This and That
SEA tweet this morning:
Working for free today? We all have too much work to take today off, but the district won't acknowledge that by paying us and instead are proposing to take more of our paid prep time away. Why are you voting YES to strike?
Sounds like they want to strike.
Over at the Seattle Public Schools Twitter feed, their tweet is about getting messages from SPS and updating parent contact info. Also from yesterday,
Look who's on a Wheaties box!! Congrats to our Director of Culinary Services, Aaron Smith. He was recognized by General Mills for his innovative approach to making sure our students are fed food that is culturally responsive, nutritious and fun. #TrayBlazer (sic) # SPSFresh
Also via Twitter:
If you are a K-12 public school teacher or school psychologist who would be willing to answer a few questions for a piece in The Atlantic, I would love to chat with you. Send me and email: stephaniehelenemurray@gmail.com.
Some of you may have seen that the results have come in from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams for 9-year olds. They are very bad scores BUT there are some who are NOT taking into account all the issues involved.
From Leonie Haimson's blog out of NYC:
Results of the long-term NAEP exams for 9 year old students, showing a sharp decline in test scores between 2020 and 2022, has re-fueled the already incendiary debate about whether closing schools even temporarily during the height of the pandemic was the right decision, or whether as Nate Silver argued, “it produced once of the biggest policy disasters in a generation.”
However:
After years of steady progress, NAEP scores had already begun to flatten, with stagnant or declining test scores in reading and math in nearly all states in the decade since 2009. These results, as I argued here, were most likely a consequence of the lingering impact of the great recession, which led to class size increases and thousands of teacher jobs lost, and the imposition of the Common Core standards. As might be expected, the negative impact was felt most sharply on the highest-need students. The gap between high-performing and struggling students significantly widened, and the pandemic has made the gap wider still.
There are these considerations:
- At the time, in March of 2020, with our hospitals full and Covid victims dropping like flies left and right and virologists and epidemiologists begging the Mayor to close our schools, it certainly seemed like the right decision.
- Even now, as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Dr. Peggy Carr pointed out today at a NAEP online briefing, the pandemic had many effects that transcended school closures that could have had negative impacts on learning and test scores, including death of family members, their loss of jobs, and widespread illness and absentees, including of students themselves.
- Moreover, the results from the long-term NAEP itself are so far unclear that remote instruction was the primary factor. For example, there was no drop in average reading scores in cities – where there were more frequent school closures, though the declines were significant in suburbs and towns.
- Fewer kids learned remotely in Midwest compared to Northeast, according to surveys undertaken in conjunction with the NAEPs. Yet the average declines in math and reading in those parts of the country were about the same.
- (From NAEP) Of the 70 percent of 9-year-olds who learned remotely during the 2020–21 school year, higher performers (those at or above the 75th percentile) had greater access to a desktop computer, laptop, or tablet all the time; a quiet place to work available some of the time; and a teacher available to help them with mathematics or reading schoolwork every day or almost every day compared to lower performers (those below the 25th percentile).
The College Board is jumping into the fray over how to teach the history of race in the United States with a new Advanced Placement course and exam on African American studies that will be tried out in about 60 high schools this fall.The course is multidisciplinary, addressing not just history but civil rights, politics, literature, the arts, even geography.The College Board, which also administers the SAT, said in a statement that the course had been in the works for a decade.The College Board declined to release a sample syllabus or other content for the course, or to name the 60 schools or say what states they were located in.If all goes well, the full A.P. course will be available to all high schools that want it in the 2024-25 school year.
Comments
Thanks for the info. Can you explain why SEA is pursuing their own agenda wrt changing SpEd, they have asked for LOWER ratios (while SPS wants higher)? I don’t understand how the district could possibly fund this given the budget shortfall and the other monetary items that SEA proposes. Is lower ratios really worth closing schools over?
Why
What it looks like in practice:
Ratios- Contract ratios do not generate automatic staffing. In order to receive contracted ratio staff in many cases must submit a grievance and proceed through grievance process. Grievance process is multi-step and time consuming with set times periods for district response. District typically uses full length of response period. From start to finish process for securing contract ratios can take up to three months. In the meantime staff are relying on temporary subs (shortages) to provide highly specialized services which require significant training.
Emergency staffing application process: That budget is low and is typically used up or no longer available by Spring of the school year. Students with SPED services are often highly mobile between districts.
For example: Student A's parent is experiencing homelessness and relocates to SPS in March. Student is nonverbal and has history of trauma. Student has life-threatening medical needs AND exhibits aggressive behavior toward staff and peers. Process for receiving adequate staffing to stabilize student and classroom environment will (best case scenario) take 3 months but could drag on for up to a year and a half. All the while impacting staff, SPED students in same program and adjacent programs (as building leadership is directed by district to "get creative" with staffing).
Impact: More compliant students IEP minutes are not met as trained staff focus on more "unexpected" behaving students. Subs are intrinsically disruptive to the learning environment leading to increases in aggression and disruption to setting. Other results include injuries to students and staff.
Why increases?
Pandemic stresses have led to unprecedented increases in extreme SEL outcomes for students with special needs. Yes, this includes physical violence against other students and staff members. Which has always existed but has increased in frequency and intensity district-wide in the last few years.
As should be obvious from all available data, Student A in previous example is more likely to be from a historically marginalized group.
At what point will our society realize that safety-net service professions do not have the capacity to solve all problems generated by generations of historic racism and neglect via "working hard" and "increased district oversight, control, and direction"?
Tactics
re:Budget. There is no shortfall. The district has added 70 million to their slush fund just this last year. That means that last year alone they DID NOT spend all the funds allocated. We could adopt full curriculae for every discipline in the district with the funds they have pocketed. This comes from their own budget documents.
Also look at the massive numbers of central administrative (not central office) staffing. We have more than double the percentage of administrative overhead than other districts. Trim those numbers severely and we have many more millions (no exaggeration) to put towards students or return to taxpayers.
re: Caseloads. The lower those can go the better student outcomes are. There are some national best practice numbers and getting to that level is the most basic start. Getting below those means better outcomes for the lives entrusted to us. They've got the money so let's put it in the classrooms.
I hope this helps.
Theo M.
District is moving away from separating and warehousing students in self-contained programs. The impacts of this are already being felt by general education students and staff.
What happened when states closed inpatient mental health facilities? The impact was felt by the general population as it continues to be. What is the alternative? What is Plan B? How is the situation improved?
Why
It seems to me that teachers will be given the unobtainable task of differentiating learning across many many levels which won't happen. I fully expect lawsuits to follow.
Speddie
But I think the teachers asking for a raise is the wrong call right now. Fight for Sped students and paraprofessionals and cultural competency supports. You'll have parents AND the public behind you.
Does anyone understand why SPS is not allowing schools to release class schedules?
Our high school always posted them 7-10 days before the start of school. They also allowed you to fill in form and/or meet with counselors for any schedule changes before the start of school. That was very helpful. Definitely less stress and better way to start the school year for students.
Schedules_Please