If You Were Wondering Who is Who at Seattle Public Schools

A 2021-2022 org chart

So who knew that there was actually a senior spot open (Assistant Superintendent for Programs? Not sure of the actual name but it's on the left and covers Athletics, Coordinated Health, Highly Capable and Special Education. That seems like a weird grouping.)

And weird that Dr. Mike Starosky doesn't have the Executive Directors listed under him? He's got a Director of School Operations, Sara Mirabueno, under him plus eight Executive Directors. And if it's "operations" wouldn't Ms. Mirabueno go under...Operations head, Fred Podesta?

Also, as a heads up, Legal lost one of their Public Disclosure officers so if you are filing something, prepare for a long wait.

Dr. Keisha Scarlett has seven (7!) areas of responsibility, JoLynn Berge in Business and Finance has six and Fred Podesta, head of Operations, has six.

I don't know if I mentioned it at the time the hire was announced but Noel Treat, who heads HR and was formerly in the Legal department, is yet another person to head that office when HR is not his area of expertise. It wasn't Brent Jones' when he was there, nor Clover Codd's when she headed it. Maybe if SPS hired an actual HR expert, they wouldn't get sued so much over personnel issues. (To note, I know and respect Treat, Jones and Codd but I still have a point.)

Plus there are two departments that have a single mission. One is Assistant Superintendent of African American Male Achievement headed by Dr. Mia Williams and the other is the Department of Strategy/Deployment and Response headed by not one but two deputy superintendents, Carri Campbell and Dr. Sarah Pritchett. The latter department had a big ballyhoo when it opened but I haven't seen much since then.

Things that make you go, hmmm.








Comments

suep. said…
Hi Melissa. The first thing that strikes me about this org chart is the internal auditor is positioned under and connected to the superintendent. That is wrong. The internal auditor is supposed to report to the board (and via the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, which is a board director)--not the supt. Very intentionally the auditor is supposed to be independent of the superintendent and management.
Is this a mistake -- or a new arrangement?
If the latter, that's a big deal. That represents yet another example of more power being relinquished by this board to the supt. The board should not stand for or enable this. Lack of oversight is what gets the district into so much trouble and causes so much harm to students.
I really hope this is not what is going on.

Sue Peters
5/10/22, 2:00 PM
Anonymous said…
What is interesting is how many kicked back Admins from varying schools they failed to manage or had some incident or another tied to their tenure are in supervisory positions. My personal favorite is Pedroza as when I knew her at the World School she was running the place into the ground.

Ah the more things change the more they stay the same. Glad I am gone

- Former Resident
5/11/22, 8:45 AM
Webster said…
Since Districts have a federal mandate to serve students that qualify for SPED ( with money attached), it bothers me that the position to oversee that is still un filled.
5/11/22, 9:31 AM
Omicron/ BA 5/5 said…
It is absolutely astonishing that there isn't an assistant superintendent to oversee coordinated health during a pandemic. To make matters worse...special education and high cap are grouped into the same category. Yet, there is a single person overseeing a particular area.
5/11/22, 2:15 PM
Anonymous said…
Omicron, I think actually worse than that is that the person who does the job you are talking about (health and covid response) is Sarah Pritchett. Would prefer the position be vacant.

Blue Dog
5/11/22, 2:31 PM
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