Seattle Schools Staff Changes
Update: Here is the Personnel Report to be presented, as part of the Consent agenda, at Wednesday's Board meeting. It has a number of comings and goings including the departure of Bob Vaughan from Advanced Learning.
Madison is losing its principal, Carlisle Henterson, and he will be replaced by Dr. Robert Gary, Jr as interim principal. Dr. Gary has been at Madison previously as a teacher and interim assistant principal. No info on whether Mr. Carlisle is staying in the district.
(By coincidence, Mayor McGinn will be at Madison tomorrow for a media event around health services at that school. This from our friends at the West Seattle blog.)
Beacon Hill Int'l School is losing principal Kelly Aramaki who is being appointed the SE region Executive Director. He's a great administrator and I think this is a good choice.
Jo Lute-Ervin has been named interim principal for Kimball Elementary. She's been a principal at many schools.
Madison is losing its principal, Carlisle Henterson, and he will be replaced by Dr. Robert Gary, Jr as interim principal. Dr. Gary has been at Madison previously as a teacher and interim assistant principal. No info on whether Mr. Carlisle is staying in the district.
(By coincidence, Mayor McGinn will be at Madison tomorrow for a media event around health services at that school. This from our friends at the West Seattle blog.)
Beacon Hill Int'l School is losing principal Kelly Aramaki who is being appointed the SE region Executive Director. He's a great administrator and I think this is a good choice.
Jo Lute-Ervin has been named interim principal for Kimball Elementary. She's been a principal at many schools.
Comments
Credible source says that some or all of APP will be out of HIMS next year (yes, 2013-14 school year). Options are all of HIMS 6th graders at Lincoln, 6th and 7th at John Marshall, or all of APP at Jane Addams (have they grown a new wing of classrooms?!). Reason: "so many more students enrolled at HIMS than they expected!" I mean, really -- how many times can the district say that about enrollment and capacity? At a meeting with Lincoln parents last week, Sherry Carr (apparently incorrectly) said it wouldn't happen next year but she didn't have promises about the next. There's a pivotal meeting tomorrow.
June Surprise
-Concerned and disgusted
Mr. White
This news foreshadows a series of sad, unwelcome situations that will happen at that school.
JustAskLafayette
Since he had just been at Madison for four years,& was reportedly going well, I am curious as to the change.
Its hard to believe we have so many problem children still kicking around the district.
Im starting to think that the " Danforth Educational Leadership Program" involves a pact that stipulates lifetime employment.
-Lafayette parent
-Madison Family
OK wait a minute here a principal with multiple parent complaints doesn't get a disciplinary transfer, but a teacher with one parent complaint gets at disciplinary transfer?
UGH2
-Madison Family
Dr.Gary was principal at Rainier Beach high school for many years & left a " mixed" legacy.
I would want to have clarity that Gary understands what it means to be a " mandated reporter". He did not understand that as principal at RBHS. ( or he chose to ignore protocol)
-Disillusioned
-Madison parent
But I am especially sensitive to the rights of disabled students to not be harrassed/ assaulted at school.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/010897.html
I have seen many teachers get thrown under bus at the whim of parents or egotistical principals (hello Vance). It takes an act of Congress to get rid of a bad principal. Instructional leaders my eye.
OMG! Anything that ex-SPS Legal Shannon McMinimee defends has got to be bogus!
The PI report you linked (in 2008 during MGJ's reign) sounds eerily like what happened at Lowell (reporting suspicious activity to a superior instead of SPD or CPS). "(a principal's) decision to not forward teachers' concerns to authorities is troubling, (Goodhew) said, but not necessarily criminal." How many times do we have to hear this?!
As for the Gary incident: 'The teacher, principal Gary or another school official probably should have reported the incident to authorities, Goodhew said. But the case wasn't as straightforward as it appeared: The girl at one point recanted, then reaffirmed her original report. "It's a tough judgment call," Goodhew said. "We look at it in hindsight and in a vacuum, but we're all humans. We all make mistakes."'
Okay, I don't care what anyone may say about Mr Carlisle's shortcomings but this is, literally, criminal. It's idiots like the KC prosecutor quoted above that prompted me to insist that I be alerted if anyone questions my child about a disciplinary incident. Parents be forewarned.
reader
-tired of the rumor mill
Given the "Interim" title, let's hope this move is temporary.
- Stop the Shuffle
-FormerSPSTeacher
There were serious incidents at Lafayette other than what is known to blog readers here. I believe that if this had been anywhere in West Seattle, people would be down at HQ with picket signs drawing media attention.
Your "resigned" parent population must have been selected as her destination, because SPS has worn out our tolerance level for this. I'm truly sorry that your teachers are inadvertently caught in it and they have my condolences.
When I looked at South Shore's website today, Ms. Lute-Ervin isn't listed there as an administrator, and her name has no title or responsibilities attached to it.
In light of such continuing self-inflicted wounds, it's becoming clearer that Superintendent Banda should muck out both the HR department and the PASS contract.
JustAskLafayette
Thanks,
SPS mom
Kimball parents: you need to protest this! Don't allow your children to be subjected to this leadership.
-Concerned for Kimball students and staff
Kimball, meet Lute-Ervin with an open mind, and don't drag your school through the mud.
-AlsoAtLafayette
Check out last year's school survey results, the staff section in particular.
CHM
Please look at the district's 2011-12 school report. It will tell you that 34% of the staff thought that Ms. Lute-Ervin was an acceptable principal -- or if you prefer, that staff morale was at 34% under her leadership. (The district's language is deliberately neutral, but there are a lot of good people behind that awful number.)
Please carefully consider that, before you choose to believe the nice person advising you to clear your mind of the actions by which she earned that rating and welcome this administrator into your school.
JustAskLafayette
I'm not kidding when I say that Jo Lute-Ervin DOES NOT know how to enter data into the district's computer database. That's a pretty critical skill for a principal, since it means that she's unable to complete everything from disciplinary forms to budgets to staff evaluations. If you don't believe it, go talk to the teachers at Lafayette (without a district type hanging around), or go ask her to demonstrate some skills.
But the scariest part of having Jo Lute-Ervin as principal as her lack of judgment. Just after she was removed as principal, there was a murder suspect loose in West Seattle (Cafe Racer), and parents were so relieved that the new interim principal (Mr. Asina) was in charge to make decisions, because we knew that Jo Lute-Ervin wouldn't have had a clue.
And, "JustAskLafayette" is right that the district tried to hide Jo Lute-Ervin at South Shore. Lafayette parents who knew she was there thought it was the district's way to keep her on the payroll until her retirement kicked in, but now it seems that they were hiding her under a rock until we forgot about her.
For her not to be listed on the website by June, after having been there since last September, should be a pretty strong indicator that the district doesn't want to advertise her whereabouts.
I don't know anything about Kimball, but my advice to parents/teachers at Kimball is to fight hard to get rid of Jo Lute-Ervin fast, because she's a danger to your school community, despite being a friendly person. Again, the district will bear full responsibility for whatever happens, since there's a paper trail a mile long.
-Disgusted