Seattle Schools' Senior Leadership Coming (and Going)

Update:

Looks like Art Jarvis will be taking over the vacancy left by Dr. Concie Pedroza. He'll be the Associate Superintendent of Academics, Student Services and Continuous Improvement.

Dr. Rocky Torres who is the Assistant Superintendent for Student Services withdrew from a job as superintendent of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania earlier this year. Maybe he'll get the nod to take over Dr. Pedroza's role. But he, like Dr. Keisha Scarlett and Dr. Pedroza, seems to want to leave. 

End of update

Just like Keisha Scarlett before her, Dr. Concie Pedroza finally got a superintendent job. She's going to be the (interim) superintendent in the Tukwila School District. (Scarlett is moving to be superintendent in St. Louis Public Schools.)

I'm also hearing that Bellevue School District interim Superintendent Art Jarvis is coming back to SPS. Jarvis just led Bellevue SD to the decision to close three elementary schools. From the Seattle Times:

It was a year ago, Jarvis announced to the Enumclaw School Board he would be leaving the position with the understanding that he would stay through June 2007. At the board's regular meeting Dec. 18, Jarvis announced he has been tabbed for the Chief Financial Officer position with Seattle Public Schools and tendered his resignation. 

I should remember Jarvis but I don't. It seems that, over the last decade, he has bounced around as an interim superintendent. I would guess he's going to be some kind of Deputy Superintendent.

This article from February 2023 about Bellevue's situation has some interesting items. From KING-5:

Jarvis added that over the past three years the Bellevue School District has declined by more than 1,500 students and said that trend is expected to continue for years to come. The district is pointing to the COVID-19 pandemic, high rent in Bellevue and a declining birthrate.

So just as some of us believe there are other factors in why districts are losing students, Bellevue SD, like SPS, says it's just a declining birthrate and housing costs plus the pandemic. Bellevue is generally thought to have good schools so could those factors really account for all of their drop in enrollment?

Across the U.S. the pandemic brought the largest single-year drop in school enrollment since World War II. Seattle Public Schools is anticipating a decline by as much as 1,000 students a year until 2026.

Jarvis started as Bellevue's interim superintendent in July 2021. He was to be there just one year but took another one-year contract when their Board needed more time to find a superintendent

He recently received an award from the Washington State Public Relations Association this year. From their Twitter feed:

Congratulations to Dr. Art Jarvis of @TheBSD405, recipient of our Crystal Apple Award. This award recognizes an individual who does not serve in a formal school PR role. Dr. Jarvis was nominated by his colleagues for his commitment to and support of effective communications.

Dr. Kelly Aramaki is the Bellevue School District (BSD) Superintendent—he was formerly in Seattle Schools as both a principal and an executive director. I always thought he was a smart guy that Seattle let get away. 

Comments

Disappointing said…
Washington state lost 40,000 students during the pandemic. No one is trying to figure out where these students landed.
7/2/23, 12:57 PM
Anonymous said…
More interesting to me is the shake-up in the supervision of schools. Mike Starosky seems to be out as Chief of Schools (supervising the directors), replaced by Rocky Torres, along with a big fancy title (and probably salary to match). Two more long-time SPS leaders are out as directors, Jon Halfaker and Tim Moynihan, and now directors have been assigned by region, just as they were 10 years ago. The regional directors were announced to be Davis Brown (NW), Mercer (Central), Hunt (SW), McCarthy (NE), and Carter (SW). A lot of effort seems to have gone into keeping this whole restructuring strangely secretive. I wonder if the Superintendent will talk about it at Thursday’s Board meeting.

Emile
7/3/23, 9:04 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Emile, good points. It does seem to be on the downlow how schools will be overseen.

Don’t count on Jones to even mention it; he rarely says anything of importance at the Board meetings.
7/3/23, 9:07 PM
Anonymous said…
This is terrible news for NE schools! Mike McCarthy is a bully who has caused a lot of problems in the schools he oversees. Rumor has it that he showed photos of himself holding AK-47s in his presentation to be reappointed as a director this spring. I can't figure out how the District thought that McCarthy was worth keeping.

- Concerned
7/3/23, 10:01 PM
Anonymous said…
I also heard the military-weapons (while holding hands with Iraqi children) story about his interview powerpoint. He has been incredibly difficult and unhelpful to the schools he orders around --- whoops, I mean, supports. Top-down middle management with no board oversight, should be fun.
-Seattlelifer
7/4/23, 3:34 PM
Unknown said…
@Concerned, it's also terrible news for the SW with Katrina Hunt. She is coming to the admin job from Washington Middle School where she 1) hired a teacher accused of assault who had previous been dismissed from her sister's school (Meany), 2) refused to speak at all with the TAF Director when they were supposedly jointly responsible for the school and 3) most recently she barred 8th grade families from attending the promotion ceremony. Supposedly they couldn't risk having families on campus due to security reasons, but they welcomed guests earlier the same day for performances of the school musical.

- GHS parent
7/5/23, 9:39 AM
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