Hit the Pause Button on October Staff Cuts

Sent to the Board this morning:

Dear Directors,

You have an Executive Ctm Meeting of the Whole on Wednesday.  I am asking you to please consider 10 minutes to discuss hitting the pause button on the extensive cuts that affect schools in every single region that the Board covers. 

You have it within your power - having an advertised public meeting of the whole - to ask the Superintendent to not make these cuts until they have been clearly and transparently explained to parents.  I just sent Ken Gotsch these questions at the end of this e-mail. Do you know the answers to all of these?  If not, hit the pause button.

At the very least, you need to commit to a policy to end October surprise staff cuts like these.  Senior staff have pointed out that these happen in other districts as well.  But other districts ALSO now have policies against doing this.  SPS should as well.

Sincerely,
Melissa Westbrook
Seattle Schools Community Forum blog

Comments

Anonymous said…
What an unbelievable work of art that 2015/16 budget book is. All those budget analysts hired to develop this complicated formula to make it difficult for principals to hire the staff they need to serve students. I bet it is really easy to hire an SPS budget analyst (the list of analysts each make about $70,000 to $95,000 per year based on 2012 salary schedules) without any accountability to anyone.

-SPSparent
10/12/15, 12:11 PM
Anonymous said…
Thank you for sending this, Melissa.

North End Parent
10/12/15, 12:55 PM
Anonymous said…
At our middle school, the principal was told the cuts would occur at the semester break, to be minimally disruptive. Then, a few days later, the District said, NO, immediately.

Thought folks should know about this swticharoo



Parent
10/13/15, 8:36 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more