Garfield PTA Asks Community for Support
Dear Garfield families,
The Seattle School District has announced its intention to withdraw one full-time teacher from Garfield, effective Monday, October 25, 2014-leaving 150 students without a class for the rest of the semester, unless Garfield produces $92,000 by Friday, October 24. This cut will occur despite the fact that SPS holds $8.5 million in reserves that could be used to cover this expense.
Garfield High School is already the lowest funded High School in Seattle. At $5,951 per student, we are a full 15% below the average of $7,004 per student per the 2014/2015 district funding report (page 44).
There
will be no replacement-the cancelled classes will simply cease to exist
and the affected students will finish the semester with a hole in their
schedules. The cut will occur in core education (math, science,
language arts, history, world languages or arts) and there are no
provisions for making up required credits. It hasn't been determined
yet where the cut will be made. It could affect any student in the
school, in any grade, and on any academic path. The teacher will be
reassigned to another school, but the 150 Garfield students will be left
without a class for the rest of the semester and the rest of the
student body and teaching staff will be greatly impacted.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1.
Send emails to the District leadership and School Board right away. Let
them know the sudden cancellation of classes for 150 students is
unacceptable--and you don't want our kids wandering the
school halls for an hour a day while unable to finish a class they have
now been in for 9 weeks. Urge them to find a solution that doesn't
sacrifice our students and their education. Demand they fix this broken
process that threatens buildings annually. Our kids deserve a better
method for reconciling enrollment projections.
Seattle School District
Larry Nyland, Superintendent superintendent@seattleschools.
Or Fax: (206) 252-0209
Lesley Rogers, Public Affairs larogers1@seattleschools.org
Linda Sebring, Budget Director lmsebring@seattleschools.org
Ron English, General Counsel ron.english@seattleschools.org
Sarah Pritchett, Executive Director of Schools - Central Region msjpritchett@seattleschools.
School Board District Directors
Sharon Peaslee sharon.peaslee@seattleschools.
Sherry Carr sherry.carr@seattleschools.org
Harium Martin-Morris harium.martin-morris@
Sue Peters sue.peters@seattleschools.org
Stephan Blanford stephan.blanford@
Marty McLaren marty.mclaren@seattleschools.
Betty Patu betty.patu@seattleschools.org
2. Show your support by being part of an all-school "walk-out" protest at Garfield on Thursday, October 23, 1:50 PM, just before the end of the school day. Join students, staff and other GHS families-make your voice heard!
Thank you for your support. Please contact us with any questions or concerns.
On behalf of your PTSA and PTSA Board,
Kirk Wohlers, Co-President kirk.wohlers@hotmail.com
Marie Doyle, Co-President doylemf@comcast.net
Stacy Andersen, Advocacy Chair andersenbicknell@gmail.com
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Comments
GHSmom
How does that pencil out?
-GHS Parent
Mom of 4
HP
That said, it seems counter-intuitive that one of the largest high schools in the district would get less.
As well, if the enrollment numbers are low, it's artificial, I think. I have heard from many Garfield parents who were on the list and it never moved.
Mom of 4, could be that they pull a core class because of who the teacher is in seniority. The school doesn't get to pick who leaves; that's done by union rules. I think it just has to be one teacher.
Again, that said, it would seem the school could shift somehow to NOT lose a core class but managing the classes roster is a huge task.
I do think the per student funding numbers are a bit off though, but it's hard to know by how much or how little. They are based on the project enrollment of each school, not the October headcounts.
Of course, if SPS would be more transparent in what the October enrollment numbers actually are, we could figure it out with certainty . . .
Either way, it is unacceptable that 150 kids can just lose a class they have been in for almost 2 months.
October Numbers??
Bam Bam
@PO3, there are a lot of fixed costs at a high school almost regardless of the student count. Principals, custodians, some cafeteria staff, librarian, etc. RBHS is also receiving some grants to create an IB program, which is fairly expensive. Hopefully, that and other programs will help the school be more attractive and grow to be full. We can't afford any empty seats in HS over the next few years.
Frustrating.
-GHS Parent
This being the second full year of the IB program, I would think the total enrollment would be trending up and that does not appear to be the case.
These students still have to take these credit hours, and if it is a corse that is eliminated that must be taken in a series (Math, English, History, 1st Semester Biology), they'll have to run the equivalent course to allow the students to make it up next semester.
This is asinine. There is a way to reduce staff (and yes, you can remove an additional position) but you do have to find somewhere for the affected students to go.
This is just another example of how the basic day to day operations of the district are in disarray.
northwesterner
In the last 10 years, Garfield's enrollment has only dipped below 1,600 students once, in 2005-06, when it clocked in at 1,595.
It's possible the projected number was for FTEs (full-time equivalents), which is slightly different than actual people, but then the budget book refers to "per-student funding," which indicates that the folks who wrote the projected budget were thinking actual people (and all the numbers are whole numbers, another indication of headcount rather than FTE).
I don't know what Garfield's enrollment is this year. But it looks BOTH as if budget forecast UNDER-allocated the school, and now additional staff is going to be pulled? Huh.
My suggestion? Axe the executive director of leadership, in order to find the money to fund your one FTE.
Similarly, I suggested axing the deputy superintendent, Charles Wright, and using the money saved to fund an elementary teacher at BF day.
Save teachers, not bureaucrats.
Those two teachers will do something, they will touch students, they will make a difference, they will have an impact. They will be productive.
On the other hand, what to do those two head honcho guys do, at the end of the day? And if they are axed, Would their contribution, whatever it is, would it be missed?
If we are cutting to the bone, then, we are cutting to the bone, and we can do without the fancy frills of whatever it is the guys in the corner office in the glass palace think they do.
No contest
Then it was reported that there was an additional 168 students over and above that adjustment for a total of 876 MORE high school students than the budget book. A quick look shows that every single school was adjusted upward.
Garfield reported enrollment of 1688 is another 76 students over the upward projections. What gives?
The first number that follows is the one in the letter, the second number is the Spring 2014 enrollment number.
Ballard 1572 1648
Center 271 288
Sealth 1170 1235
Cleveland 805 865
Franklin 1230 1294
Garfield 1532 1612
Ingraham 1150 1220
Nathan hale 1088 1146
Nova 253 273
Rainier Beach 516 562
Roosevelt 1623 1712
West Seattle 945 1008
12,155 12,863
The enrollment increase at RB is good news for everyone. Those are the only empty high school seats in the district right now. The majority of those high school budget numbers is either at or over the school capacity.
NGC
I however, can't imagine this disarray by design, by now they must know GHS doesn't take any crap. I am betting some bad numbers have been passed along. And we will hear about that bad VAX shortly.
Or one of the many other admin positions recently created Banda.
under the bus
The district announced that the Oct 1 enrollment numbers were about 300 students fewer than the budget projections, thereby creating a $3 million budget shortfall.
However, these staffing adjustments do not seem to align with the overall gaps. Since the school by school numbers have not been released and public records requests have not been fulfilled yet, the only information that anyone can participate in is the aggregate data. According to the limited enrollment information that was released, here are the difference from projections (and by extrapolation, from budget)
K - 80 Additional students
1-5 - 269 fewer students
Elementary net is 189 fewer students.
Middle school had 290 Fewer students and High School had 168 Additional Students.
All in all, those numbers are really very close. However, you would then expect to see adjustments that looks like
Minus 6 elementary teachers
Minus 10 middle school teachers
Add 5 high school teachers
With high school enrollment 168 students OVER the budget, there would not seem to be any reason for any decreases at high school. There is always the possibility that there was a huge location shift. However, this is an overall decrease at high school, not a shift.
Why not cut administrative staff and other support staff, rather than teachers?
I agree that the numbers don't make sense. We can't seem to get them from the District- can we get them, school by school, from the principals? My daughter at Ingraham told me a teacher said our count was 1254, well above the spring projection of 1220 or the letter number of 1150. Can people find out and post their schools census?(or, Melissa, do you have a better way to collect data?).
And this whole exercise doesn't do much to erase the alleged $3 million shortfall- if it's even true. What cuts are next? How can classroom cuts not come as the very last resort?
Also, we have a quite a number of over-crowded classes at Ingraham. Garfield is making a point, and I support them, but wouldn't they end up absorbing some of these kids into existing classes, even if they became overcrowded?
CT
It's a scheduling problem. Here's a copy of Garfield's Master Schedule.
If they pulled a History teacher (Truax for example), in first period you'd have 30 freshman who need to take World History 1. They won't all fit in Martin's first period class - they'd have to be spread across all 6 sections of that class - adding 5 students to each class. The five students who are moved to Martin's class are fine but the other 25 have to replace the class they were taking in the period they've now got World History. Then you move to the 30 students in Truax's second period class and on and on...
This would take the counselors weeks to set up. In the meantime, all 150 of Truax's students are missing several weeks of class.
The whole thing has me feeling like the dog in the classic Looney Tunes Merrie Melodies "Cheese Chasers" - "It just don't add up!!"
But really - this is rage inducing. Surely there has to be a better method for allocating resources that takes into account that school population changes as a whole doesn't mean a school should have K classes of 26-29 because the school as a whole doesn't *need* another FTE. Kids who are 2 months into a class shouldn't get it pulled away from them...too bad so sad, maybe we can slot you into something else or not. This is ridiculous.
NE parent
-DMR
If cuts are necessary, they must come out of central administration FIRST. There is no excuse for taking them out of the classrooms.
He's already making more than a superintendent on contract and by coming out of a generous retirement, he's essentially double dipping. A superintendent, like a retired legislator, doesn't retire poor, so why isn't he donating as least part of his generous compensation? Other than standing around and stating the obvious, he's a large do-nothing he can and should be easily shamed into 'donating' part of his pay.
Doctor Herndon this. Doctor Nyland that. Just cut the crap and excessive compensation and keep the teachers.
Westside
Further, the mere fact that teachers are up for ransom seems to violate the WAC somewhere. If not, then it should. Placeholder Nyland, anyone?
Westside
-media pressure
-legal threats
-political pressure from other agencies/the board
I'm not saying that's what they should do. It's not right. But that is their history on changing course. Got one? Two out of three or a trifecta would be best.
-been there
One would have thought Jonathon Knapp and SEA at the very least would issue a strong statement about the harm it causes to pull teachers and cancel classes two months into the school year.
But, no, not a peep.
"#Disillusioned + #Disgusted"
It's not that the teachers aren't quite annoyed with this, but we're not management. That said, this is the type of stuff that is totally riling up some teachers and contributes to the ill-will factor that has me worried we're going to wind up in a strike next go around. I shake my head at some of this stuff but am nowhere near wanting to go on strike - but many teachers are way more frustrated than I am with these shenanigans to the point that every big mistake the central district makes right now may have additional consequences next contract negotiation.
The district needs to get this figured out not just because it's the right thing to do but because it continues to create a lack of faith in the integrity of the majority of the central office.
Consequences worrier
--
Ivan Weiss
The average spending per student is a meaningless statistic and completely useless for comparison purposes. So the PTA shouldn't be using these numbers to support their cause.
The claim that the teacher would have to come from a core discipline isn't credible. How does the PTA know what kind of teacher will be transferred? And if they know, then why don't they know which discipline will lose one?Isn't it the principal's decision? That makes it seem like the school administration as really warped priorities. So the PTA should be saying that.
How much discretion - if any - does the school administration have over their budget? How has the school exercised that discretion? What choices have they made instead of funding this teacher?
I'm not saying that the District has been open, honest, and accurate about this, but it's pretty clear that the school isn't being open, honest, or accurate about this either.
Finally, let's remember that this is the school that reportedly created a Spanish class for three student athletes. If the school had the discretion to create that, how is it that they have no discretion here?
This story just doesn't ring true.
Teach
Seems to me it's a very important metric. But I'd like to understand your point better. Can you elaborate? Why do you think it is meaningless and cannot be used for comparison? Why do you think it does not indicate that Garfield is receiving substantially less funding than other high schools (or, if you don't disagree there, why do you think that does not matter)?
Garfield was projected at 1532. Current enrollment is 1650. We should be gaining teachers, not losing them.
It's a simple argument that you can't muddy up by talking about other issues. The most likely place that someone would try to muddy the waters is by talking about year-long averages rather than October 1 counts. Before going into a conversation, it would be awfully nice to know what the average dropoff percentage is between the October count and the annual average FTE in the past couple of years. If that percentage reduction from the current October 1 count is still above 1532, then you can easily refute the argument.
But, no, not a peep."
Too bad the teachers ended up re-electing Jonathon Knapp instead of SEE's Jesse Hagopian. I still get email from SEE (Social Equity Educators), and according to the email:
"Garfield projected that they would have 1,611 students and, in fact, hit that mark by October 1, 2014. Currently, Garfield has 1,622 students in attendance—more students than projected. We have no idea why the school district would displace a staff member from Garfield when we exceeded our projected enrollment."
--Cameo
Look at the FY14-15 budget book starting at page 110. Garfield has 11% SpEd, compared to, say, 26% for Nathan Hale. Garfield has, by far, the least number of SpEd students among the high schools. SpEd enrollment brings more FTEs and more budget into the building to serve these students. That's the difference between 8:1:2 versus 150:1
Would it be possible to quote the entire letter? Did it say who it was from? That makes no sense at all.
It looks more like an attempt to punish Garfield for something (MAP testing refusal? Naturebridge incident?) than a genuine budget problem.
Roosevelt mom in support of Garfield
1. World School (formerly the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center or SBOC) is not on the list,
and
2. Beware the gross inadequacy of using aggregated then averaged data on a per school basis - this creates a VERY unnuanced picture and should be used only as a thumbnail 'proxy' because (a) different students are funded differently (i.e., each SpEd students counts for 'more' and is funded at a higher level, as are ELL and F&RL children), so obviously a school's mix of students will skew the average funding per student and (b) the jagged curve affect total enrollment per school enrollment has on the average funding.
Per the Weighted Staffing Standard (WSS), the 801st student enrolled in a high school carried with her/him a full FTE secretary. The 1,101st student brings along a FTE administrative dean. So, NOVA and Center School are tiny, about 250 and 270 students respectively. Yet the small one gets 25 FTE, and the larger one gets 20, but, they both have a principal and a secretary. In comparison, on the other end, Roosevelt gets 1 principal and 2 assistant principals for it's 1650 students, but Nathan Hale with less than 1,100 kids gets the same 1+2 AND it also gets a Dean that the WSS does not provide Roosevelt. Overall, the cost per student will look more efficient at Roosevelt, but, the admin will be significantly more overworked.
There is a scale problem that makes a high school of almost 1,700 much more complex and challenging, and it should receive commensurately more per student admin resources.
Anyway, all the teacher FTE is sacrosanct. We are heading into November, report cards are around the corner. Leave the teachers in front of the students. You know Garfield is going back up in enrollment next year, why pull the teacher now, disrupt the students (and the staff and the admin) just to turn around and have to rehire for this next year?
Fire the bigwigs instead. Surely, there are 2 or 3 that came from Banda's hiring spree that can be terminated immediately, thereby saving the money for Garfeild and BF Day. What are Dr. Nyland's priorities? What are the Boards? I know what yours and mine are (hint: starts with "c" as in children...)
TOP HEAVY
I am also concerned about the budgetary process that got us here. I have been talking to relatives in other districts about I-1351, and their class sizes are so-SO much better than ours, to the point that they are not sure we really need smaller ones. Not in chi chi suburban districts, either, just smaller ones. I believe this has to do with our extremely administration heavy district, and so budget shortfalls should absolutely be coming from central admin, not teachers from our already outlandishly large classes.
-sleeper
"Oct. 23, 2014
Dear Garfield High School community,
I want to thank you for contacting the district regarding Garfield High School staffing. We understand your frustration and we hear your concerns.
Each October, after student transfer periods have closed, the district conducts a state-required official count of all students. This count directly affects district funding for the school year.
As a part of our annual process, we then adjust staffing – up or down – to align with our official enrollment. Our staffing adjustments are based on the official October count and include many additional factors. As we do every year, this process includes working together with each school’s principal to identify all possible options, check the numbers for discrepancies, and identify potential impacts on students in order to make an informed final decision.
The district is committed to assuring we have proper and equitable staffing at each of our schools. We are still working through this process, and we would hope the community will allow us time to complete our process. While we review the situation at Garfield High School, we ask that students and staff stay in class and parents encourage students to remain in class.
Thank you again for sharing your concerns.
Sincerely,
Larry Nyland"
Keep the pressure on -the school may still lose a teacher. The letter from Nyland while nice only says they are still working through the process. It is too early for a victory lap.
NGC
Go Riders
This isn't just happening at GHS. We heard about Gatewood already. Stevens, Hazel Wolf, B. F. Day, Denny, and Madison might also be losing a teacher mid-year.
SPS has budget problems but switching teachers around in the middle of the year is just about the worst way to solve them.
counting days
HP
SPS has budget problems but switching teachers around in the middle of the year is just about the worst way to solve them.
10/23/14, 7:13 PM
Blogger Melissa Westbrook said...
CMJ, while I do not like what is happening, it is not the middle of the year.
@Melissa,
Good point. I'll amend "middle of the year" to "part-way" through the year. I should have realized that "middle of the year" could have been read as "half-way through the year."