Two Big Items To Keep on Your Radar (And One Budgeting Hmmm?)

The Seattle School Board has abruptly cancelled their Monday, June 10th meeting. I had wondered if the Superintendent had changed his preliminary announcements for possible school closures because June 10th was the date previously stated. 

Well, that’s not happening either. The only thing happening on June 10th is an Executive Session. The Board meeting AND the legally required public hearing on the Budget are rescheduled for June 26th. 

So when is the Superintendent’s announcement coming?

The other big story is what the heck was happening at last night’s Seattle Council PTSA meeting where they were trying to elect new officers for next year. 

Via Twitter:

SCPTSA elections were an unmitigated failure. More than 2 hours of informercial-style presentations followed by lots of procedural stalling tactics until the custodian kicked us out. Vote will happen … sometime?

As one of my cohort said: “ On a more serious note: this is a collosal failure of basic process leadership by the current SCPTSA board leaders. ”

In a moment of maximal crisis for our schools they chose to try and extend their own power and gatekeep. What an excellent example of why SCPTSA’s current leadership needs to be replaced.

I’m enjoying a meeting of the SCPTSA where the current board is trying to change the rules of who can run for officer elections in the meeting right before their contested re-election, presumably to disqualify their challengers

Speaker 1: It is a clear violation of our legal system to change the rules of the election on the day of, if you are talking an about an election for 10th grade class president or for US president 

Speaker 2: well we can do this if we want and we should not be deterred just because a bunch of White people are showing up to challenge us

Speaker 1: I’m not White

 

Apparently, former School Board candidates Debbie Carlson and Ben Gitenstein were trying to run for spots on the SCPTSA Board. I guess this was on Zoom. 

The meeting dragged on and on. I wonder what the state PTSA would have to say about this. 

Stay tuned. 

The Seattle Times Editorial Board had this editorial about the district’s costs for liability, noting issues in several cases.

In the background simmer questions from yet another alleged sexual assault, this time by one student against another in a bathroom at Hamilton Middle School last spring.

In that case, a Seattle police detective asked the school district to preserve video that could have provided important evidence, according to the King County Prosecutor’s Office. But after several weeks of back-and-forth with SPS’ records officer, the detective learned that in the interim, the information he sought had automatically erased. With neither the footage, nor statements from school staff who’d seen it, prosecutors did not have enough information to hold anyone criminally accountable.   

Bottom line is safety but also money:

Each of these incidents would be profoundly concerning to any parent in Seattle Public Schools. They are also contributing to a spike in liability insurance rates that have more than tripled since the 2018-19 school year. And those fees are most certainly widening the gaping budget hole now forcing SPS to consider closing 20 elementary schools.

Next year, Seattle will be charged $8,848,477 in liability premiums, according to information provided by the school district. That’s 8% of its $105 million deficit, not an insignificant portion, considering the stakes.

About 90 districts participate in the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool, which covers liability claims and property damage. Rates have increased for all of them. But the amount varies, depending on a district’s size and the “losses that have been paid out,” in the words of a WSRMP spokesperson. Seattle’s increase is slightly higher than average, she said.

In 2018, former Seattle schools Superintendent Larry Nyland hinted at this scenario in a budget document that now looks painfully prescient. Seattle had just swallowed a 20% rate hike due to a “dramatic increase in sexual abuse claim payments” confronting districts across the state, Nyland told the School Board.

On safety:

On student safety, too, the district has taken “a Pollyana-ish approach,” said attorney Cheryl Snow, who is representing the family of the dead Ingraham student.

He was shot to death by a 14-year-old who posed a known threat, the legal complaint says. Just a month prior, the boy now charged with murder had brought a knife to school and threatened another student in the bathroom with a Glock-style BB gun.

By state law, Seattle had grounds to expel him then. The school district’s safety policies allow for this too. Instead, the youth was suspended for less than three days. After his return, “Nothing was done to effectively increase security, form a safety plan, or increase consequences for unlawful behavior,” the complaint charges.

And boom!

Seattle school officials have pointed to soaring liability rates as one of the culprits behind their budget woes. But those costs might be more manageable if the district seriously examined the link between insurance spreadsheets, student safety and the future of Seattle Public Schools.