The Principal Turnover Saga at Seattle Schools Continues

 The South Seattle Emerald has a good story on the SPS game that is musical chairs principals.  They go in-depth about the changes at Cleveland STEM (Catherine Brown) and Franklin High (Drew O'Connell). 

The end of this school year is bringing continued uncertainty for two South End schools. Franklin High School will begin next school year without the principal and vice principals who guided them through this tumultuous year. And there will be no members left of Cleveland STEM High School’s administrative “dream team” in charge when the pandemic began.

Cleveland: 

At the end of last school year, Cleveland Assistant Principal Ray Garcia-Morales accepted a position to lead Chief Sealth International High School in the neighborhood he grew up in, and longtime Principal George Breland reportedly accepted a role with the district. Joined by assistants Trent Pollard and Megan Claus, this left the newly promoted Brown to continue the legacy of an admin team that had been together since 2015 and was referred to by some in the community and beyond as “the dream team.” 

Morales, Breland, and Brown claimed the district’s highest graduation rate in 2017 and the highest FAFSA completion rate in the state in 2018. This admin team’s intentional hiring practices also led to them joining Rainier Beach High School as the only other comprehensive high school with at least 30% teachers of color.

Franklin:

When Franklin Vice Principal Ericka Pollard and Principal Drew O’Connell both decided to leave for other positions, there was hope among Franklin staff and students that Assistant Principal Jeffrey Lam might stay on as principal. As Franklin Associated Student Body (ASB) Vice President Delano Cordova says, “A complete turnover is just scary, you know? There’s a lot of uncertainties.”

When Franklin educators did receive an email from SPS Chief Human Resources Officer Noel Treat, it was a form letter saying they were using, “a multi-stage selective hiring and placement process to match principal candidates’ competencies and attributes with our school needs.” Yet educators, parents, and students would not be consulted as to what those needs might be. As if to underscore this disconnect, the second half of the email mistakenly addressed educators from Daniel Bagley Elementary School, not Franklin educators.

Franklin's new principal will be the former interim principal at Ballard, Dr. Joseph Williams.

A common thread?

“It feels like Franklin’s staff was standing up for themselves in ways that the district didn’t like this year, and so now they’re going to bring in a new team that’s going to be able to handle us better … and it’s not a coincidence that similar things happened at Cleveland, and they’re going through the same thing.”

Another notable fact: 

Of the four high schools changing principals, Jones chose to appoint the principals at Franklin, Cleveland, and Roosevelt, and a hiring team has been put together at Ballard — presumably because of the conflict surrounding their former principal’s removal.

Gotta give SPS administration admiration for their chutzpah. I mean when you deal with high schools, you are talking thousands of parents, students, teachers and staff. That SPS administration is so willing to alienate that many people - plus the Board has stated they will be overhauling PTA and other outside funding  so you can include alumni in those numbers - well, that takes a lot of assurance.  Hmmm.