.
The NSAP makes it much harder to estimate enrollment at all schools. I expect it will get even more difficult as more and more people adjust to the fact that their neighborhood school has to take them whether they sign up the year before or not.
APP@Lincoln parent, where are you getting your class size number? Are you saying there are 21 teachers at APP@L? (525/21=25), so if you go to 20 classroom teachers, your ratio goes to 26. Not great, but not a big difference (and likely will hit the higher grades.)
And when looking at WSS, SPS puts this in the header:
"Weighted Staffing Standards Model 2012-13
The ratios and allocations in this model are used as a guide to staff Seattle Public Schools. Some building allocations will vary due to special programs, students’ needs, classroom space and other circumstances."
x-blt
I see no District accountability for their faulty enrollment projections; their lack of competence becomes the school's problem.
While I know the budget issues are very real, it's a bit hard to swallow these cuts when so many salary dollars are spent questionably in this District-- e.g., two Regional Directors in the south end, Curriculum Coaches, etc. It's hard to justify cuts at this point in the school year that will directly affect students when there are so many places at JSCEE to cut with little direct impact.
-- Cut the Fat, not the Classrooms
parent
Stand on Children also dumped money into last year's race on behalf of Carr, Martin-Morris and Maier. A lot of money. Carr and Martin-Morris are on the board still and Martin-Morris is seemingly particularly cozy behind the scenes with the charter people, especially the now-getting-paid-to-push-charters Lisa McFarlane. So will those board members go against their moneyed supporters or not? Or most likely will they vote against charters with a lot of weasel words that will allow them to SUPPORT charters the minute they are no longer on the board Sundquist-style.
Someone, please take written notes so that comments can be put into the blogosphere PERMANENTLY.
DistrictWatcher
Been There, Done That
Bigger Picture
I'd also like to know if we are the only school whose actual enrollment was less than the estimated enrollment.
APP Parent@Lincoln
Is there a place that it is streamed online?
Thank you for the information you share. I cannot find it anywhere else.
Newbie
Your math is off...APP at Lincoln has 21 classroom teachers and 3 PCP. Total of 24 - which your own math suggests is .5 FTE over the mark.
I guess my question is, if you applied this same math to other schools, wouldn't you find the same or even higher misappropriation of teachers? We would anticipate this to be true, just looking at student-teacher ratios, and so why the cut at APP at Lincoln?
Questioning the math.
That's not to say you might not find a discrepancy but the student ratios are not a smoking gun.
Ben
Your math is off...APP at Lincoln has 21 classroom teachers and 3 PCP. Total of 24 - which your own math suggests is .5 FTE over the mark and so does not explain the 1.5 FTE that is being cut.
I guess my question is, if you applied this same math to other schools, wouldn't you find the same or even higher misappropriation of teachers? We would anticipate this to be true, just looking at student-teacher ratios, and so why the cut at APP at Lincoln?
Questioning the math.
mms://mediaserver.seattleschools.org/live
Stacey McCrath-Smith got moved up to interim direct. Not Ex Director, director.
-SWWS
However, I will call myself wrong on Carr. She was much stronger and firmer on her I said no and I mean no stance. She explained why eloquently. I apologize for tarring her with my weasely suspicions.
DistrictWatcher
Sherry is pleading for the District to post/make information available so people can figure out what in the hell is going on (my words, not hers) in terms of the data driving the proposals, how the WP site will work with two schools (playgrounds, etc.).
And Peaslee confirms that, astonishingly enough, a downtown school is still on the list! AARGH!
Both schools do Sped pretty well so that would also likely be some expanded options for Sped.
You can draw a larger geo zone right around the neighborhood to help take some pressure off the area.
- not a pinehurst family but think this could work.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20121017/NEWS03/710179873/0/SEARCH
That 's alot of tutoring or after school programs. It's not about the kids !
Public School Parent
-Public school mama
math mom
Within WSS guideline, there is a waiver process that the principal can apply for. It applies only to high performing schools. Again much of this depends on overall district budget and your school admin and teaching staff and what they want. I was told by my principal WSS doesn't allow for much leeway in terms of staffing manipulation. If your school has a BLT, would suggest asking them for your school WSS info or ask your school principal directly.
Obviously, it's best to get it right the first time, but I think enrollment cannot be predicted to the exact number which makes it tough every spring (planning time for next year's budget) if your enrollment number is near a WSS allocation cutoff. I also heard it's better to staff up than staff down because of hiring issues.
math mom
math mom
really?!
I did a google search on "Seattle Schools WSS" and easily found it on this page: http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=&pageid=263011
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/budget/wss/2013/wssmodel13.pdf
Math mom