Seattle Schools Audit&Finance Committee Lalapalooza Agenda
Quite an interesting and packed agenda for the Audit and Finance Committee meeting on Thursday. (It's also interesting that the Executive Ctm meeting, normally in the morning, is at the exact same time so it won't be possible to attend both.)
Items of interest:
Items Requiring Board Action on January 21 and February 4, 2015
Items of interest:
- Washington State Auditor’s Office Entrance Conference (Technow)
Items Requiring Board Action on January 21 and February 4, 2015
- John Stanford International Schools Annual Fund Grant (Fauntleroy/Corrigan)
- McDonald International Schools Annual Fund Grant (Golosman/Corrigan)
Of course, I'm not decrying the parents' efforts, far from it. But this is NO way to run a program.
And may I ask a question? When is the district going to do an honest review of these programs - outcomes, access, costs, etc.? Because it would seem time to do such a review.
There is no attached report for JSIS so I don't know how much they are attempting to raise.
1. JSCEE Bonds/Building update (Technow)
- MOA with Africatown regarding the Columbia Annex (Ruiz)
This I have to see. I'll have a separate thread on this issue as the Superintendent, in an e-mail response to me (actually via an e-mail from Charlie), had some interesting things to say.
- Minimum Fund Balance to Cover Potential Funding Loss of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Funds (Jessee/Gotsch)
Anybody? What "potential funding loss?"
- Employee Benefits Contract with Sprague Israel Giles, Inc. (Byrd-Pina)
1. JSCEE Bonds/Building update (Technow)
Another "now this should be good" moments. Again, the district will be on the hook for paying these bonds off come 2017 right from the General Fund. I'll have to see the report but I'm guessing it's at least $1M a year for another 5 years. Where will those cuts come from?
Routine Items
Budget update (Sebring)
Routine Items
- Title IX update (Nahouraii) (routine until further notice)
I can practically see Charlie's head exploding here. The Title IX update is routine? Generally a school district doesn't have a major breach of policies around Title IX, start a taskforce and then call the updates "routine." Gives you a lot of faith in how seriously this issue is being taken. I'd love for the Board to actually ask this question but I'd lay money that it won't be.
- HeadStart financial report (Toner/Garcia)
- Grants update (Corrigan)
Budget update (Sebring)
Comments
Minimum Fund Balance to Cover Potential Funding Loss of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Funds (Jessee/Gotsch)
Anybody? What "potential funding loss?"
SPS is losing federal funds for not completing its SPED RC-CAP.
The last 4 years of IDEA part b funding was provisional funding I.E become fully IDEA compliant by June 30th 2015 or pay back 36 million in part b funding.
Will DOE have the will to enforce the law?
-Michael
OSPI upgraded the SPS determination level because SPS completed all of the corrective action in the 5 Citizens Complaints it received in 2013-2014 school year.
Recent information shows that SPS did not adhere to the agreed corrective action for one or more Citizen Complaint decisions and therefore was erroneous in it's deceleration of compliance.
OSPI recently ruled that Roosevelt High school was not providing SDI for a large percentage of students and was keeping many special education students in special education class rooms for a significant more amount of time that was documented on the students IEP.
The latter of the two infractions is a violation of the students civil rights.
OSPI is also aware that similar SDI infractions are currently happening at most of the districts middle and high schools.
Both the DOE and DOJ are sending lawyers to Seattle to meet with affected parents later this month.
You tell me how SPS is going to explain this and how in less than five months they are going to fix the ever growing list of violations added to the RC-CAP.
--Michael
Director Peters was the only one that had the brains to ask, essentially, "Are performance goals incorporated into Nyland's contract?". The answer was NO. Carr felt it ok to follow Banda's contract. How did that work out?
Let's watch sp. ed and see if Nyland is the leader we've been told he is.
Seattleland: School Follies Continue With ‘Unnecessary’ Special-Ed Investigation
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/956186-129/seattleland-school-follies-continue-with-unnecessary
Reader
The reason IB is such an amazing opportunity is that IB must comply with a specific set of internationally recognized standards. As such, there is a a direct cost for participation in the recognition of these standards. In other words, IB is NOT free.
There are direct, know and consistent year to year costs for participation in IB that are just NOT funded in the WSS so the school with IB programs have an unfair burden in their budgets.
Typically, known and recurring expenses should be put in a budget. The fact that there are multiple programs with known and recurring expenses that are not in the budget is a major operations problem that never seems to get any daylight.
It is one thing when a school fundraises for a unique part of that school, even when it is something basic like an art teacher or math tutoring. The difference is that everyone knows that those items come from parent funding and as such can go away at any time.
However, the option of just not being IB next year is really not on the table for Sealth, Ingraham and now Rainer Beach. All of those schools have significant FRL numbers and it NOT paying for the direct costs of IB means that those schools have an unfair burden in their budgets.
IMHO, there are some serious flaws in the high school WSS, and those flaws seem to more exaggerated at the schools that are expected to operate more than one major program.
DistrictWatcher
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/956186-129/seattleland-school-follies-continue-with-unnecessary
Every high school student should have access to Advanced Placement classes at their assigned school. That allows them to take college level classes without requiring their parents to contribute to the cost.
IB programs (whether district or parent supported) should be offered at option high schools so that every student has equal access to the program and to any extra district funding.
I absolutely agree that every school should have AP classes available to every student.
SPS Central better be providing the extra operational dollars to run these programs. To do otherwise is to set these school students, families and staff up for failure, which is a decade-long downtown MO that must stop.
DistrictWatcher
Peter Stine
Half Full
If the district is going to fund the costs of a special program for a limited number of students, those students should be randomly chosen. When we are short of money, it would be inequitable to allocate additional money from the general fund to benefit only children from particular neighborhoods.
In reality, Ingraham, Sealth and Rainier Beach could just stop offering IB classes. AP classes would offer acceleration without the IB fees.
With the current assignment plan, it is not necessary to spend any money to make a school more attractive. As the schools are full, students won't be able to opt out of their neighborhood school. (Unless they choose a charter school.)
Peter Stine, can you clarify what you are you saying? I have a junior at IHS who is currently in the IB program. I know that any student can enroll in any IB class or take on the full diploma, there is no entry requirement for a motivated student. (I understand that some students may need more support and expect that could be done better at IHS, as at all SPS schools.)
Plus there is not enough room for the coming high school cohorts so turning a comprehensive high school into an option school is tilting at windmills.
My kid won't get the benefit of Roosevelt's music program. It's unfair. We will work around it. The system isn't perfect. It isn't even adequate. But it does not move forward by yanking away internationally accepted quality programs. As to a different conversation on this blog, that also goes for our language immersion programs. We need more, not less. Middle school is particularly direly in need.
IB Alumnus
Turning an attendance-area high school into an option school doesn't make seats disappear - it reallocates them.
Certainly it would be great to have more IB and immersion programs. We have to prioritize district spending based on needs (rather than wants) and those programs wouldn't make it on the list of needs. New middle and high school math curriculum, new science curriculum, school nurses, counselors and librarians should all come before the district spends money on IB programs.
As the education offered by the IB program is so wonderful and so much superior to AP classes, surely you can see that every student should have an equal opportunity to enroll.
Transportation costs soared. The least educated and involved families inevitably ended up with the worst schools for their kids. Special education was relegated to the least popular schools. The board and community put us on to a different neighborhood-based enrollment pattern a few years ago and the dust is still settling there.
Although you have some good philosophical points, I imagine you will get almost no traction with district staff, district Board and parents alike on the IB schools-are-lottery-schools argument.
Veteran Reader
Transportation to option high schools consists of handing the kid an ORCA card. How expensive could it be to reclassify two high schools as option schools? I imagine parents would be outraged.
There is no equitable access to language immersion.
There is no equitable access to IB.
There is no equitable access to Montessori.
There is no equitable access to any option program (except Center School and NOVA).
There is no equitable access to Spectrum.
There is a lot of evidence that access to special education services and highly capable are inequitable as well.
The Board has been asking the staff to address this issue for five years and the staff has resolutely refused to do so. The Board, for their part, has pretended not to notice.
Two quick information points:
1) When it was created, the additional costs of Cleveland STEM were supposed to be supported by an aggressive fundraising effort led by the superintendent. The whole program's existence was supposed to be contingent on that fundraising, but the fundraising never happened.
2) Despite a policy that requires it, there has never been any effort to assess the quality or efficacy of any of the district's academic programs.
Rereading your posts indicates that you have been defending the eligibility requirements of Spectrum and APP for years. In fact, I have been the recipient of many barbs from you when I dared to suggest that the program is inequitable.
What gives?
--enough already
Well, it is somewhat random as students choose whether to be in IB classes. Students can be in one IB class or the whole thing. As well, the dual language programs are now option schools so there is choice involved there.
Maureen is right. SPS expects WAY too much from parents and parents give it.
Ditto on what Charlie said.
But hey, good news. I attended the A&F meeting and, as usual, lots of interesting (and upsetting) stuff. But apparently, they are going to review programs and may end some. (this was about the budget and stated in a vague way on a handout).
I do not know what the cost difference is with IB.
-HS Parent
Annual school fees
Diploma Programme 10,820
IB Career-related Program 1,370
Per student fees
Candidate registration fee 160
Candidate subject fee 110
Extended essay 85
Theory of knowledge 43
Creativity Action and Service 10
Not chump change (except for Gates of course. IB is one of his pet ideas. I think IB sounds great and should be available to those who want to pursue it.)
IB-specific professional development
IB-specific texts
IB coordinator (pretty much a full-time job at Ingraham)
Stipends for extended essay faculty advisers
I'm sure there's a bunch more that I've forgotten. Definitely not chump change, but you get what you pay for.
Kaching