How is the Seattle School Board Changing? (Part One)

The short answer is - a lot.

What do I currently see and then predict given the focus of the Board?

- The Board will continue with an honored tradition at SPS which is "what we say is transparency is what transparency is." Or "what we say family engagement looks like, that's what it looks like." The family engagement will be a tightly controlled meeting, talking about only what the district/Board want to talk about.

One big change that is still going on with this current Board is the lack of community meetings with directors. Only Harris, Song Maritz and Rivera Smith have them. And only Harris does them in person (and sometimes with lasagna).  

I just listened into about two (exhausting) hours of the Executive Committee meeting. I'll get to the meat of the meeting in this post but man, they just want committees and more committees. Calendars and more calendars. Superintendent Jones said there needed to Rivera Smith made a wry observation about "bandwidth" with all these committees. This may be why directors don't want just a "community meeting." They have far too much work to do. 

- The Board is "trimming" Board meetings. The last Board meeting clocked in at just about two hours. I've never seen this before except for specially called ones about one subject. How they did they do it? 

One, move many Board Actions to the Consent agenda which is a one-vote for all items on the agenda. (Board members can, individually, remove items from the Consent Agenda.) I note that in today's Executive Committee meeting that Director Lisa Rivera Smith said that she is likely to pull items off of the Consent Agenda if she believes they need discussion. Hersey basically shrugged and said, okay, so we all know you'll be doing that. 

Two, have Board members speak less. At the last Board meeting, when asked about committee meetings, nearly all the chairs of the committees just said they had a meeting and another one is coming up. Board comments? At that last Board meeting, only Harris and a tearful Rivera Smith had any Board comments (Rivera Smith speaking on the Texas school shooting). Sarju barely speaks during Board meetings. 

And one other interesting item from Board meetings. After the public testimony, President Hersey stated that silence on the part of Board members after listening to the public doesn't mean anything one way or another. Except that, in the past, Board members would sometimes ask staff for clarifications on an issue raised or thank members of the public for making them aware of an issue. But now I guess mum's the word.

So if Board members have no community meetings, have no public comments, then how are they interacting with the public/school communities? The Board and the district are putting a choke chain on public engagement - the when, where, how long - they will deign to interact AND on what topic. 

In short, if you have an issue you want to raise with the Board, really, your only time is 2 minutes at Board meeting with no follow-up. Because they all have said they get so many emails, they have no time to read most of them. 

- Concrete, day-to-day issues do not interest the Board or rather, more and more they are ceding all power to the Superintendent. The Board has said very little about any COVID issues in months, either at Board or committee meetings. They don't have the transportation issues ironed out and, at today's Executive Committee meeting, weren't even sure when the plan was due or if anything new would be in it. 

The HC plan for next year? It's going to be an Intro/Action at the next Board meeting with the claim coming that there is not much change there. Just to note, Intro/Action under this Board is very commonplace whereas in the past it was ONLY for emergency items. 

But they spend endless time on SOFG - remember this? Student Outcome Focused Governance. This via the Council of Great City Schools of which the Board is a member. The Board somehow has a CGCS guy, AJ Crabill, on retainer to guide them in this work. How much that is costing is not clear. But boy, is it sucking up a lot of their time.

On today's Executive Committee meeting (so you know what's important):

- On SOFG, Hersey said they will need an ad-hoc committee to track internal processes.  Crabill said they need a mix of "sessions" with "goals and guardrails" because "we don't want to be surprised by any student outcome." That latter part is valid except when you are in public education, NO student outcome is a guarantee. 

In all this talk about SOFG, you never hear about the outcomes being about accountability. Weird. They did say they wanted to "go to stakeholders (not defined)" and have "authentic engagement."

Director Liza Rankin said that the Board has "demonstrated willingness to make shifts" and would be "meeting up Board members for success and will make being on the Board more accessible." Well sure, if you shift 90% of the decision-making to the Superintendent and navel-gaze at SOFG goals and guardrails, then sure more people can run for the Board. 

I'll just put this out there right now - when the majority of the Board is up next election, DEMAND from any candidate a full and complete answer to "how will you engage with constituents and taxpayers?"

What is a bit hilarious about Rankin's comment is that she said many people can't come to these committee meetings if they have a full-time job. That's right and yet she's not calling Director Hampson out for her eleven am weekday "community meetings" on SOFG. 

- Once again, the Board seems obsessed with having student members. Their Board retreat agenda had reflected the entire retreat was about how to talk to and work with students. 

For people who want less work, they sure know how to set up more work for themselves and others.

However, mysteriously, the retreat now does not appear on the Board calendar.  Hmmm.

Some of what the Board has determined about student board members:

School Board Student Members will be compensated as hourly employees of Seattle Public Schools.

Student voice drives decisions and policy

Decision-making processes center students and incorporate student leaders

Except when it comes to principals, I guess. 

Part Two of this post will go more deeply into how the Board will be restricting/controlling public input.