Revelations
Much was revealed at the Growth Boundaries presentation this afternoon. Here is just a short list:
There will be new service delivery models for Special Education: Resource, Access, Behaior, Contained, and Distinct. We don't know what these mean or how they will work, and the whole thing is subject to the collective bargaining process, but it looks like radical change.
There will be a new delivery model for APP. The District isn't saying what it will be or how it will work. They won't even offer the pretense of engagement on it until next year - after they make all of the decisions.
There will be a new delivery model for Spectrum. It appears to be nothing. For many families this will be nothing new.
Just because a school chooses to become a STEM school it doesn't make it a STEM school. It's only a STEM school if the District decides that it will be a STEM school. The difference is indistinguishable in practice, but the District says that one kind of STEM is a program and the other is a curricular focus.
The district says that international education and language immersion are synonymous. They deny the existence of students in international schools (like Beacon Hill, Mercer, Denny, Hamilton, Ingraham, and Sealth) who are not in language immersion programs.
Option schools are not schools; they are programs.
Pathfinder is the option school for the Denny service area despite the fact that it is not in the Denny service area. Elementary language immersion schools, however, even after they become option schools, must be located within the geographical boundaries of an international middle school even when they no longer have a geographic community.
Montessori programs are not an option and equitable access to them is not important.
Dearborn Park may become a language immersion school, but it would not become an option school. No explanation is provided.
We really, really need the equitable access framework that the staff was supposed to have in September in time for BEX IV planning. It isn't even on the staff's timeline. They appear to have dropped all plans to complete it.
The District staff plays a game in which the rules are different for everyone and keep changing.
The determination of a delivery model for APP - including program size - will come after the decision of how many sites to have and how big the programs will be.
Community engagement still comes AFTER the decisions all of the decisions have been made and too close to the final vote to have any influence in the outcome. The staff claim that "the conversation is just getting started" but all of the decisions have already been made and they aren't talking to anyone.
There will be new service delivery models for Special Education: Resource, Access, Behaior, Contained, and Distinct. We don't know what these mean or how they will work, and the whole thing is subject to the collective bargaining process, but it looks like radical change.
There will be a new delivery model for APP. The District isn't saying what it will be or how it will work. They won't even offer the pretense of engagement on it until next year - after they make all of the decisions.
There will be a new delivery model for Spectrum. It appears to be nothing. For many families this will be nothing new.
Just because a school chooses to become a STEM school it doesn't make it a STEM school. It's only a STEM school if the District decides that it will be a STEM school. The difference is indistinguishable in practice, but the District says that one kind of STEM is a program and the other is a curricular focus.
The district says that international education and language immersion are synonymous. They deny the existence of students in international schools (like Beacon Hill, Mercer, Denny, Hamilton, Ingraham, and Sealth) who are not in language immersion programs.
Option schools are not schools; they are programs.
Pathfinder is the option school for the Denny service area despite the fact that it is not in the Denny service area. Elementary language immersion schools, however, even after they become option schools, must be located within the geographical boundaries of an international middle school even when they no longer have a geographic community.
Montessori programs are not an option and equitable access to them is not important.
Dearborn Park may become a language immersion school, but it would not become an option school. No explanation is provided.
We really, really need the equitable access framework that the staff was supposed to have in September in time for BEX IV planning. It isn't even on the staff's timeline. They appear to have dropped all plans to complete it.
The District staff plays a game in which the rules are different for everyone and keep changing.
The determination of a delivery model for APP - including program size - will come after the decision of how many sites to have and how big the programs will be.
Community engagement still comes AFTER the decisions all of the decisions have been made and too close to the final vote to have any influence in the outcome. The staff claim that "the conversation is just getting started" but all of the decisions have already been made and they aren't talking to anyone.
Comments
however - I'm having a hard time seeing how getting the names of everyone making over $75,000 a year working at headquarters and at the u.w. coe and at ospi and at the esds .... and firing all of them would negatively impact my day job.
clearly, what matters to these high level bureaucrats is their position within their bureaucracies - and if you're a gate$ toady look for demons to bash, you couldn't ask for better demons. it is actually too bad.
let's just start selling the school properties off to the most connected bidders, fire the 10's of thousands doing the day work of taking care of the kids and replace them with junk-mart serfs having rodney tom "health" care and rodney tom - goldman "retirement" ..
JustGetItOverWith
The crisis is capacity. If they wanted to directly address capacity, they would open new schools as fast as they could, put attractive programs in them (like STEM or actual working Spectrum), and get people to move over to them. They would do that and nothing else.
Instead, this entire presentation is focused on reworking existing schools and programs. It barely talks about new buildings and what will be in them. The entire thing is about whacking away at existing schools and buildings.
It is taking the opportunity to bundle unrelated stuff on to something important. It is the belief that no good crisis should be wasted. It is making something complex to hide what you are doing. It is wrong and should be stopped.
This is the first I have heard of Pathfinder being in the Denny Service area. I don't see anything about it on the slideshow. Can you share more of what was said?
Thanks,
Parent
MEM
A Friend
Caviat Emptor (sp? rusty Latin). Choose with your eyes open, do not get upset if the school you choose turns out to not be the one it is today.
CCA
CCA
CCA
It would be radical if they didn't change things. It's a bait and switch. Change the names when everybody figures out the meaning of what's there now. (Ever notice it's always the same number of program types?) Keep everyone guessing. That way, you never have to actually do anything.
observer
The trick here is the size of the geographic preference area around the school.
If the geographic preference area is the size of the current attendance area, then the answer is that the local students will go to the language immersion school - at least as many as can fit. In this way there will be no more access for families living outside the attendance area than we have now and only need a little more space at other schools than we need now.
MEM
I do recall Goodoe-Johnson's "kids are resilient" statement. Apparently that philosophy remains alive and well in JSCEE.
But we need to be careful what we wish for, or all we'll get are programs we want - but in name only. Any quality program must have experienced staff and administrators that go with it, or you're just getting a label, and nothing more.
WSDWG