Seattle School Board Spending on SOFG Conferences
As I previously reported, the district/Board spent over $20,000 in October 2022 to send six Board members and one Board staffer, as well as one senior district manager, Dr. Rocky Torres, to a Council of Great City Schools conference on Student Outcomes Focused Governance in Orlando.
It was stated by the CGCS that "all directors in a SOFG cohort will be required to attend for two days" prior to the conference and then attend the conference itself. Either Director Leslie Harris didn't get that memo or ignored it because she was the only one not in attendance.
What I have been waiting on was costs for two other conferences that Board members attended that year. (It is entirely possible that some directors attended other conferences not associated with the CGCS.)
One of those other conferences was in December of 2022 when President Brandon Hersey went for three days to a CUBE conference to pick up an award for the Board. This cost around $2,000 but at least he didn't fly first class as he did to the Orlando conference.
The circumstances around this award are quite vague and I never received any answer as to who applied for it The parameters to receive it:
School boards will be judged on a variety of measures across four core areas of urban school board governance:
- School Board Performance
- Academic Improvement
- Educational Equity
- Community Engagement
It's certainly confusing because the Seattle School Board was not doing a lot of good (or even decent) community engagement. They have a plan for "educational equity" but has there been "academic improvement?" Nope. And the Board has been very busy making less work for itself overseeing the district. Hard to fathom why they won.
But in May of 2022, Superintendent Brent Jones, Director Chandra Hampson and Director Liza Rankin flew to an SOFG conference in Monterey, California. The CGCS charged them $1500 each ($4500) to cover 3 nights accommodation and meals at the conference and the conference itself; they waived the $500 conference fee).
The Alaska Airlines flights from Seattle to Monterey for each person cost $748. That seems like a lot for Economy seats but that's what the tickets say. (I did check for next May and First Class on Alaska for those dates is $649 with Economy being about $363. Not sure why the ticket price would have been that high.) There was a $30 per ticket processing fee from the travel agent.
The district estimated that for this conference, it would be about $2200. It ended up being nearly $2700 which includes meals outside of the conference and a "rideshare" cost of $150 plus the flights.
So, in total, it cost about $7200 for the three attendees for this conference alone.
What continues to be weird is how the Board has never really done public outreach to explain the change in governance. Directors Rankin and Rivera Smith want to keep their jobs but you don't see them talking this up on the campaign trail. Hmmm
Comments
Con jobs
Democratic Democrat
Rankin might not be your cup of tea but denying her presence and engagement is wrong. Regarding Nathan Hale, , she came to our school and met with community including teachers after the shooting tragedy. She was there when school re opened after the shooting. and returned many times in the subsequent weeks to listen to students. Our school community had a meeting with Principal Floe and SPS staff on November 22, she attended and spoke with parents and students after the meeting wrapped up. She stayed in touch over the following months with the Friends of Ingraham board and in February she met with the group again. I know because I was there. But don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone.
Ingraham Parent
This particular board loves to claim that they are volunteers because they get paid little. Travel perks not included.
Naturally, those dollars could have been spent in the classroom.
Why do you think so many parents have stayed silent on this?
BTW who is the trust fund baby?
Rankin please
Not to mention, SPS could have used that $20K for the students, furthest from educational justice.
Additionally, having a district senior admin with them and not producing their discussions and costing taxpayers $20K seems like an unethical combo.
"Superintendent Brent Jones, Director Chandra Hampson and Director Liza Rankin flew to an SOFG conference in Monterey, California."
Kidding me? Again, why are they doing their own crazy-click trips using taxpayers money? SPS is already spending tons of taxpayers money on its Legal Department. Where are the legal justifications for the Superintendent and Board Members to be doing these crazy-click trips with no document records. And ethical issues with the Jones administration & the partial Board combo.
CGCS Con
My guess is when you are given 2 minutes at school board meetings, the focus is on advocating, not thanking the board for the job they are doing because most of the time they fall short (although some people do thank them for their service as a pleasantry).
With such tragedy, and because we are not a monolithic community, some thought the district was not doing enough and some thought it was just right. I am sure you can do your public records request with the dates I gave you and you will find all the communication from SPS to FOI and viceversa. Or you can talk to teachers. Or Martin.
Ingraham Parent
The worse Ed speak wordsalad by far is “targeted universalism”.
That one is truly an abomination.
But hey, “students focused governance outcomes” is definitely a competitor for maximum stupid inanity.
All I can say is:
Vote no.
Seriously.
Let me see if I’ve got this right;
This district is bankrupt.
As in, their expenditures cannot be met by their receipts.
This District is about to go into a whirlwind with a bunch of unsuspecting families, schools are going to close, perhaps as many 20.
So, 20 schools are going to close (ok, maybe only 10 due to pushback/uproar) because we simply can’t afford to keep the overhead of these places going when we could put those bodies in nearby half-empty facilities, yet, these idiots are off on a plane to go learn about gobbledygook?
Does any of this gobbledygook make any child in any classroom a better student, having a better experience in front of a better teacher?
(how about you poll the teachers and ask them if this makes a damn bit of difference to them and their kids?)
Well???!!????
Hell no!!!!!!! Lol. Lol.
So WHY DID THEY GO? They spent money, and absolutely not one single thin dime of it matters to any kid. (oh yeah, and one of them for sure is already declared as quitting this district. Nice! Bonus! Truly throwing away money)
Disgusting.
And why did they do this?
Vanity, narcissism, self-importance…those ideas come to mind.
They did it because they had the money to do so. They write and sign their own checks. On OUR money.
This district is out of control, out of discipline, out of common sense, out of the ability, will, or even desire to do right by our kids.
I wish it was different. I’ve spent many many many many many hours on committees and task forces. We’ve had some great school directors in the recent past, but none of it seems to make any damn difference.
One thing I know for sure, the current acronym du jour is absolutely not going to make any difference.
Unfortunately, ideologues have taken over, dunderheaded group-think virtue-signaling destructive forces rule the day, and they’re not interested in what evidence-based research shows supports student learning. And that’s being generous.
All I can do is vote no to every single Ed levy. It is truly the only tool the public has to send a message that any of these idiots will listen to.
The future? Very highly resourced parents with a great deal of ability are going to look at those empty buildings and cook up their very own charter for high performance academics, and then there will be a stampede to either get into one those or replicate those in their own backyard. It’s so painfully obvious, it’s happened before in other states and mark my words, Johnny Microsoft, Jenny Amazon, and Joe Google are going to end up around the kitchen table in exasperation and desperation, and get one going in an empty Sacajawea building. Or perhaps it’ll be North Beach, or Shmitz Park, or Sandpoint… but it’s definitely was next.
VOTE NO
This board- like no other- has complained about the workload of being on the board. These same individuals were very familiar with the district and knew that being on the board is a time investment.
We have other board members that worked full time jobs and didn't complain as much as this board. And, yes, it is possible to work full time and serve on the board. The following people come to mind: Scott Pinkham, Leslie Harris, Kay Smith Blum, Rick Burke and more.
Yet, the current board majority works to give away oversight.
That's not going to help either. All that will do is accelerate the deterioration of SPS.
I wish there were a way to implement real, lasting reform.