Seattle School Board Operations Committee - Could Be Interesting
The agenda for the Board's Operations Committee meeting was finally posted yesterday and now, updated today. I'm hoping to see the new Board members there as this is the last committee meeting for the year and a good way to get up-to-speed.
What will they be talking about?
Ah Big Data, remember I told you about this. They also work on strategic plans so maybe that's how the district is using them. They developed the "data warehouse" for SPS. Here's what SPS says about them (at the Brainbox website):
We can now use accurate, timely, and accessible data about at risk students and many other performance indicators, to inform how we evaluate, invest in, and sustain programs. Having access to accurate data through the Academic Data Warehouse has been a game changer for us.
Pegi McEvoy
Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Seattle Public Schools
What will they be talking about?
- a contract modification for a company called Brainbox Consulting.*
- 2014-2015 Transportation Service Standards. This could be important as the Work Session yesterday on the budget had some wording on transportation and grandfathering in their presentation that I didn't understand. (I was unable to attend the Work Session and am only working off what was in the presentation.)
- Annual Capacity Management 2014-2015 - moved from being an update to an action report
- newly added - High School Target Enrollments from Tracy Libros
- and, as an update, the bell times survey
Ah Big Data, remember I told you about this. They also work on strategic plans so maybe that's how the district is using them. They developed the "data warehouse" for SPS. Here's what SPS says about them (at the Brainbox website):
We can now use accurate, timely, and accessible data about at risk students and many other performance indicators, to inform how we evaluate, invest in, and sustain programs. Having access to accurate data through the Academic Data Warehouse has been a game changer for us.
Pegi McEvoy
Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Seattle Public Schools
Comments
The annual capacity management report is another one of these reports required by policy that we see every year and every year we see them they fail to meet the requirements of the policy and every year the Board pretends that they don't see how the report doesn't fulfill the policy.
In the case of the annual capacity management report, it is supposed to include something about the demand for various programs, but it never does. The District staff don't want the Board - or the public - to know about the demand for option programs or how that demand is not being met by supply. According to the capacity management policy the demand for programs is supposed to play a role in setting the program capacity, but it doesn't and it never will.
The district is talking about cutting WSS, making teachers responsible...with less resources etc. Yet, the district is willing to spend more $$ on this nonsense.
It is time for the board to keep dollars in our classrooms.
Where's the accountability for this endless rathole? I would bet that millions that would've gone towards decent curricula and PD has gone to this teacher eval effort.
Which reminds me, what does this million dollar effort tell us about that TFA experiment? Let me guess. Nothing.
I'd be interested to hear what Tracy Libros had to say about High School Target Enrollment.