Seattle Public Schools - Superintendent Searches + Levy News

Let's start with The Seattle Times' story about how Seattle Schools somehow has a late start in looking for a new superintendent, finding them far behind other local districts seeking new leadership. 

Four large school districts in the region are in search of a new superintendent, and while some are close to announcing final candidates, others — notably, Seattle — are just now seeking community input.

Along with Seattle, the Highline and Issaquah school districts are expected to hire superintendents before the new school year begins this fall. Bellevue also needs a new superintendent, but the school board has extended Interim Superintendent Art Jarvis’ contract for another school year, buying more time.

 Seattle Schools and Highline both contracted with an Illinois-based firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, to do superintendent searches.

What about community input?

The Seattle School Board says they are committed to input but seeing the odd survey they put out AND the fact that they seem to be tailoring "community input" to only a few groups doesn't bode well. It's fine if the district wants to make a big effort to include more voices but every parent and taxpayer should get the opportunity to do so as well.

Although the board says it will include the public in the search process, Erin Okuno, an activist who has been involved and followed various Seattle superintendent searches said it hasn’t felt like that.

“I feel they (board members) have not done that thus far,” Okuno said. “The timeline that I’ve seen so far does not really allow for it.”

Okuno, who is also the executive director of Southeast Seattle Education Coalition, and a dozen other area leaders sent the board a letter urging them to expedite the community engagement process. The letter, sent in October, also offered to assist the board in reaching out to the public.

I'm with Okuno; I'd bet most parents in the district know nothing about the search and time is quickly passing by.

I believe I do know who the Board will be asking for input in focus groups and it's not an especially wide net. I'll have a separate post on this issue.

What's fascinating is that the district's homepage has no info on the superintendent search. I put that phrase into the search block and guess what? There are community meetings this week for the superintendent search. They had multiple tweets last week about the levies but just one about the superintendent search.

I will put the info on these meetings in its own blog post but I note that the district says you MUST preregister but you can only do that the day before each meeting. They claim that is the same procedure as Board meetings except for Board meetings you get three days.

I'm not sure how the senior leadership of both the district and the Board can be taken seriously. They throw up roadblocks all along the way for almost any initiative, trying to shape the outcome to what they want it to be. I call bullshit.

More news - two top senior staff have applied for the open superintendent position in Highline School District. Those would be Dr. Concie Pedroza, Associate Superintendent of Student Supports and Dr. Keisha Scarlett, CAO. (There is also a third candidate.) 

This comes as little surprise to me. Dr. Pedroza has previously applied elsewhere to be a superintendent. As well, Dr. Scarlett has not had an easy time of it what with Director Chandra Hampson using her position to harass Scarlett. Given the silence from current superintendent Brent Jones on that investigation, I'm not surprised Scarlett wants to leave.

Other News - The district's levies last week passed quite handily, with about a 76% approval for each. Other regional levies appear to be passing as well. What comes next? Well, the City said that the BTA V levy, with money for revamping Memorial Statisum, had to pass for the City to work with the district on that renovation.

Look for an MOU (memorandum of understanding) between the district and the City over the Memorial Stadium redo which likely will give some land and/or control to the City while creating space for a new downtown school. Is opening a downtown school high on the district's list of to-do items? You wouldn't think so (and, in fact, can they fill it?)

But recent public disclosure items show that the district is also very concerned about fees for stormwater runoff from King County. Seriously. This is what some on the Board are working on. A full report to come.

I just shake my head.