Seattle Schools and My Public Disclosure Requests - Part One

Update: one email exchange in this batch was between the SPS Internal Auditor, Andrew Medina and a senior internal auditor, Amanda O'Hara. Boy, he takes good notes; very helpful. He had a conversation with Director Hampson who wanted him to start aligning his work with SOFG. 

What I found interesting is her explanation of what needed to happen with Board work under SOFG, including the Board not "micro-managing." Pretty funny coming from a person who was micro-managing senior staff to the point where they accused her of HIB and it was found to be true. But I digress.

So the Board got rid of the Operations Committee, the Audit&Finance Committee, and the Student Services and Curriculum and Instruction because none of that (save the Audit) is Board work. What stands out is that she then says there should be an Audit Committee, a Policy Committee, and a Budget Committee. 

So if they got rid of some committees and now want to replace them that's not going to lessen the work load. I'm not sure I see the real need for a standing Policy Committee, Audit is legally required and the Board is legally required to vote on the Budget. But if they create a Budget Committee, I would expect a LOT of hard questions to be asked about the spending. Is that not micro-managing? Hmmm.

Separately, I will have to put up the SOFG beliefs about what the Auditor should be doing. I might even ask Mr. Medina (who has always been generous with his time with me) what he thinks. Because Medina IS the district's expert and I wonder about what he thinks about an outside entity telling him what his job should be.

End of update

 I do like the people who work in the Legal department, handling public disclosure requests. There does seem to be turnover there so if they are already operating with tons of requests, one person leaving makes it difficult.

One thing I don't know for sure (but I suspect) is that different departments at JSCEE respond to requests from that office at different rates. 

Council of Great City Schools Conference

One example is the case of the October 2022 Council of Great City Schools' conference in Orlando that 6 of the 7 directors attended (plus a Board staffer). (The announcement made it sound like everyone in the CGCS's Student Outcome Focused Governance model cohort was "required" to go. Director Leslie Harris didn't go. She does work full-time so that could be the answer but I wonder if this is a signal that she really doesn't buy into the SOFG model.)

To note - the cost to be part of the CGCS is about $50K a year while membership in the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) is about $50K as well. I believe the Board is also a member of the National School Boards Association but I have not discovered that cost yet.

What I had requested via public disclosure on this topic was:

- Names of all SPS staff and school board directors who attended
- Broken out cost list for all SPS staff and school board directors of cost to fly, hotel costs, food allowances, and conference costs per person.

I received the Board info in a relatively short amount of time, about six weeks. As you may recall, just for the Board members and their staffer, the costs were nearly $20,000.

And interestingly all the directors, save Director Liza Rankin and Hersey, had airfare costs of about $1200 per person. Maybe flights from Seattle to Orlando are really expensive but that seems high to me. But Rankin's was just $637.

I was also quite surprised to see that three directors - Director Michelle Sarju, Director Chandra Hampson and Rankin - went for 6 days. And Sarju works fulltime. 

Hampson's conference fee was comp'd but there was a fee of $425 each for both Rankin and Sarju. Unclear why just those two. Rankin also included "personal vacation" into her travel.

But what about the SPS staff? I just received one batch of info this week with a promise of more to come. How hard could it be for whoever was sent this request from the Public Disclosure Officer. I feel like there's foot-dragging here but why?

What does the latest batch of info show?

Dr. Ricardo Torres, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, attended. His cost was $2,675. His personal leave form showed that he also was taking "personal time" for this trip of three additional days.

Dr. Concie Pedroza, Associate Superintendent, also attended. And initially her airfare cost was $700 like Torres which is much lower than $1200 for some Board members. But something changed for Pedroza and her airfare went up to $957 (and that was in economy).

From the first batch of information I received, Board president Brandon Hersey's airfare alone was $2300 which signaled to me that he flew First or Business Class. The second batch reveals that he asked for that because of an injury (what it was was redacted). Apparently he even had a doctor's note.

But did he even have to go if he had an injury that bad if five others on the Board were going?

One odd item in this batch - an email from Ellie Wilson-Jones in the Board office to head of Legal Greg Narver. The subject line reads: Any Concerns with the Cancellation of Ops, A&F, and SSC&I (all former Board committees, now since dissolved) in October?

The entire email was redacted with "Attorney-Client Privilege." What could Narver have said that needed redaction? 

Speaking of committees, I want to note that the Board receives up to $4800 a year each for their work. It is based on attendance at Board meetings, committee meetings, Work Sessions, etc. Since the Board dissolved three committees, I wonder if their own pay goes down without them?

What I am puzzled about is that apparently I am to receive MORE information on who went to this conference and what it cost. It may be that the Superintendent also went and the request for that information had to go through his office. 

There was also another CGCS "mini- conference" in May 2022 in Monterey, California. It was described as "an advanced level deep dive into governance behaviors." Superintendent Brent Jones attended as did Hampson and Rankin.  I don't know the costs yet for this one.

Earlier in 2022, the CGCS' AJ Crabill (the "SOFG coach" for SPS) announced a number of new cohorts including Board Chair cohort, New Board Member cohort, Effective Board Member cohort and Governance Support cohort. This would be how you onboard newly elected Board members who knew nothing about SOFG. (Remember my question earlier in this post about how Board members would earn their $4800 annual? Make up more meetings to replace Board committee ones.)

However, the CGCS raised their prices. It was $1,000 in 2021  for these cohorts but the new cost would be $3500 (plus travel costs).  

In Feb. 2022 in Atlanta, there was the CGCS Chief Information Officer Annual Conference. Hampson and Sarju travelled went (with Hampson flying Business Class). So Hampson's ticket was nearly $800 while Sarju's was a more modest $400. Another $800 was for their hotel stay.

Maybe all this going to CGCS' conferences is why most of the Board members don't have community meetings. Who has the time?