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.)
Comments
It’s already broken. What’s the word for breaking something, that is already broken, even worse? Pulverizing?
Kellie, Eric B, you’ve been around the SPS a block a time or two. Care to weigh in on the unintended consequences of pushing apart the bean counters of space and the bean counters of bodies?
Silorific!
At the moment there is just so many layers between the Superintendent and the schools. Principals report to Exec Directors, who report to the Chief of Schools, who reports to Michael Tolley, who reports to the Super. That is just too much. When the Exec Director positions were created, they reported directly to the Super, and it was an attempt to ensure the Super was connected to the day to day life of schools.
There is not enough information to know if this change is an improvement or just more of the same.
This looks like a demotion for Tolley to me.
I don't know if this is exactly the right move for Enrollment Planning, but I don't know that it really belonged with facilities, transportation, capital projects, etc.
-GLP
It looks like Flip's department is dissolving into other departments. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like we have one or two fewer $150K+ salaries.
There's going to be an awfully large spotlight on the Chief Academic Officer. C&I plus Enrollment means that there's going to be a lot of people calling for that person's head. I would call it nominally a promotion for Tolley (assuming he's CAO), but maybe not one he wants. If anyone is getting a demotion, I'd say it was Steve Nielsen. The Deputy Superintendent role is relatively small for the size of the title, overseeing only the operations, finance, and IT. That might be something he wants, or he may be moving elsewhere in the organization.
Having Enrollment under academics can't be worse than having it under budget. The CAO is going to have a lot of power in this org chart and that may actually benefit enrollment's status depending on how the CAO approaches it.
Richard
unclear
-GLP
unclear
https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/sps_org_chart.pdf
-GLP
Reader
I'd say CAO should take on Student Support, but that makes the department so big it may be just as bad as it is now because the person at the top would be spread so thin.
Another reader