Really, Mr. Superintendent?

I can see this will be a BIG week for me posting. Summer is over.

The other item I wanted to call to your attention in the Board meeting agenda for Wednesday night is this on the agenda near the bottom:

2023-24 Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Evaluation

So apparently the Board is STILL working on his contract which did expire on July1 of this year. I will go on record as saying that I do not believe there is the time or bandwidth to change superintendents but if the Board would do their job and give him a sober talking-to and NOT give him a raise, he might be a better superintendent.

There is no edu-talk, no edu-phrasing that is left out of this document. It's just ridiculous and reads like a parody. 

What does he say? (partial)

Academic Goal Attainment and Strategy Refinement

- As we navigate complexities, it's imperative that we remain agile and responsive to evolving needs and challenges.

Really? Because there have been two murders at two high schools in the last couple of years plus an elementary school invasion by a mentally ill person. How agile and responsive have you and staff been to safety issues?

- Routines to standardize strategic adoption and abandonment allow us to ensure consistent implementation of effective practices and quickly discontinue initiatives that do not meet our objectives. 

Really? What initiatives have you publicly abandoned?

- Despite our efforts, there remains a need for a more laser-focused approach on our most critical goals. With so many fires to put out, it's essential that our sights remain trained on the big picture, ensuring that our energies are directed towards initiatives that yield the greatest impact. This will require stronger agenda setting, forecasting, and planning.

You all might want to remember this one because I have a feeling the Super and the Board are going to narrow the focus, further and further.

- Similarly, we also face ongoing challenges where customer issues occasionally override strategic initiatives, diverting our attention and resources away from our core objectives. This will ensure that we maintain alignment with our strategic priorities amidst external pressures.

 

Guardrails: Constraints and Preventative Measures

- In terms of maintaining operational integrity, we've excelled. Our systems have remained reliable and consistent, providing a stable foundation for our academic endeavors.

If you say so.

- Strengthening our commitment to data-driven decision-making will be pivotal in optimizing our performance and outcomes.

 Well, your outcomes for Black boys haven't been great so how will you be optimizing that?

Implementation: Infrastructure and Fidelity

- Our staff successfully rolled out a new districtwide assessment, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), for all grades K-8. 

I'm sorry but the district used MAP for quite awhile so how "new" can it be?

-A significant challenge that remains is the perception that implementation work is supplemental rather than integral to our mission. This mindset undermines the significance of implementation fidelity and detracts from our overall effectiveness. However, a step taken to address this has been to tie my team’s professional goals for evaluation directly to my goals in the superintendent evaluation tool, ensuring that Student Outcomes Focused Governance principles are consistently applied across all divisions.

Maybe, just maybe, there are too many fires in the district for staff to worry about SOFG implementation. Or maybe, staff doesn't see this vision and doesn't support it.

- An additional challenge is that collaboration across departments and teams is sometimes lacking, hindering our ability to synchronize efforts and leverage collective expertise.

You mean working in silos? That's been a SPS issue for decades.

 

Overall System Challenges

- Customer Issues Overriding Strategy Discipline: One of the significant challenges we've encountered is the tendency for customer issues to overshadow our strategic discipline. While it's crucial to address the concerns of our stakeholders, it's equally important to ensure that these issues do not derail our long-term strategic objectives.

-Although we have established various structures and systems, there is a noticeable lack of synergy among them.

See lack of interest in SOFG.

- Stronger Expectation for Follow-Through and Closure: Our expectation for follow-through and reaching closure on initiatives needs to be stronger. Incomplete or abandoned projects undermine our credibility and waste resources. We must instill a discipline of seeing projects through to completion, ensuring that all initiatives are fully implemented, evaluated, and refined as necessary.

Whose fault is this? 

 

Overall Opportunities

- Celebrate and Recognize Progress: It's essential to acknowledge and celebrate the progress we've made. By highlighting our achievements, we can boost morale, build momentum, and reinforce a culture of excellence. Regular recognition of both individual and collective accomplishments will inspire our staff and students to strive for even higher standards.

Sure, morale is important and the district does have things to celebrate. But the challenges are killing this district which makes all this happy talk sound hollow. That the district's Facebook page is all happy talk is weird.

- Develop a Strong Constituent Management System: Customer issues have often diverted our attention from strategic priorities. To address this, we need to develop a robust constituent management system that efficiently intakes and responds to concerns. By streamlining communication and resolution processes, we can better manage stakeholder expectations and maintain our focus on strategic objectives.

By my count this is now the third time he has said something about stakeholders and them "diverting" attention away from what he considers more important. Is it more important to him to implement strategies than address stakeholders fully? I would submit it is. Almost as if they are saying, "If you would just leave us alone, we could get something done." 

Then there is the Superintendent's Self-Evaluation Tool. To note, here's where feedback from the Board comes in under Board Notes. Several times they say that the district has " an increase of 20+ percentage points in one year is unrealistic."

In his goals for the Black boys, there is not much good to see with "results are unlikely to be met" a frequent statement.

He seems to think that teen Black boys are doing better without acknowledging the bump from not failing anyone.  It does look like the district is doing better with these students in "positive behavior and safety." 

Here's the "Board Notes" on this item:

The Board notes the need to adjust this goal and interims for the 2024-2025 school year, with an end point of June 2025 and with new target metrics, as an increase of 40 percentage points in one year is unrealistic. The board is not clear on what strategies are being adopted and/or abandoned to make progress on this goal, and without this understanding, is not confident in the ability of our system to deliver results.

Oh my.

- Under Community Engagement, the Superintendent thinks it's going well. 

The Board?
The Board sees a need to recalibrate the mutual understanding of expectations for family and community engagement. Data for this guardrail as presented in progress monitoring reports is not included here.

- He does try to say - under Strategy Refinement - that they are doing better in "credit earning at the 9th grade after the pandemic." 

 The Board says:

This goal appears to be nearly met, but the actual data for the top line Goal 3 – the percentage
of Black boys and teens who graduate having successfully completed at least one advanced course – has not been provided. Two interim goals have been nearly met. For the goal to have been met or 2/3 met, 2 out of 3 interim goals have to be met or exceeded. The Board is
interested in an evaluation of the decline for 10th grade – is this connected to changes in grading practices over the pandemic? Or has another cause been identified, and, if so, what are the strategies to address it?

This section ends like this (which I find interesting for a Superintendent Evaluation):

The Board’s Goals have not been met.

We acknowledge that these numbers come with a lot of context, extenuating circumstances, and that while our goals are right, in many areas the time horizon for progress was unrealistic. On the heels of a pandemic and with introducing a new governance structure, we do not expect to have seen immediate improvements in student performance. However, we do expect progress and continuous improvement. 

Going forward, it is important to see more progress in the data and more information on what strategies are being utilized and how they are being implemented in response to data, as well as evidence of changes in adult practice and behavior to improve student outcomes.