Brent Jones voted the Permanent Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools

 At a nine meeting meeting on Friday, the Seattle School Board voted 6-1 to approve the contract for the hiring of Dr. Brent C. Jones as permanent superintendent. Director Leslie Harris was the lone no vote. 

President Brandon Hersey said there would be "no public comment opportunity." He said that this had been discussed "at length" and it was a "fair agreement" and he looked forward to working more with Jones on "student-focused governance." 

The motion was made and seconded. Hersey then asked for Board member comments. Not a single person said anything, almost if by design. Director Liza Rankin offer to the public that "if you want to hear more about our thoughts around this contract, where we discussed this step, go listen to that meeting." She did not specific any date so it's not clear what meeting she meant. But that's Director Rankin.

After the vote, Hersey was ready to adjourn and Director Michelle Sarju chimed in saying she wished all Board meetings were this short and that she would get to go to her daughter's basketball game. 

Head of Legal Greg Narver did ask to speak. He said the Board office had some calls (including me) over the base salary stated in the BAR versus the contract. He explained that the one in the BAR included the benefits including contributions to an annuity and for life insurance.

I am no lawyer but I'll show you what it says in each place and you tell me if there might be a legal problem there.  The BAR does not use the term "base salary." I'll highlight the key words.

BAR

Fiscal impact to this action will be $366,150, plus District provided car allowance, and health, vacation/sick leave, and retirement benefits.

Contract

Commencing on the effective date of this Agreement, through June 30, 2023, the Superintendent shall receive an annual base salary of $335,000.

When does "plus" mean including? My read of the BAR is that his salary starts at $366,150 and the benefits come after that number ("plus"). I feel surprised that word wasn't correct. 

I'm sure the contract does supersede the BAR but the BAR is a legal document as well.

Comments

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