District Picks Medsker as Lincoln Principal
From Superintendent Nyland:
Dear Families:
Ruth Medsker has been selected as the Principal of Lincoln High School, reopening in the fall of 2019 in the northwest region of the district. She will begin her new position in July 2017, as she leads the development of the first comprehensive high school to open in the district since Nathan Hale in 1963. The complexities of opening a high school including development of a master schedule, hiring over eighty staff, athletic coordination, and building strong elective programs like arts and music is a significant body of work. With proactive planning, we are investing in smoother transitions for students who may have to move schools and will be putting into place a rich high school experience for all Lincoln High Schools students.
A High School Boundary Task Force has been formed to examine potential boundary changes as a result of Lincoln High School’s opening. The Task Force had its first meeting on Thursday, April 27 and will continue to meet into the fall when it anticipates having new boundaries for Lincoln High School. You can learn more about their work here.
More about Principal Medsker
Ruth’s experience and strengths in leadership, planning, communication, and collaboration, as well as her extensive knowledge and understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with opening a school made her the clear choice for this important position. Ms. Medsker has served in a variety of teaching and administrative roles in Seattle Public Schools, including both as a General Education and Special Education teacher, Assistant Principal, Principal, and Executive Director of Schools, and most recently principal of West Seattle High School. Under her leadership at West Seattle High School, the school has awarded City Family and Education Levy funding, a competitive grant; received state recognition for academic achievement; and secured funding to make numerous capital improvements which enhanced the learning environment. In addition to leading West Seattle High School, she is also currently serving as a Principal on Special Assignment, tasked with engaging staff and the community to re-envision high school and bring high school programs into alignment with the new 24 credit graduation requirements enacted by the Washington State Legislature. Her deep knowledge and expertise in these areas will be a benefit as the vision, mission, and focus of Lincoln High School are developed.
Her work in the coming year will include community engagement with prospective students and families in the Northwest and Northeast regions of the city; regular planning work with the facilities and planning teams of both Seattle Public Schools and the assigned contractors; hiring of core faculty who will assist in the formation of the school’s mission, vision, and curricular focus; and regular meetings with the surrounding Wallingford community as the school comes to life.
Principal Medsker will work closely with district and building leadership to ensure a smooth finish to the 2016-17 school year at West Seattle High School. The process for finding a Principal replacement will commence immediately.
Please help Seattle Public Schools congratulate and welcome Ruth into her new role. Director Rick Burke will be hosting Principal Medsker at an upcoming community meeting focused on the re-opening of Lincoln High School. This meeting will take place on Monday, June 5 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Hamilton Middle School. Official planning for the school will begin this summer once Ruth has transitioned from West Seattle High School.
Warm Regards,
Larry
Dr. Larry Nyland, Superintendent
Dear Families:
Ruth Medsker has been selected as the Principal of Lincoln High School, reopening in the fall of 2019 in the northwest region of the district. She will begin her new position in July 2017, as she leads the development of the first comprehensive high school to open in the district since Nathan Hale in 1963. The complexities of opening a high school including development of a master schedule, hiring over eighty staff, athletic coordination, and building strong elective programs like arts and music is a significant body of work. With proactive planning, we are investing in smoother transitions for students who may have to move schools and will be putting into place a rich high school experience for all Lincoln High Schools students.
A High School Boundary Task Force has been formed to examine potential boundary changes as a result of Lincoln High School’s opening. The Task Force had its first meeting on Thursday, April 27 and will continue to meet into the fall when it anticipates having new boundaries for Lincoln High School. You can learn more about their work here.
More about Principal Medsker
Ruth’s experience and strengths in leadership, planning, communication, and collaboration, as well as her extensive knowledge and understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with opening a school made her the clear choice for this important position. Ms. Medsker has served in a variety of teaching and administrative roles in Seattle Public Schools, including both as a General Education and Special Education teacher, Assistant Principal, Principal, and Executive Director of Schools, and most recently principal of West Seattle High School. Under her leadership at West Seattle High School, the school has awarded City Family and Education Levy funding, a competitive grant; received state recognition for academic achievement; and secured funding to make numerous capital improvements which enhanced the learning environment. In addition to leading West Seattle High School, she is also currently serving as a Principal on Special Assignment, tasked with engaging staff and the community to re-envision high school and bring high school programs into alignment with the new 24 credit graduation requirements enacted by the Washington State Legislature. Her deep knowledge and expertise in these areas will be a benefit as the vision, mission, and focus of Lincoln High School are developed.
Her work in the coming year will include community engagement with prospective students and families in the Northwest and Northeast regions of the city; regular planning work with the facilities and planning teams of both Seattle Public Schools and the assigned contractors; hiring of core faculty who will assist in the formation of the school’s mission, vision, and curricular focus; and regular meetings with the surrounding Wallingford community as the school comes to life.
Principal Medsker will work closely with district and building leadership to ensure a smooth finish to the 2016-17 school year at West Seattle High School. The process for finding a Principal replacement will commence immediately.
Please help Seattle Public Schools congratulate and welcome Ruth into her new role. Director Rick Burke will be hosting Principal Medsker at an upcoming community meeting focused on the re-opening of Lincoln High School. This meeting will take place on Monday, June 5 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Hamilton Middle School. Official planning for the school will begin this summer once Ruth has transitioned from West Seattle High School.
Warm Regards,
Larry
Dr. Larry Nyland, Superintendent
Comments
Not sending our kids there.
We will move/rent.
N O W A Y to this.
Not impressed. Anyone who pushed for trimesters was not serious about excellence in education. Anyone not serious about EXCELLENCE is not where we are going to go. Elementary? Fine. Middle? Not happy, but whatever. High school? Not happening.
signed,
Escape
You think we are 'not giving a fair chance' or 'judging unfairly?', perhaps; you are free to send your kids there in 2019. We are NOT. Period.
Wondering
Optimistic
Billions
Wondering, they are reopening the old Lincoln High in Wallingford as a high school.
I think Kelly mentioned that Ms. Medsker has some good experience and connections that will serve her well in getting the logistics in place, so let's just hope she also has some good community engagement and listening skills and is willing to expand her understanding of what the community needs.
HS soon
I believe the past few years SPS project cost are very close to $400 million. You have to tease out all the ways the district hides cost and moves levy funds around so I just estimating. They are not up front with spending as they should be.
Even if it's only $300 million and $60 million that's still not the kind of monies a poor school district spends in just a couple of years.
Billions
.."Not impressed. Anyone who pushed for trimesters was not serious about excellence in education. Anyone not serious about EXCELLENCE is not where we are going to go."
I strongly disagree. Eagle Ridge HS in Klamath Falls, OR is moving to the 5 period day on trimesters next year. Eagle Ridge is very serious about academics.
(1) The trimester schedule matches with local community colleges, which makes it much easier for students to build a schedule that includes both Eagle Ridge classes and classes at Oregon Tech.
(2) A two trimester class has about the same number of instructional minutes as a two semester class. 75 min x 120 days = 9000 minutes ;; 50 min x 180 days = 9000 minutes. At ER the AP classes will be taught in the first two trimesters, thus all 9000 minutes are finished prior to AP testing. The third trimester is then available for a class at a local college which runs on trimesters as well.
The Eagle Ridge principal and board of directors believe they are very serious about excellence in education. Eagle Ridge has no sports programs. It enrolls about 200 students vs Klamath Union HS with about 600 students. ER normally outscores KU on state testing. ER made this change to 5 x 3 for academic reasons.
Frequent reader
-SPSParent
@ Frequent Reader, Isn't Jill Hudson's approach very one-size-fits-all? That's not going to fly for Lincoln. It would appear that both principals involved in Lincoln's planning are less interested in providing/ensuring access to advanced coursework. I hope I'm wrong.
HS soon
It only works if college and high school calendars match up, which they don't here in Seattle. Details matter.
HS soon
Let's please not make summary judgment against this person. She deserves a chance to succeed. And she deserves the community support to enable that success.
--Concerned parent (and likely future Lincoln HS parent)
WSU is on semesters. WWU and UW are on quarters. I believe most of the community colleges are on quarters.
HP
If you said Brockman or Wynkoop (former & current Ballard principal) or Vance of Roosevelt, who run successful schools with robust academic emphasis & incredibly strong performance arts, many would agree. If you had even said Howard, Garfield principal, who runs a complicated master schedule that also has bright spots of academic and performing arts excellence, many could appreciate the merit.
But you called out the principal of what many call 'the slacker school' as being strong? Her ideas include filling kids' schedules with the fabulous opportunity to TA. How many NH students can't get AP courses? Ever heard of their performing arts program? We can disagree, but seems like there's a robust anti-excellence meme there.
Lincoln kids, like all students in every building in our district, deserve excellence. Nothing less. Like all, their high school assignment will be directed by their address. But unlike many, their principal selection was done without parents on the hiring committee. Why? When JAMS started, parents were in the interview. That was crucial to the acceptance of the principal in the community who would build a new school with students ripped away from their existing, exceptionally high-performing middle schools: Eckstein & Hamilton.
By having parents on the committee, there’s authenticity to the process of procuring & installing a new principal. The district does not enjoy a high degree of confidence from the public: transparency and consistency are critical. Lincoln principal process was neither. That is the issue.
Lincoln is starting by ripping away kids from exceptionally high performing high schools: Ballard & Roosevelt. Unlike middle school, high school is the ultimate high-stakes end-game. It leads to college. Yet, no parents on the committee?
How many national merit scholars has the principal produced in her time? Ivy league acceptances? These metrics may be unimportant to you, but I doubt they're are unimportant to the parents who are being ripped from BHS and RHS & pushed into Lincoln. These questions are just a metric, but they speak to how the incumbent views achievement. How an interviewee would address those types of questions could reveal a lot, her/his competence, her/his strategy to raise and emphasize achievement, etc. That is important to know in making a selection.
Community acceptance & buy-in crucial. SPS should have done a national search. Many extraordinary educators would jump at chance to start a brand-new comprehensive high school in a fantastic neighborhood in a city as amazing as Seattle, brimming with over-educated, education-loving families.
Wallingford, Queen Anne, & Magnolia families got screwed out of the most important decision in the entire Lincoln school process, who the principal is. How does Nyland possibly justify this to the Board?
Tolley is behind this. Consider what he did to Rainier Beach back when he was the SE director. It doesn’t inspire confidence. Look closely: the autocratic approach to the decision, the end result of the decision, who was picked (who was not).
Unless parents show up in droves to the board to protest the process & question the result, Lincoln will be pushed down a very clear lane. Make no mistake: this is entirely politics. This was an exercise of power. This does fundamentally determine the fate of how Lincoln will rise or sink. Look at who Tolley installed at Washington. Look at what has happened to WMS in the short time she's been there. Tolley picked her for a reason. Now for Lincoln he has picked this.
The way this was done & the end result have set a tone. A bad one. It's a harbinger of who's in charge & what matters, & apparently it is not the parents. It was unnecessary to have gone down this way. It was an unforced error. Lincoln doesn't need and can't afford any of those.
Zero
-SPSParent
-cautiously pessimistic
For progress
Looking ahead to boundary discussions, in light of the stranglehold on the waitlists and changing definitions around "space available," I'd suggest families push for more clarity around enrollment policies. When JAMS opened, some families simply enrolled at Eckstein through choice assignment rather than move to JAMS.
-thinking ahead
The community demanded a decision maker at Lincoln. We've got one whether we like her or not. Onward.
Observing
HP
not tracking is not the same thing as slacking.
Zero hazing at Hale, unlike some of the other schoools you mention.
Zero that you're aware of. Never forget that. I do believe that it's negligible at Hale, and nothing like Garfield, which I'm sure was the intent of your comparison.
Tolerant, inclusive structure and atmosphere.
Inclusive. The current catch-all euphemism for one-size-fits-all. Or none, depending on the situation.
Low drop out rate and high achievement and participation rates for non majority students.
Sounds good. How about majority students? Curious why the qualifier.
Of the less than ten cum laude graduates at UW 2016, one was a Hale graduate. Need I say more?
With a smart ass finish like that, you deserve to be taken down a notch, so here goes. Your comment is complete BS. First, there are individual students everywhere that can thrive in practically any environment. There is little to nothing in place at Hale to support the highest achievers, and many jump out to running start classes as soon as possible. That doesn't mean it's a bad school, but there is no justification to your insinuation that attending Hale was a factor in this student's scholarly achievement at UW.
To continue, clearly you don't even know what Cum Laude means. With around 7,000 graduates, there are on the order of 450 Cum Laude students each year. But wait, perhaps you meant Magna Cum Laude. No, that's around 200 or so each year. Perhaps you meant Summa Cum Laude? Even this highest honor, which goes to the roughly top 0.5% of graduating students would be around 35 students. Less than 10? Never heard of any such distinction.
For progress
From what I've read, I think "For Homogenization" would be a better moniker.
HP
Shoreline transfer
Lincoln is going to be 'seeded' with kids pulled from Ballard & Roosevelt. Not all high schools are right for every student, but clearly BHS & RHS are very high performing, with plentiful AP courses, latin, high end maths, robotics & jazz. The parents whose children are pulled out of BHS & RHS are going to be demanding comparable access to the highest quality education. Those who wanted something 'different' are already at Nova, Center, or where the best fit was.
Lincoln must fit in context with the Ballard & Roosevelt tradition of high academic achievement & high performing arts excellence.
Garfield has 601 HCC students, Ingraham has 373. Garfield has trended down, because parents see the feckless behavior of the district. They are trying to go to where they are less likely to be pulled. Ingraham has trended up; families are assuming if one is there for IB, you can't be pulled mid-stream as that is an internationally accredited course of study, and so to be yanked from that school is not about being yanked from a school, it is being yanked from a course of study. That is a whole different ball game.
In the potential Lincoln area, there are 600 HCC students.
288 HCC high school students reside in Ballard, 99 go to BHS. 309 HCC students reside in Roosevelt, 91 attend. The rest of these HCC students in Ballard/Roosevelt area go to Garfield & Ingraham. This trend toward staying 'local' is new in the last couple of years. HCC parents have been through umpteen splits & have seen this high school spilt coming, that is likely why they didn't choose to go to Garfield, they feared a geosplit out of Garfield, & thought if they had the 'right' address, their students could avoid being pulled into Lincoln. It has all been about avoiding Lincoln for the last 2 years. FYI, Hale has only 20 HCC students.
So, right out of the gates, Lincoln should be looking like it will fit in this BHS & RHS context. The district should strive to get the community confidence, and the excellence of a high school hinges on the principal. The principal sets the tone. Of expectations, of priorities, of school culture. It is the principal that is THE attractant to future faculty. Teachers want to work for a stellar principal who matches the teacher's philosophy. A principal with an outstanding reputation is worth his/her weight in gold. It is the lynch pin of this launch. Lincoln depends on the principal to attract staff, and build a cohesive faculty. A professional, experienced & focused core faculty that want to make Lincoln nationally ranked. Blow the barn doors off of Interlake and Newport. 100% graduation rate, national merit scholarships, all of it.
BUT. Can we say that this is what we will get? Got??
There was no national search for this extraordinary opportunity. WHY? What is the justification for no real search? Why have parents been shut-out of the strategic hire? WHY? Why this incumbent? WHY? Does this incumbent match the district preferred criteria, launch a school in trimesters to prove it can be done? What is driving their decision, and does it coincide with the parents' driver set of priorities?
These are the questions the district shrugged off when it made the announcement. This is the stake it drove into whatever shred of confidence that may have existed with respect to the district getting Lincoln right. Tolley is in the driver's seat. And Nyland is...where exactly? He retires, this year, next? Will he even be around with Lincoln opens? We have skin in the game. He does not. So yes, for Lincoln, it is zero down, and, unless parents voice what they want, what they expect, then they can continue to be run over by the district and a principal with a talk to the hand attitude. What professional would take this kind of job under the cover of night? That does not speak well to their understand of what a launch takes.
Zero
HS soon
Projecting that it will be an abysmal failure for the HCC kids, when the program hasn't even been sited there, is nonsensical. Sheesh. Given the attitude, if I were King, I wouldn't site it there. Leave it at Garfield. Bus or take chances on the IB lottery at Ingraham. That would be the end of the overbearing HCC parent crowd at Lincoln and if I were a principal who had 500 balls to juggle to get the school off the ground that might well be what I'd ask SPS administrators to do. Leave it at Garfield and let me do my job of opening the place. Note I did not say not welcoming the HCC students nor did I say all HCC parents. Just the ones who hate the place before they've stepped foot in the non-opened building.
Observing
http://westseattleblog.com/2017/05/west-seattle-high-schools-next-principal-brian-vance-to-succeed-ruth-medsker/
Northeast Mama
Skepticism and concern are not the same as hate. Highlighting issues that need to be addressed is not the same as projecting failure. If you read the comments above, most also indicate some level of hope that these fears won't come to pass, and that the community will get involved in helping to shape the school into something that IS a good fit. These comments are, more than anything else, a call to action.
Nobody expects a five-star experience on day 1 (or even day 720, as this is SPS we're talking about), but the programming offered to 11th graders, if they are pulled from AP-heavy programs at surrounding schools, needs to be comparable. It's not ok to decelerate their academic progress, make them retake classes, etc. Nobody expects that it will all be smooth sailing in the early years of Lincoln, or that there will be the same variety of offerings at the outset. But there will need to be enough academically appropriate offerings to accommodate the needs of its student population, which, whether HCC is sited there or not, will include a lot of HC-qualified students, AL-qualified students, and above grade level students. I find your unwillingness to consider the needs of such students overbearing.
HS soon
NE mom of 3
-BTDT
"Can anyone here who's worked with the new Lincoln HS principal tell us a little about her and her relationship/working style with her prior school communities (parents, students, community groups etc.)?"
Initially, I was not a big fan. She came off as top-down and less collaborative than I, and other parents would have liked. However, I have learned that she is willing to listen and is a strong advocate for her teaching staff. She cares about kids and does know quite a bit about the system, curriculum, etc. WSHS is on the rise as well after a few rough years; I attribute some of this to her leadership. I am excited that Brian Vance is taking over because I think he will be the extra push WSHS needs to move it into the top tier high school it can and should be. Our feeder elementary schools, as well as our excellent middle school, Madison, need to feed into a more rigorous high school, and that hasn't always been the case with many opting for private high schools.
-WSHS Parent
Maybe she got better as a principal.
Seen It
That and the fact that West Seattle is thrilled to be getting Vance, because clearly Roosevelt is a high-flying school... yeah, that says it all. This placement to Lincoln is problematic.
What WSHS Parent said aligns with what Schmitz Park/Genesee Hill families have said about West Seattle High School for years. They noted Chief Sealth's success and knew that was a better place to go for academics. WSHS to them was not considered a good choice. That is not a demeaning statement, that is observation of the perception that was/is held, fairly widely a few years ago. So, foisting that principal upon Lincoln, fits with perfectly Tolley paradigm. Seems like some in this district won't be happy until all excellence is snuffed out. That is one way to eliminate the gaps in opportunity (of course the other is to make every place excellent).
Tolley putting that administrator at Lincoln; that is the product problem, but, then there is also the process problem.
Lincoln families, this can be walked back. It should and must be. Nothing is more important than the principal. Nothing.
A shoddy physical building with a rock star principal will attract dedicated joyful staff who love teaching and persevere despite downtown. And, working together they would create a student-centered rock star program. We have all had experiences in the work place where inspiring leaders create positive energy that is self-reinforcing and results in a magical place to work, where everyone pulls together and in 100% behind the mission and so things get done. We probably also have had the experience where one inept or negative person is in the exact wrong position to make everything so much more difficult and makes it an uphill battle to get the tasks accomplished that support the mission. Wastefulness results. Time is spent not doing the right thing, but doing the CYA thing. Leadership really matters. Lincoln is the first high school in more than 50 years. It should be a rock star. It should start with a rock star leading the charge. Not a retread.
So this is a hill worth battling on. Write the board. Wait and see is one approach, but, it is the approach that will get you tire marks on your backs as you are steam rolled over. QA/Mag and Wallingford elementaries, K8s and middle schools should push hard to make Lincoln the best, since they are going to land there.
What is so, so, so infuriating is the inconsistency with principal placement process. Some communities get, others don't. Not cool. The equity of access model suggests that all communities should have an equal footing when it comes to participation in the process. But it seems some have 'most favored nation' status, while others get dictated to with a follow-up of 'talk to the hand'. The board should howl on this on. Where are they???
Zero
Lincoln should get that same chance to be as successful. The parents should get to be on interview team. They should get input. The are the 'consumers' 'customers' 'partners' or whatever else you want to call them. Their children will be shunted to Lincoln away from Ballard and Roosevelt, they are invested, they have skin in the game. They need to have their say. What was done was not in keeping with best practices, or, in keeping with actual practice as JAMS certainly did have parents in the principal process.
Why does TOPS get to have a say in its principal selection, but, North Beach doesn't? Why is there no consistency? Is it because of political clout? Communities 'dialed in' get to be insiders, but, those who don't 'work the system' take what they are given?
Is that what equity looks like? Random, inconsistent, depends upon your lobbying strength?
Lincoln principal appointment needs to be walked back and rebooted. This was not an appropriate process.
Zero
I agree with you about principal placement at JAMS and at Lincoln.
I think the school district should be more open about their planning for various groups they plan to move around.
dd
Interbay
One, Brian Vance at RHS said he wanted a challenge and the opp for WSHS to get a strong prinicipal while making Medsker principal at Lincoln presented itself.
Two, the district didn't want to go thru a lengthy search (which would have likely involved parents and teachers) and so decided to just make Medsker permanent princpal.
Three, stuff we don't know.
The problem with recreating these boundaries is of course that there is no longer a Queen Anne High School. If the district builds a high school at Memorial Stadium, this is a good picture of what we can expect boundaries to look like at that point. The difficulty lies in the transition period.
Yes, the issue of a downtown high school does come into play but honestly, that is so far off - passing BEX V, planning/building the school - that I doubt it could come on-line any sooner than 2022. And, you'd have to explain the need for that building to get built first over existing schools that desperately need renovation (like Rainier Beach).
That fight - between a downtown high school and a renovation for RBHS - is sure to be a huge equity fight and I'll be fascinated to see the district's reasoning, given how very little capital funding they have invested in RBHS as compare to any other comprehensive high school.
-H