The trouble with the recent settlement
As was reported and discussed, Seattle Public Schools recently settled a sexual harassment suit for $249,999. This situation provides a number of examples of the District's dysfunctional culture of lawlessness. Shall we count them?
- The staff attempted to keep the settlement from the Board.
- The staff attempted to keep the settlement from the public.
- Rather than being held accountable for the failure at the heart of this litigation, the principal in the case was promoted - twice.
- No one has been or ever will be held accountable for this failure.
- No one has been or ever will be held accountable for trying to cover up the failure.
- No one has been or ever will be held accountable for trying to keep the settlement from the board or the public.
- This settlement will not lead to any improvements or changes in the way the District handles these sorts of complaints. No lessons were learned.
- The District enacted a crisis response plan for exactly this sort of public relations disaster, and the crisis response utterly failed. There will be no effort to improve that either.
Think how differently everything would have been if, ten years ago, and this year, the District staff had simply followed the policy and procedure. None of this would have happened.
Comments
It's easy to get into a "he said/she said" with these situations and your analysis cuts that out and gets to the crux of the problem.
Momof2
The reality is that wormwood exists here and won't die without dire measures.
Split Now
-- Split this mess
Observer
Splitting the district would not make that happen. In fact, it would allow bad players to remain onboard, since experience/longetivity usually trumps ethics/honesty whenever there is a huge reorgination like that. The belief would be that experienced people would be needed to lead and re-form the administration.
What we need is a superintendent with a backbone and a reputation for cleaning house, plus an old fashioned layoff. There are CEOs in industry like this. Aren't there any in the traveling superintendent circuit?
observer
No, it wouldn't but thanks for the hyperbole to beat that drum for a split.
It would take a superintendent who would come in, review and clean up. So far, we have been unable to find such a person since John Stanford (and we'll never know if he would have finished the job).
Thanks for telling it like it is once more Charlie.
reader47
Institutional culture flows down from the top. In Seattle Public Schools, that's the Board.
A Board committed to compliance would require compliance from the superintendent.
What is/has been Nyland's explanation? Surely the School Board has demanded one? And, will hold him accountable? For surely coming in when he did, he was well aware, and I would dare expect well-briefed on SPS' Title IX thin-ice (to say the least.)
The "I didn't know" trotted out by this consultant to superintendents stretched incredulity last time...
The politics behind the split proposal are dubious, especially with the charter vultures in the wings, but c'mon...SPS won't get any worse than it is now if there's a split.
"Maybe someday when we get a leader or board with backbone" is about like saying "Someday when I win the lotto" when talking about this district.
This blog exists because of the chronic dysfunction and lack of ethics in this district. The rebuttals based on "John Stanford (RIP) made sure the phones were answered and he fired some people" and "maybe there's another general with a spine who wants to work here" are simply not credbile defenses for maintaining the cesspool.
If you are against the split, better reasons are needed than these. Your child not getting into Garfield doesn't cut it, either.
Fear of ed. reformers in the southend is a credible reason to be against the split. That's about the only one that's been offered so far that has any merit.
--enough already
News flash - this blog has NEVER defended the status quo. We want change, we have advocated change.
But doing something to "do something" is childish and will not help. Careful examination of the issues - transparently - is the way forward.
SPS will get worse if there is a split and there will be no going back.
I have made my reasons for not having a split pretty clear but I'm sure Charlie and I could create a great list.
John Stanford visited one of my schools several times, shook hands with teachers, looked us in the eye, and asked about our very difficult classrooms and school. He meant business and cared.
He also spoke at the Democratic National Convention and probably would not have been in SPS for long even without his illness.
I had great respect for him but came to realize that our district had quickly become a stepping stone to higher and greener pastures.
--enough already
The best part of this split proposal is that people "downtown" have gotten a bit nervous.
I like that.
--enough already (who's been anti-deform way before it showed up on this blog's radar)
This post clearly lays out the problem - the root: accountability. How does your idea solve it? It does not. Unless you presume, with a split, you intend to find TWO education turnaround experts? (and who's going to manage that into compatibility? It's not possible, enough. The idea of a split does not have merit. But, it IS distracting us, by splitting our voice, from getting behind what IS possible: ONE turn-around CEO/ CFO/ Superintendent/change expert is what is needed. To get that, we need a School Board that recognizes the need, and the urgency. That requires US to get on that page, and elect Board members with a turnaround agenda. Peters & Patu need support, before they burnout swimming uphill. But it's not a lotto proposition.
But needless to say what did he do exactly and specifically. Be detailed I have time.
Is this split something to do with the "revered" Garfield- a school for scandal every other week. Probably right now that strange Principal is jealous that Eckstein was in the news over him. Met his son? Chip off the block there probably will get the gig in 10 years when he graduates.
Man since moving to Seattle I have never seen a city so caught up in the past and legacy quite like this place. Odd since 60% o the residents are transplants.
Well get me that list I need a laugh.
- Curious and Curiouser
In SPS Land, that qualifies for canonization.
--enough already
-Kate Martin
He did two things - one ephemeral, one set things in motion for a big change.
The ephemeral thing was bringing much of Seattle together,especially SPS staff, on this "let's do this together." He made people believe in public education. In short, he made people care.
It was a very important time for SPS and we have never gotten that idea back. (I feel Stanford cared about parents and teachers in a way that no superintendent since has.)
The set-in-motion idea was the decentralization of the district. I think some of it came from the guy who he selected to be CFO - Joe Olchefske (who took over when Stanford died) - who had this concept of "tight, loose." Meaning, if schools are doing well, they don't need as much oversight from central (and are somewhat freed to choose their own course) - that's loose. And, when schools are not doing well, then they get the "tight" which is tight oversight of their school.
I think Stanford would have sourced out more of the workings at headquarters as well.
But we ended up keeping Olchefske - without a search - and that turned out badly (for the district, no Olchefske).
I, too, believe that Stanford would have left for greener pastures but might have done some good before he left.
Adam
Its more than a false argument to say that anyone who is against the "split" is FOR the status quo. They just don't happen to see a split as the "glory hallelujah we've all been saved" answer to what is the, again, the core issue. accountability. Intelligent people can agree to disagree on the best solution for resolving that.
Personally, that starts with the Legislature being accountable for their duty to fully fund basic education.
And the Supt (any Supt) holding his exec staff accountable for their actions.
And the Board (any Board) holding it's one employee accountable for the actions of his/her subordinates.
That's true in the existing district. It's true in any mythical split district.
Unless and until accountability becomes the mantra of SPS, there will always be some entity ready and willing to prey on the dysfunction.
reader47
NEmom
--Michael
"traveling superintendent circuit"
Good one.
-NNNCr
Has anyone here ever requested the total amount spent by year on settlements?
NEmom - the teacher is still working in the district and with a population that I'd consider more vulnerable than most.
As we have come to see that 3 years is the maximum be it death or disgrace that Superintendents leave this City.
And that says we should not maybe split it up as the last person who had a warm fuzzy was nearly 20 years ago and since then the district is falling to pieces.
I see the legacy thing here clearly.. the past was so great wasn't it.. depending on who's rose colored (whoops used the word colored) glasses you are using.
Have any here run for this board of incompetence? Why not or what happened there.
Tell, I have time.
- curious and curioser
Campbell was promoted to be Director of Special Education in Seattle(despite having not training in special education and never having been a special education teacher). She now works for the Highline School District as Executive Director -- another big step up.
I have not heard anyone blame lack of funding for the issues at SPS headquarters. But when you have those in leadership who decide where the money goes and for what - not listening to parents and teachers - then it does become an issue.
Curious and curioser,you are welcome to search thru this blog for many answers to your questions. Myself, I don't have time.
Mr. Bones, that would be an interesting conversation to hear between Campbell and her current boss, former SPS superintendent Susan Enfield.
Enough said, hopefully.
I like the idea of every legal settlement, regardless of value, requiring board approval. That's a very good suggestion.
In the end, though, it will still come down to someone in the District leadership insisting on compliance with the law, regulations, policy, and the District's stated values. All it takes is one person.
NEmom
As a 30-year teacher I have seen one true report (it was beyond horrific) and at least seven reports from parents about teachers abusing their children that turned out to be demonstrably false.
False reports do happen and they destroy people's lives forever. Each case follows a predictable course -- the parent reports to the principal and a teacher is put on leave until the district can "investigate" the allegations. These "investigations" usually take 6 months to a year. Nobody has ever been able to explain why they take so long.
Here are some examples: a teacher pulling a child out of the way of a school bus driving in the loading zone. The student went home, told their parent the teacher had grabbed them too roughly -- the teacher put on leave and then transferred to a different school.
A child was on top of another child punching him in the face during a playground fight and a teacher pulled the student off the victim. The parent complained that the teacher shouldn't have touched their child. The teacher put on leave for two months and then returned to work without any comment from the district.
A parent volunteer was yelling at an autistic student on the playground so a teacher told the parent to stop upsetting the child. The parent smeared the teacher to other staff that the teacher was "unsafe" to be around children, but left what "unsafe" meant as deliberately ambiguous so people would assume the worst.
BTW, a teacher can be disciplined/terminated for doing nothing in situations like these.
A very recent case where a teacher patted the back of a misbehaving student's hand. The student reported the teacher had slapped them despite witness statements that called it a "pat." The teacher put on leave, eventually returned to work but the parent wrote emails to the entire staff calling the teacher "dangerous" and demanding she be observed by the principal or teacher at all times. Like a lot of people who dedicate their lives to children, the teacher was emotionally devastated by the attack and chose to resign because of the harrassment.
This stuff happens all the time.
But, in this case, very little happened from this "investigation." The student was not moved from the classroom, it seemed to be quite a cursory "investigation" and all of that backfired on the district.
Which leaves the teacher hanging.
(It would be interesting to know if the teacher had gone to his union rep and asked what could be done to protect him.)
I understand all of this and yet, in the end, who gets hurt? A teacher who may not have done something that justified exiting him or her (and has their name tainted) and taxpayers.
It doesn't punish those who are suppose to do careful investigations that protect everyone.
I am aware of that last incident referenced (the hand slap/pat). I will also say that teacher has been moved around a lot in the district.
If five other schools chose not to retain an employee, if several chose to cancel a program in order to facilitate the transfer and if that teacher's coworkers agreed to spend their planning periods in the teacher's classroom would that friendly pat on the hand seem a bit more suspicious?
There are two sides to every story.
Uh yeah. A teacher should lose their job for slapping a hand.
There's two sides to every story.