Have Fun and Play Along!

 Update

Well, that didn't go well. I can't imagine a less sincere, less helpful and more dull presentation than the one Seattle Schools put on last night on Zoom about the looming budget deficit.  Led by head of Communications, Bev Redmond, it featured Superintendent Brent Jones, Concie Pedroza, Associate Superintendent, and Fred Podesta, Assistant Superintendent of Operations. Here's the video link at YouTube.

They looked crammed into one dark-looking area and rarely looked at each other but seemed to be reading a teleprompter. No one looked happy to be there.

It didn't start all that well as there were issue with seeing the ASL interpreter (and parents complained a couple of times during the presentation). We were told there would be no answers about specific schools or staffing. Jones said he was "making the case for the future" and wanted to "minimize disruptive shifts."

The phrase of the night - used by all - was "well-resourced" as in "well-resourced schools." One clever parent, who read the slide on this topic, asked how a school "might" have a library. Yes, the operative words here are "can" or "could" or "might."

It was stated that parents could go to the district's website to view FAQs and ask questions there. I did and there are a total of three questions and three answers. That's not an FAQ.

They had turned off the chat feature, saying parents could ask questions in the Q&A area. That did not allow for parent interaction (although I did it anyway). Initially we were told questions there would be answered. I saw two questions answered and there were at least 12. One was mine on why didn't the district charged the City rent for all those pre-K classrooms. The answer was that the City was paying for the programming. Which was not what I asked. 

So I ask you - why won't the district charge the City rent on those Pre-K classrooms? Maybe I should go back and look at the MOU but it seems if things are this dire, the City should pony up.

Podesta led most of the slides, one of which stated that "94% of SPS budget is for staffing and services for students." Okay but should that really be a surprise? The budget for General Fund is $1.14B and there is allegedly a $131M shortfall. It was stated that this was not a one-time problem but I don't think that's a surprise to anyone.

They said that could be covered by:

- $111M in school-based reductions

- $33M in Central Office reductions, a hiring freeze and moving some costs to capital funds. (I'll note here that in the slide previous to this one, Podesta said that capital funds couldn't be used in the General Fund. Sure.)

- $24M in increased revenue - intriguing except that they gave no examples. Hmmm

- $63M in district reserves

They took a 3-minute break 17 minutes into the meeting which seemed odd. They said the interpreters needed a break. 

Redmond then said the presentation was done. Jones said that the district should be "trusted" and that "we are doing pretty well but we do need grace." Given with a tight smile. I'll echo one comment I got via Twitter - by what metric are they doing well?

Then they said questions would be answered but were only answering questions from ones submitted previously to the website! What was the point of the Q&A on Zoom then?  

I'd give this endeavor a "D." 

end of update

Your Bingo card for tonight's budget meeting: