Superintendent Brent Jones Cancels ALL Community Engagement Sessions on Closures
Just minutes ago, the SPS put out this message on the website. To save you some time, the only news is that the community engagement sessions are cancelled. There is nothing new in here except a very massaged message.
I am sorry our proposed options created anxiety for many families who rely on the key programs and innovations within our schools. We are retooling our plans to address these concerns."
No one could have predicted this kind of blowback? Really?
No, I think the Superintendent and staff thought they could put a kind, gentle face on their planning and that BOTH the Board and community would accept being muscled that way.
Didn't work.
Dear SPS families, staff, and community,
I am taking more time to reflect on plans to bring a consolidation recommendation this October. As a result, I am canceling the upcoming community meetings. A new schedule of engagement sessions will be released soon.
I understand the closure of schools is a very serious topic. After receiving thoughtful feedback from many of you, it is clear we need more time to carefully consider our next steps.
I am working closely with my leadership team to revise our strategy and ensure any decisions we make are sustainable and prioritize the well-being of our students, staff, and families, working together to meet our goals.
We will soon provide new opportunities for community engagement, focused on gathering your ideas and working together to resolve our challenges.
I want to assure you we are taking your concerns seriously. What we proposed last week were initial approaches, which we are now reworking. While our financial challenges are real and it’s our fiscal responsibility to resolve them, it is very clear we need more time to listen and earn your trust as we resolve our structural deficit and revisit our timeline.
I am sorry our proposed options created anxiety for many families who rely on the key programs and innovations within our schools. We are retooling our plans to address these concerns.
It is no secret we are facing tough times. We face a budget deficit that has gone on far too long. Over the past seven years alone, our enrollment has dropped by 4,000 students. Despite this, we still operate nearly the same number of school buildings, and we don’t expect enrollment numbers to rebound for many years. Like many school districts in Washington, the funding we receive from the state has failed to keep up with the costs of providing a quality education to Seattle’s students.
This has been a challenging time, especially the last few weeks, and our school system’s issues will take all of us to solve–in our city and in our legislature.
We stand committed to working alongside you throughout this process. We appreciate your partnership as we strive for equitable and thoughtful solutions that will strengthen the future of our schools and students.
Thank you for your continued feedback and support.
Comments
I asked in the comments a few posts ago, and I'll ask again here: Can someone give me one substantive affirmative reason that Jones deserves a contract extension, never mind a raise? The argument "you don't want to change leadership in a crisis" is not a good reason.
He has been at the head of the organization while the rot has accelerated. He has allowed nincompoops in director level positions to retain their sinecures. He has endorsed a contract he KNEW the district couldn't afford. And he clearly has no ideas about how to right the ship. Fire him, don't renew his contract, whatever.
-Seeing Red
CBA Parent
NE Parent
No Confidence
Now I am curious about the politics within the board, and between the board and Jones + senior staff. My (admittedly not well informed) impression was that Rankin, Hersey, and all the SOFG faction of the board were essentially collaborating with senior staff on the "well resourced school" initiative, and wanted the plan that would emerge from it to eliminate option schools and close buildings. It seemed like their plan was to just thump their plan on the table with not much time left to argue, and tough out the complaining by privileged parents, and just do it citing budget necessity. Campbell's plan was reasonable within the parameters they seemed to have all agreed on, and I imagine she expected the board to back her up. But then in the heat of battle, the board turned to jello and ran, leaving Jones and Campbell holding the bag.
I wonder if Jones is feeling very burned right now. I can imagine him thinking that he darn well wants a raise, even a bigger one now, because no amount of money can compensate for squandering his reputation through association with this amateur circus.
1) I think all around senior leadership, they know some schools should be closed. But 20 or even 10? I'm sure most of the Board, save Rankin, was surprised.
2) Then they were further surprised as time past and the Superintendent STILL presented nothing. This was supposed to happen in June, then August, and now we are near the end of September. All that waiting without explanation except they claim to have wanted to get it right.
3) As someone else said, there was a lot of WHAT and WHO to the plan but not the HOW which, to most parents, is key. How will the remaining schools be supported to be "well-resourced?" (Honestly, I find that a bit of a pipe dream.) How will the transitions happen? What kind of bus rides does it mean for students whose schools are closed? And so on.
4) Yes, I think Jones did feel broadsided by the Board, in particular Rankin and Hersey. Not so sure about Campbell who barely got started on this work. Of course, my inner self, my gut, wonders if Rankin and Hersey put on a show (and maybe Briggs) to be able to say they fought for a better plan. Problem is, they waited MONTHS to speak up. Why would that be?
5) Jones. Oh man, is he in a bad place. I'll bet his clever decision to take only a TWO year contract is now something he regrets. Because he can't really ask for more in this time and place and in his performance and yet, he is still operating on an old contract. I think the best thing would be for him to offer to do another year under his old contract.
I know Jones and I like him. I had REALLY hoped that he would be great but I have not seen real leadership.
Jones HAS shown real leadership, when you realize that's the intent. All that will happen here is he and the boards will grudgingly walk back a couple of the closures to slap some lipstick on the pig, knowing full well they will come back and close them later at first opportunity, Then the board leadership will do another round of pretending they are upset when they are actually on board.
It would be nice if we all stopped clowning that there is good faith here, and that this isn't the intent.
I think the core of the problem here is that we live in a cancel culture full of unspeakable truths. Whoever speaks them gets cancelled, so no one does, and then all of our discourse is crippled by gaps and confusion. No one can understand what is going on because key links in the chain of logic are forbidden to be said. Luminaries such as Danny Westneat and Michael DeBell can either play dumb or genuinely not understand why the magnet school concept is so 20th-century, and no longer acceptable unless you are willing to directly challenge big chunks of current ideology.
A foundational concept of "educational justice" is inclusion. It's a value which, in the abstract, none would dare criticize. Inclusion means, among other things, including special education students in the general education setting. When Spectrum cohort classes were killed off ten years ago, they were fairly upfront about giving one of the key reasons: where Spectrum cohorts exist, special ed and ELL were unfairly concentrated in the remaining classes. This basic logic is driving everything we see. The forbidden truth is: inclusion has comes at a cost to regular students. If you allow any programs that aren’t inclusive, the duty of inclusion is distributed unfairly.
Before you get out your hot oil and try to fry me, recall how a few days ago, Melissa quoted a comment on the Seattle Times FYI guy article: "According a recent ProPublica piece, disruptive students in classrooms, is one of the reasons that wealthier families take their kids out of public schools." Well, guess what, a lot of those disruptive students have special education status. They would be in what SPS calls the “Social/Emotional” service pathway. Starting last year, SPS launched the “Extended Resource” service pathway for special ed, which combines the “Access” and “Social/Emotional” pathways. It was rolled out at 34 elementary and 7 of the ten K-8 schools. 41 sites total (but not MacDonald or Jon Sanford International option elementaries, for example). If SPS consolidates to 50 sites, it becomes conceivable to offer Extended Resource at every elementary school. The new model of fewer, larger elementary schools makes it cost effective to offer identical special education services at every school. That both reduces SPS’ exposure to criticism and lawsuits (if they told special ed students they couldn’t be at their attendance area schools), and also spreads the duty of inclusion equally.
With magnet or option schools, you get the more prosaic problem of increased transportation costs. But you also get a possible feedback loop that works against “educational justice” – saavy, motivated families get their students into these magnet programs, which by their nature are much less inclusive of special ed students. These magnet programs turn out to be great, and families love them, and even more want in, partly because they are dodging their duty of inclusion, leaving it on the attendance area schools left behind. That is the only way to make sense of the famous quote from the recent SPS presentation, that “Option schools … draw enrollment and resources from neighborhood schools… Option schools disproportionately serve students who have traditionally had additional access to additional educational resources.”
There is definitely a Harrison Bergeron element to dumbing down public schools, but it’s not just that. Much more is going on here, and confusion will reign until we are willing to speak plainly about it.
That district quote on option schools is historically inaccurate.
Good for you, I like it. Then, you lose me.
"The forbidden truth is: inclusion has comes at a cost to regular students. If you allow any programs that aren’t inclusive, the duty of inclusion is distributed unfairly."
Interesting thought but see, the district says EVERY classroom in EVERY school will be inclusive now. You could still have magnet schools but they would run somewhat differently.
And funny thing, over at the Seattle Special Education Facebook page, I'm seeing parents who do NOT like the idea of Special Education in every neighborhood school. Know why? Because YEARS of experience have taught them that this district cannot deliver.
That statement that the district made about Option Schools is not historically accurate. And, if the district creates popular schools, then course correct for inclusion but don't close them.
For me, I think parents should not allow the likes of Hersey and Rankin and Briggs to browbeat parents using equity.
Reading between the lines, I think what the educational justice crowd is saying is: option or magnet schools will attract on average a somewhat easier mix of students, leaving a more difficult mix in neighborhood schools. They don't cite any data, because even they are squeamish about frank discussion of the topic. But I am guessing, on this topic at least, they are right.
Adding in Kellie's discussion about how option schools don't actually increase enrollment if you cap their enrollment -- if option schools are uncapped and a feedback loop develops, it could proceed quite far.
SpedPert
It turns out, Seattle *does* have a magnet school! It's called Lakeside!
So instead of taking all the best & brightest from across the city and discovering how that cohort would push each other to academic excellence... we ended up with Lakeside. Where the best & brightest & *richest* students of Seattle push each other. Just because they might have wealthy parents doesn't mean those kids don't work and earn their National Merit honors that are so conspicuously lacking in SPS.
The only way SPS can improve academic performance is by lowering academic standards. It just makes sense. Seattle has gotten the district it deserves.
-Seeing Red
Fair Way
Sorry, that was sarcasm/satire but clearly so close to what SPS is putting out there that it sounds plausible. Which is desperately sad.
-Seeing Red
Speddie
The real third rail to speak of here we are all talking around is that "equity" (as defined in the Seattle discussion) and "Academic achievement" are in conflict at the core, and you can only really satisfice between the two. You can't have both at least not without massive resources that would have an exponent on cost.
If you have discipline issues in class, other kids are disrupted. If you have students who need a lot of assistance to get to the middle, those are resources not spent helping the kids who achieve beyond the middle. With limited resources, who gets things is a zero-sum game.
If we lived in a world where everyone had to go into this system, that would already be an issue. But to add to the hassle, the actual rich never play this game at all. So when you talk equity, you are really talking about equitizing gifted and talented kids of the middle and working class for the sake of the other kids.
The problem is, those pesky engaged parents of these kids are looking to see their kids be competitive with the rich kids who don't join in this game at all. So when the Harrison Bergeron Handicapper General shows up, they leave. They move away. They scrape to join the rich in private schools. They fake their family's old religious beliefs to get into that school. But outside of true believers, they don't say "Oh well, so my kids have a diminished future, but it's for the greater good and social justice". Cause, like "humans".
SPS had a functioning compromise system that kept these parents in, offering Options and HCC/AL, etc... It wasn't "equitable" entirely, though engaged parents of those "furthest from educational justice" could and did participate as well, albeit less so. But it kept those kids in.
Now, we've decided that we want to radically push that conflict continuum away from "achievement" and more to "equity". That's fine, but as the move happens those same parents will bail out. Poorer, but engaged parents will demand charters to bail out.
Ultimately, it's a decision of where on the continuum of conflict between those two objectives the system is going to be. And it looks like they made their choice. And a big part is because everyone wants to avoid acknowledging that basic conflict between the two objectives.
I made two general arguments:
1) Part of the rationale for the new model of fewer larger schools is that SPS would like to offer the same special ed pathways at every school. That means they would less often need to say that a special ed student to enroll somewhere other than the student's attendance area school. It would reduce their attack surface in regard to lawsuits and criticism. And they spin that as being more inclusive. It's also true that SPS announced a new special ed service pathway last year called "Extended Resource" which combined EBD (now called the more anodyne SEL) and "Access," and they say the Extended Resource pathway is available at 41 sites. (https://www.seattleschools.org/news/new-special-education-service-pathway-for-the-2023-24-school-year/). This was also represented by the district as being more inclusive. As for how often SEL and Access students are actually included in regular classrooms, I have no idea and made no claim, though it's not never. Having them in the building at least makes it possible. It's absurd to say SPS "hates inclusion" or doesn't care about special ed students. They do what they can. But their IA capacity and budget are limited, so they do less than is theoretically possible (and get into a lot of conflicts with parents as a result). Special ed services are somewhat subject to economies of scale, so having fewer, larger schools would increase their delivery capacity at least a little bit, and I give them credit in thinking that's genuinely part of the motive.
2) the idea of multiplying option schools to draw high-resource families back into the system is totally not gonna happen for equity reasons. The idea of creating more foreign language immersion programs or a fine art academy, as Westneat suggests, is hopelessly naive. The equity warriors will not allow it. And no one is willing to fight them for it. The problem is the feedback loop that develops when high-resource families pile into these great option schools, leaving a relatively more challenging population in attendance area schools (not just special ed, but also students who just aren't into book learning and don't want to be there).
I understand that Pathfinder is different from the sort of option school Westneat is thinking of. I personally know Pathfinder students and their families. Here is a data point: SPS senior staff want to close the program. Is that because they are stupid and uninformed about the type of students who go there? I don't think so. I think they know exactly what Pathfinder is, and they want to close it anyway. I think I know why, but probably someone else knows better, so I won't burden anyone with my speculation.
Speddie
Seattle had magnet schools--radio at Hale, BioTech and Maritime at Ballard, Fire Science at Beach, etc. One of those caused a really big lawsuit.
SP
SPS has the data on every student who leaves. Every student who departs for any reason as well as any student who requests an out of district transfer, but remains in Seattle.
It would be a relatively straightforward task to publish the demographics of the departures and then there would be some facts. It is entirely possible that statistically significant number of students leave for better sped and HC services.
But without access to the data, we simply have a lot of stories.
SP, I'm drawing a blank. What lawsuit?
"They were right about spectrum. It was a segregated bastion of white privilege stocked full of private tester inners designed to provide great educations to those who would pay. Extra everything for them. Slightly gifted is not a thing."
It never fails to come up. Look, the DISTRICT created all of that. You cannot blame parents for accessing programs that the district created. Also, again, any low-income student had free private testing and eventually, they just said no private testing. Many Spectrum students went into HCC. Lastly, Spectrum kids and HCC kids NEVER got anything "extra." They operated out of the same curriculum, books, etc.
Please let this go.
SP
SP