I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again

Abandon hope all ye who cross the threshold of the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence.

Another thing I say - most of the Board, Superintendent and senior staff are not serious people. This is no way to run a district.

Last night's school board meeting was an exercise in frustration for all. 

I'll list the highlights (few) and lowlights (many) and then get into more detail for those who need it.

Highlights

- The Board passed their once a month Board meeting schedule. Again, more detail later but it had been on the Consent Agenda and Director Topp asked it be taken off. President Lisa Rankin said that there would be "other special meetings" during each month, including Work Sessions, but just one legislative session. Well, those "special meetings" are NOT in the BAR they were voting on so those are just words that Rankin is saying.

Topp said she wanted to know when these special meetings would occur because there are so many people out there - like her - with small children who need a caregiver if she's not there. 

Rankin pushed it off to their next Board retreat (in August, I believe). Later in the meeting, Topp reiterated that the dates must be set so that they are on the calendar. I think that may have spoiled Rankin's ability to pop up suddenly with some "public engagement" meeting. Good for Topp. 

If the Board is having just one legislative meeting a month - that is, the legally required one that entails voting and public comment - all the directors need to show up in person. I'm not sure when the last time was that all of them were there in person. 

- Good testimony from members of the public. 

• The student voice, Izzy from Ballard High, wanted the grading situation - giving 50% credit even if no effort is made - changed. He said, "I don't get half a paycheck if I don't show up at work." 
• Chris Jackins made some interesting comments. He said that the district could use the interest from capital funds for the deficit and why didn't I think of that? I have noted that for several levies, going back a decade or more, the district is STILL earning interest on leftover dollars. He also said the district's own levies are capped by the state but that the City has levies to help SPS so why not ask for the money from them. Lastly, he said that he has helped people in the past to launch recall elections and would be happy to do so again.
• One speaker, on a Special Education item on the Consent Agenda, talked about how many of these service providers are now owned by private equity firms. This turned into a bit of a tussle later on.
• Twins who were having a birthday came to ask for more options, not fewer. They asked about having a school nurse two days a week and what happens on the other three?
• One speaker , a parent from North Beach ES said "paper cut fixes" like closing schools to save money "seem wildly optimistic."
• Former director Leslie Harris said the district was "punting more times than the Seahawks." She said the district had had plenty of time to work through this and had kept kicking the can down the road. She said the boundary changes would get "ugly" and there are other issues like safety, holidays, etc that would compressed the timeframe and "prevent real engagement." She said they needed to address the elephant in the room for K-8 and Option Schools. (Spoiler alert: they didn't.)
• Harris also claimed that she heard about 40% of principal corps is NOT returning next school year. She said the district should provide the number. She ended, "We could and can do much better."
• Speaker after speaker called for concrete, transparent plans around school closures.
  
• One speaker compared what is happening in San Francisco Unified SD where, they too, are closing schools. It's a topic I've meant to get to for quite awhile (because they are also using SOFG). It's just a sad comparison because SFUSD has done so much better than SPS. They are having Stanford vetting some of the plan. STANFORD UNIVERSITY.  They had 30(!) public forums.
  
• One great speaker, Gregory, who works for Head Start said his work helped him understand how kids learn and it's not a one-size-fits-all method. He said education is like gardening, not carpentry. He said that Thornton Creek has room to move a closed school in because the waitlist is never moved. "We need diversity in education programs."
• One speaker said Garfield HS, on safety, is an "unhappy outlier." He repeated what other parents have said which is that kids say guns ARE being brought to school. He could not believe that safety was not front and center on the agenda. 
• One speaker asked about helping dual language programs by making them accessible to all "heritage" speakers. 
• There were several speakers who expressed sadness and unhappiness with the situation at Pathfinder K-8. They are begging for help and change. 
• One speaker said that the district is NOT providing "high quality" Special Education services to ALL students.

- It was mentioned that 27 Seattle Schools were named in OSPI's list of schools with academic achievements. This is great but I see at least three schools that are likely to close on that list. Hmm.  

- 88 students applied for the student director jobs. Wow.

I will confess that I stopped watching after the Consent Agenda vote but that was more than three hours into the meeting. 

 

Lowlights

Where to start? Overall, this district is either doing a great gaslighting job or they TRULY are wandering around with blindfolds on, looking for the door out. 

There was NO plan presented and only ONE criteria discussed. And by gaslighting, I mean playing dumb, trying to run out the clock. This is an idea that several commenters here have floated and sadly, I think there is something to it.

- Director Clark was there virtually and in the entire time I watched, only said "here" and "aye." During the entire school closure conversation, she said nothing. Given how she has missed some meetings and seemed disconnected from the work, I'll venture that the Board made a mistake with her appointment. Director Mizrahi, on the other hand, has stepped up.  Director Evan Briggs was about 45 minutes late (but they knew she would be late). 

- In the Superintendent's comments, Jones said that he wanted "safe environments for learning" and "productive conversations." First, I didn't hear a lot about safety at last night's meeting. Second, the conversations I heard around the Well-Resourced Schools plan were not productive if you listened to the directors questions.

- President Liza Rankin is a problem.  Let's look at what she said and did last night.

• Once again, Rankin started the meeting late by eleven minutes. 
• She went on a ramble about how a program at Wedgwood got recognized by OSPI and it's named after her son. Oh.
• She laughingly said that public testimony wouldn't start on-time (scheduled for 5 pm) because of the WR schools presentation (this is how I'm gonna write well-resourced schools from here on out).  It didn't start until two hours later. All those members of the public had to sit for two hours when the presentation could have come AFTER public testimony. 

During the presentation, she had several things to say that left me shaking my head. 

One was that she had known since she came on the Board that enrollment was going down. Really? I don't recall her saying anything in any consistent way about that issue. Wonder why?

She then said that she had thought during COVID that maybe that's when they should have closed schools.  

Two, that she had heard that during the closures in 2009 that the reason they had to reopen schools is some error in counting half-day versus full-day kindergarten. She said that knowing this will help this time. Fred Podeata said he had heard that and they are working hard on "forecasting for capacity" and that "we are building bigger buildings than we used to and that creates efficiencies to absorb any new growth." 

I have never heard about this kindergarten count issue. Hmmm

- But she also made a good point that too much documentation/information is in several places at the SPS website and that it should all be under one umbrella.  

 

- Superintendent Brent Jones and staff used half the presentation to tell us old news.  Getting community input, "envisioning", multi-tier systems of support, universal design, restorative practices, stability, fiscal responsibility, on and on. So tedious and NO new information. He also kind of teased out how the closures would be around enrollment, test scores, building condition, learning environment and two others I missed. But then, they presented info only on building condition/learning environment. 

He said parents want to know about Option Schools, dual-language, IEPs, class sizes, etc. Guess what? Almost none of that is in the presentation nor was it discussed. 

Jones also mentioned monthly check-ins on how it is going. He also mentioned something about "workshops" but again, no specifics so I don't know what he is talking about here. 

- Podesta patted himself and other staff on the back for figuring out to solve the past two deficits. 

 

- What was odd is that staff keeps talking about K-5 when they clearly seem to have included K-8s. Director Brandon Hersey himself said "we are talking exclusively K-5 here." The district needs to come clean on this.

- Director Hersey, along with directors Michelle Sargu and Gina Topp, expressed that they needed CONCRETE SPECIFICS to go back to parents. 

Hersey said that parents want to know, "What is the benefit if my kid's school closes?"

Sarju said it was "so much info" and that she had no idea what it all meant. She said it was "hard to digest." 

"We need specifics about how this translates to student outcomes. Or is this just a performative exercise." Ouch!

 

- Hersey also tried to say that the growth in the SE and SW is faster than other parts of the city. Is that true? I don't know but it might have been helpful if he said how he gained that information. He also said that the vast majority of students of color are in his director region. He said people would ask if the equity tool the district has is being used and if not, why not. 

It feels like Hersey wants a special dispensation for his region and I'm not sure staff is buying it.  

- Mizrahi asked about an outside specialist to help in understanding what makes a good learning environment and how to use that in this closure process. Podesta said the district does have "educational specifications" for each level of schooling and then you can ask, "how does this building conform to those specifications?"

Mizrahi also asked about noted appendices not being in the presentation and Podesta got one of the few laughs of the nights, "The check is in the mail." Meaning, they have them but the appendices are not yet attached. 

 

- Then, we got to the really heavy stuff.

• Director Topp said the timeline is "compacted and intense." She questioned whether both staff and public will have enough time to do it right AND give feed back. "Is it feasible to do engagement in that short of time?" Jones said they need to "manage expectations, that's clear." Topp said "I don't want to set ourselves up for failure if we need more time." She also said if they go through summer planning and they can clearly see they are not ready - "we tried and here's where we are at" - that maybe it's not the thing to do.
  
• Director Hersey chimed in and said the district needs to be clear on what the engagement is. Is the plan "baked" or is there any room for discussion (on changes)? Great question that got no answer. Hersey said are they doing "wholesale closure versus a phased closure process." You can see President Rankin, seated next to him, hold her head. He said with the cuts to JSCEE staff, there would be challenges in doing a wholesale closure. This got applause from the crowd.
• Rankin said she is feeling "urgency" and doesn't feel it is matched. She seems to be back on the idea of telling parents "here's what you need to know about what is happening and what we ARE doing." I think that might be okay except that staff STILL is not being specific enough and why Rankin is okay with that, I don't know.
  
• Out of nowhere, Director Briggs said she would "love to see how this plan is going to impact secondary education."
• Mizrahi questioned how closures might change feeder patterns.
• Sarju said, "It's a lot, We don't have special brains that allow us to comprehend this stuff." She also questioned if they are getting rid of K-8s.  She also picked up on Rankin's "urgency" and said, "Make it simple for yourselves - just say, 'we are closing schools.'" 
•  

Analysis

First, what was presented was not a plan. Sadly, not one director pointed that out directly.

Second, to only cover one criteria is a fail. But one attachment shows the worst condition buildings with the worst learning environments and my count is about 17 schools. To note, these two are NOT the only criteria but it's what was attached to the presentation. Top schools with combined bad category numbers:

-  View Ridge

-  Sacajawea

-  Orca K-8

-  Wedgwood

-  Lowell

- Sand Point

- Salmon Bay K-8

- North Beach

I hope Director Hersey looks at those numbers and sees that the majority of schools with bad buildings and bad learning conditions are in the north end. 

Third, I don't think that the district will be able to close schools equally throughout the district. I think it folly to try and it's what we were directed to do in 2009. 

Fourth, I think Director Topp is the 2.0 version of former director Eden Mack. Whip-smart but not aggressive or pushy. She makes simple but clear declarative statements. She was masterful in pushing back on Rankin trying to be mushy on these "special meetings." 

So help me out here.

1) Why did the staff trot out no real plan and what they did present had no specificity or completeness? 

Is this a tactic to run out the clock as some have suggested or are they being timid at the risk of a parent tsunami of anger? Because, as was mentioned last night, they have BEX VIA in Feb. 2025. Personally, I think this is one levy that will struggle if things are not going well in SPS. 

 

2) Given the following, can this district really do a complete job on closures?

- huge safety issues

- renegotiating the Super's contract - Is it good look to give him a raise when the district is running a deficit? What do you think of the job that the Superintendent is doing?

- boundaries

- moving more Special Education students into GenEd classrooms 

- moving HC students back to their neighborhood schools - gotta say, this one might bite them in the ass because if they close a school that, on paper, would have a high return rate to that school, do they have the room at the consolidation school? 

- SEA negotiations 

3) All this shifting around of students, does the district REALLY have a handle on all the numbers involved? I'm with Director Topp - better to say we need more time. 

OR

4) Should the district take a go-slo route on school closures? It certainly won't help with the deficit as much but the district can see how it goes with fewer schools in real time. Might be better to be cautious. 

 

4) Would you be okay with a plan that says, we are doing this no matter what BUT here's how it will benefit/affect your kid? 

 

Here's what they say next steps are:

• Explore multiple scenarios – e.g. K-8s, Option schools, Dual Language, Highly Capable
• Lead academic impact assessments for alignment
• Utilize outside expertise to review/validate, support, provide analysis and find opportunities
• Further develop comprehensive logistical plan for implementation
• Clearly communicate along the way, and find ways to build trust and confidence

Do these steps seem clear to you? Will they generate answers that parents want? And, they haven't figured out ALL the opportunities by now?

I think unless they make a stand on EXACTLY where they are on school closures AND what is open for discussion WITH a timeline, they will have a massive failure.