Seattle Schools Community Forum

Jones' two-year contract is up and the Board is now negotiating with him to stay on. I have heard no talk of him walking away. There are several issues to consider. The number one issue is - where would the money come from for a raise?  Interestingly, at last night's Board meeting, the principals' contract item on the agenda had been pulled. Earlier in the day I had written to the head of Budget, Linda Sebring, and asked her this: So the PASS contract seems - to me - like a replay of the SEA contract. Meaning, a contract that SPS cannot afford. I looked at your budget presentation and was surprised to see on the Expenditures by State Activity page, that the principals’ budget had already been gone up from 2022-2023 to 2023-2024 by about $4M. Now I know that bump up is not all that money going to salaries but for principal supported activities. As well, the Board voted to negotiate with Superintendent Jones for his contracted salary. If he gets a raise, where are those dol

 I knew that San Francisco Unified School District was on the Student Outcome Focused Governance (SOFG) train but didn't know just how much. (Fun Fact: I lived in the Bay Area and, at one point, right in San Francisco. A very happy time in my life.) Here's a link to their website and oh man! what a plethora of real information. There is no comparison to the SPS website.  So first, let's compare what it looks like for "Goals and Guardrails." Please note that each district has chosen different names for similar goals as well as the number of the goal. However, SPS doesn't cover as broad a spectrum of issues as SFUSD does.  As well, you can see the fine hand of SOFG guru, A.J. Crabill, except that the SPS versions come across fairly harshly while SFUSD's seem to have a kinder, gentler tone. Whose fine hand made the SPS versions harsher? I'd bet it was former director Chandra Hampson.   SPS Guardrail 1: Engagement The superintendent will not allow schoo