Fast and Furious

The action at the Seattle Public Schools on the budget has picked up. 

They had a Work Session yesterday about it; I have not yet watched it. Here's are some key items via parent Beth Day via Twitter (and BIG thanks to Beth and all bold mine):

Hersey

Hersey says habits and patterns are hard to break. Everyone bashes SPS because they take up the most resources. 

Hersey is also PISSED AT THE Seattle Times Editorial Board. No one asks the board for information before running stuff.

Hersey is more concerned with how conditions were created by the board that allows articles like this to exist. Need to get ahead of it and get the information about what’s going on out, whether the papers take it up or not.

Hersey seems to be bringing us back to how we communicate to the community the budget situation. Use clear plain language that is easily shareable.

Really? The link to the new budget initiative - Funding Our Future - is in a plain green box on the homepage and says, "Budget development and balancing process for ensuring student outcomes." How visible is that? Please the new initiative, "We are SPS" is at the top of the home page and I'd venture the budget will have more affect on students and families than a new feel-good initiative.

Hersey: saying opportunity to do a deep dive into what’s working and figuring out what the basic needs are.

Podesta says we don’t have time in current budget period to do that level of evaluation, talks up multi-year budgeting.

Seriously!?!? So slash and burn for next school year?

Hersey says can’t say for sure we’re optimizing outcomes with various programs right now.

So that would mean you DON'T cut them if you don't have the data. 

Hersey says we need to have conversations within communities with enrollment losses to figure out why those are happening.

That's SPS and the Board - a day late and a dollar short. 

Harris

Suggestion 1, how soon can they talk to the Seattle Times editorial board. She’s tired of the legislature acting like we’re knuckleheads. Suggestion 2, sue the state for underfunding.  

Harris says across the board 15% cuts implies everything is weighted the same. Jones says yeah, harder in things like academics. 

We still have schools with significant underspends. Wants to know why that wasn’t addressed long ago, so we’ve been carrying that over for multiple years.

Rankin

Rankin says pretty much every district is experiencing budget crunches. No one is coming to save us. We need to make cuts with compassion for families, but be ruthless.

75% of families send their kids to SPS, Rankin says. Recruitment isn’t going to fill those buildings alone. Need to make the hard decisions now.

So don't even try? Wow

Her directive is to be sympathetically ruthless. Done things the ways we’ve done things before, not interrogated any of that. Need to be direct and ruthless. Honest about what does and does not work and act on it.

"Sympathetically ruthless?" There's an oxymoron. And what works are Option Schools and yet she wants to get rid of them.

Song Maritz

Song Maritz excited about taking a. Deep dive into special education and ELL to figure out why we’re overspending compared to state funding. Wants to know where the costs are around special education since that’s such a huge gap.

A little late for that, no?

Vivian Song Maritz is FROWN. I’m with her.

Song Maritz wants more input from principals on these cuts. Asking about operations cuts, specifically transportation. When will we communicate changes to transportation.

Jones

Jones wants a clear directive from board about how they want to move forward.

Need more root cause analysis, like enrollment in West Seattle. But we’re in a hurry for next year. Have more time for 2024-25.

Jones says we don’t know what the deviance from normal is because we haven’t defined normal.

Like need to interrogate WHY schools underspending. 

Student-centered versus adult-centered decisions when it comes to allocating resources.

Discovered we have not been actively managing budgets as well as we could. They have learned from it and looking at opportunities. Says buck stops with me, pushing for more active management.

Discovered?

Pedroza

Pedroza says doing same at central office. Sebring says being more proactive and more nimble. Says it’s “exciting.”

No one is going to be happy with this process.

Talking about back and forth with principals. Pedroza said they’ve met. Biggest impact at elementary. That’s where we’re losing enrollment. Bellevue is closing schools under 300. We have 20 of those schools.

What a mess, just shameful.