Seattle School Board Meeting, July 6, 2023
From the upcoming Board meeting on Thursday, July 6th (moved from Wednesday because of the 4th of July holiday).
Two items of major interest
One is the 2023-2024 Student Rights and Responsibilities policy. This BAR does not say "intro and action" but that's exactly what they are doing. Even Director Hampson asks why the rush in the Director Questions. And there's a blah, blah answer about needing it for principal summer work. Okay but wasn't that - checks who is accountable for this - Superintendent Jones, Pat Sanders and Dr. Rocky Torres responsibility to get this done sooner? THAT would be good question to ask for the Board to ask (but they won't).
This is an interesting BAR because the district worked with many groups, both inside and outside of the district:
Connections with community included:
• Students and staff of SPS schools – Ballard, Garfield, Ingraham, Interagency, Rainier Beach,
West Seattle High School
• Departments within central office - Coordinated School Health (including staff from Mental Health, Restorative Practices, School Social Workers and Tier 2 Care Coordination), Enrollment, Stakeholder Engagement, Community and Family Engagement, African American Male Achievement, Department of Racial Equity Advancement, Prevention and Intervention, Health Education, Office of Student Civil Rights, Special Education, Legal, Safety and Security, and Attendance.
Key stakeholders to these efforts included: students, parents, educators, school leaders, Team Child, the Washington State Governor’s Office of the Education Ombuds, the City of Seattle Race &
Social Justice Community Roundtable’s Committee on Racial Disproportionality and
Discipline, participants at the Seattle Alliance for Black School Educators, “My Brother’s
Keeper- A White House Initiative event,” members of the Seattle Minority Engagement and
Discipline Reduction Research Collaborative (MENDR) with the University of Washington,
and the Superintendent’s Equity and Race Advisory Committee (ERAC).
Do you see who is missing? The three student members of the School Board - Jenna Yuan, Nassira Hassan, and Luna Crone-Barón. I will be reaching out to these members to ask if they gave input to this effort but I suspect if they did, they would then be included in the BAR and in the policy book. They aren't.
What is the point of going to the trouble of seeking out students, interviewing them and putting them on the Board if they are not your first go-to for student input?
Second is the first closure for Seattle Schools. Wait, what are they calling it?
Approval of the relocation of one instructional program site for Interagency Academy School.
Interagency Academy is an option school with continuous enrollment under the Student
Assignment Transition Plan, meaning the school offers unique services, opportunities, and
learning environments to meet individual student needs. Interagency Academy is comprised
of a network of small, alternative high school sites (also called campuses) spread out across
Seattle designed to support students who need different supports than comprehensive
schools offer.
Currently, Interagency Academy operates in 11 sites across the city. Overall enrollment for Interagency has decreased by more than 175 students between 2019 and 2022, a decline of 46%.
So they want to close just one of the 11 sites, citing declining enrollment, costs and safety. These are all valid reasons but kids, just come out and call what you are doing by its rightful name - an instructional site closure. The BAR cites two Board policies staff HAS to follow in order to do this:
- Under School Board Policy H01.00, instructional site closures require Board approval.
- School Board Policy No. 2200, Equitable Access to Programs and Services, requires the following factors to be considered and the basis for each change to be documented in writing:
1. support of district-wide academic goals;
2. equity across the district;
3. where students reside;
4. aligned to the student assignment plan
5. engagement and considering of feedback when feasible
6. effective use of physical spaces
7. fiscal impacts and resources
8. data analysis
They go on to say:
As a result of this recommendation, there are no program closures occurring, only a site change.
Moreover, because we would be better able to maximize current programming this will provide
enhanced opportunities for students enrolled in Interagency Academy, particularly with regard to
diploma-tracked pathways.
"Enhanced opportunities" = "well-resourced schools." I sure hope someone at Interagency Academy, in a year, can come to the Board and tell them how much better their program is because of this closure. The Board should ask for that as well but won't.
FYI, at the end of the BAR, are the two relevant Board policies. This is what will guide the work and discussion next school year of closing school.
Director Questions of Interest
- I see that Director Vivian Song Maritz asks about principal
vacancies. The answer is:
Hay Elementary, McGilvra Elementary, Decatur Elementary, Washington Middle School, Hamilton Middle School and Franklin High School.
- From March 2022 SPS Spring Enrollment Projection: (which says it was updated in January 2023 but it doesn't seem like it.)
- Rivera Smith submitted a transportation question about Special Education students but it is stated it came too late to answer. Song Maritz also asked a specific question about B.F. Day Elementary and transportation.
- Song Maritz also asked about summer school enrollment by racial group from last year and this year. Across all groups, the numbers are down. For Black students, it's down by more than half of last year's enrollment.
- Song Maritz also asks about this Tier Two math intervention called SuccessMaker Math. It is, of course, a computer software for students to use. Anybody's child ever use this?
- Song Maritz also asks about MAP results from the 13 "priority Schools" to see the impact of this initiative. I found the answer somewhat shocking - it sounds to me like "we know more than you do and we'll tell you when we're good and ready." But this is what you get when you cede some of your elected power to unelected people.
As we shared in January, we are developing methods to make accurate statistical comparisons of student outcomes between the 13 Priority Schools and other, similarly situated schools in the district. Those analyses are still a work in progress.
So it's now six months later and they know nothing? And how did they design this program without figuring out how to measure results?
It is important to allow sufficient time for full implementation of initiative efforts - which were severely disrupted by the pandemic - before we attempt to measure impact. In conducting a program valuation, the impact analysis is typically conducted only after multiple years of implementation, and after sufficient longitudinal data has been collected for measuring impact. Additionally, because of the significant differences between the 13 schools and other schools in the district, it is important that we not display simple descriptive comparison of student outcomes for these schools and other schools. Without proper statistical techniques that take into account underlying socioeconomic factors and other distinguishing features for the 13 schools, we consider it inadvisable to report outcomes separately for these schools to avoid making improper and incorrect inferences from the data.
While it's important to acknowledge these challenges, we believe we will have sufficient longitudinal data by the end of 2023-2024 school year to begin estimating impact of our targeted early literacy initiative in the 13 Priority Schools.
To state the obvious - the district CHOSE to have 13 Priority Schools so clearly the results from those schools should be available. Song Maritz specifically says that she just wants to know those results. They talk about "comparisons" when no one is asking for that. Hmm
Lastly, there's a BAR for Transportation for next year. It's for "alternative transportation" which is transportation outside of yellow buses and it includes for athletics. This would be primarily for foster and homeless students as well as students with IEPs. It's over $10M annually. What's a bit odd is there's not even ballpark number for how many students are served.
Comments
Successmaker Troubleshooter Parent