If SPS Thinks All Parents are Good for is Fundraising...

Join Teacher Retention Advocate Parents for a "bake sale" to highlight the inadequacy of local parent groups to fund raise for major staffing cuts. We will call on SPS to make alternate budget cuts and our state legislature to fully fund McCleary.

Tuesday, October 13th from 11 am - 1pm at JSCEE 


We will have a table with various treats and goodies such as:  
- Bum Deal Brownies
- Chopping Block Chocolate Chip cookies
- Overcrowding Krispy Treats
- McCleary M&M Bars
- Paramount Duty Pie
- B.S. Banana Bread
- Teacher Shuffle Sugar Cookies  
- Bye Bye Teacher Blondies
- Pissed off Parent Peanut Butter Bars.

All of these items are priced to move at .5 FTE.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Just to remind everyone.... the vast majority of "displacements" will be special education IAs. Nearly every high school will have "displacements", and middle schools already had displacements last year and it will continue. Where will all the displaced staff go? Mum's the word! Central staff thinks nothing at all of leaving students without even a teacher (because they haven't bothered to hire anyone) nor a sub!!!! Imagine. Your kid's class without a teacher or a sub. Folks. That's the reality in special education in SPS. Now they're also cutting IAS. Lord of the Flies!

Sped Readers
10/11/15, 8:57 AM
Anonymous said…
Sped Readers,

You are correct. Plus all elementary schools with a "continuum of services" (meaning, basically, an inclusion program) will have the Resource Room ratio changed from 18:1:1 to 22:1, eliminating ALL resource room IAs from those schools (and increasing the caseload by 4).

And, none of this is being told to the parents.

LAP
10/11/15, 9:02 AM
Anonymous said…
Isn't that because SEA just agreed to it?
10/11/15, 9:44 AM
Anonymous said…
Yes, SEA did agree to it, but not many SEA members realized it, and parents should be notified as well. Plus, why impact the students this year?

LAP
10/11/15, 10:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Teachers didn't realize what they see agreeing to? Sorry to say it, but that's pretty lame. Parents were out supporting the teachers for "looking out for our kids," but it seemed like teachers were willing to compromise on this issue for some reason, and look where it got them. How did parents know this would be a problem when teachers didn't? And the contract was for this year, so of course the changes were going to take place this year too.

Not Surprised
10/11/15, 12:39 PM
Anonymous said…
No LAP no. We aren't allowed to say inclusion, it's a dirty little secret. That doesn't really bother me that much. If a school has a continuum of services.... they've already got a lot of ias.... maybe 6, or even more. Students who need it can be assigned to the access program. Surely the IAs can help the resource room. The problem happens when they just decide to poof, cut the IAs because the special ed enrollment is something less than 100%, especially self contained programs... or programs without teachers.

Sped Reader
10/11/15, 12:57 PM
Anonymous said…
Sped Reader,

Do you have examples of a school with a self-contained program not at 100% that has just received a cut in IA support?

That should not be happening, IMO.

LAP
10/11/15, 1:22 PM
Anonymous said…
JAMS, happened last year. OSPI case 1475 was a complaint about this practice at JAMS. Not only did the district fail to hire sped resource teachers, it cut ias... and a teacher filed the complaint. Clearly the case was about JAMS. Amazing courage. Look it up. District lost, and they're losing about 75% of their complaints. Is it fixed? Doubt it. Hazel Wolf, Nathan Hale, Roosevelt, Garfield, Thornton Creek. All getting cuts. Parents have noted on special ed ptsa alias. Probably many, many others schools too. Another new trick? Relabel SM4 students as something else.... so they can put them in cheaper programs, and then cut the IAs. Evidently the district is saying they aren't going to actually implement the new ratios.... (when they're better), but they'll implement them right away when they're worse, as in access programs and the worse resource rooms.



Sped Reader
10/11/15, 2:32 PM
xiebob said…
I'm confused. From what I'm understanding from the contract http://www.seattlewea.org/images/static_content/BARGAINING/TA_DOCS_2015/Special%20Education.pdf, there should only be special ed cuts in 2 cases:
1) In the resource room at a "continuum" school (a school that has the full continuum of services, not just resource room), where the resource room ratio was changed from 18:1:1 to 22:1 and
2) At secondary schools with Access, where the Access ratio was changed from 10:1:3 to 13:1:3.
Unless there was a disproportionate percentage of the 675 missing students who were in special ed, I don't see why there should be significant special ed cuts beyond that. It looks like by the district's count, around 15% of SPS students are in special ed, so that should be ~100 students across the district. Maybe if a school was disproportionately affected, they might lose a teacher?

I know that we are losing an 0.4 special ed teacher at Laurelhurst elementary (a continuum school), but I can't get any details about where the cut will be. Presumably in the resource room?

Is there anywhere where SPS breaks down exactly where the cuts are going to be and why?
10/12/15, 6:40 AM
Anonymous said…
The menu item names are great. Gave me a giggle in the middle of the pain of this situation.
Hope some media shows up. Chopping block chocolate chips and bye bye teacher blondies has the potential to go viral (I hope).

SavvyVoter
10/12/15, 9:30 AM
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