This and That

The Rainer Beach High School boys basketball team took the state championship and the Garfield High School boys basketball team took third. Congrats to ALL these hard-working young men bringing these wins home!

 

The Board was to have an Executive Session before this week's Board meeting but that was pulled yesterday. 

Notable on Wednesday's School Board meeting agenda:

- Personnel report reflects that long-time legal counsel John Cerqui is leaving. As well, the principal of Chief Sealth International High School, Ray Garcia-Morales, is leaving as well. You may remember he was involved in a major accident on the West Seattle bridge where he alleged to have grabbed the wheel of the car while the car was moving, after a drunken verbal attack on his girlfriend who fled the scene.  As well, we see the announcement of Principal Martin Floe's retirement from Ingraham High School. 

- There are to be a couple of progress monitoring and goal updates. What is a bit hilarious is the progress monitoring says that updates should not be "sugar-coated" and vague. Take a look at Goal 3 "College & Career Readiness Memo. I would venture that presentation is just that. 

 

- As usual, the Board continues to allow most BEX/BTA actions to be rolled into the Consent agenda. Honestly, I think those staff members must smile at the freedom they have to do what THEY want without question. 

For example, one item is a window replacement project at Eckstein Middle School for over $12M. Does Eckstein deserve this? Absolutely but what they REALLY need is a renovation. It is shocking to me the 180 degree turn the district did about a decade ago and now we see many more renovations to elementary schools while many middle schools suffer in old, inefficient buildings. 

But will any Board director even stop and point this out? Nope. 

Then there's the Queen Anne Elementary project that started out in December 2021 at about $5.2M and was completed in November 2024. Somehow they ended up paying $2M more for structural issues like rot and cracks. The cracks issue is confusing because they make it sound like they were able to see them so why weren't they on the list? "The change orders were significantly greater than expect for a project of this magnitude." 

No kidding. And yet it happens over and over almost like someone in BEX/BTA makes a decision to NOT mention all the building issues in the first iteration of the budget issues and then they come back to the Board later with why they need more money. 

But no one is asking any questions. 

The third one - for Van Asselt - is a "school field lighting project." This is for about $600K. (Naturally, there was a change order because the electrical panel has "less than anticipated capacity." Wouldn't looking at the electrical panel be the FIRST thing you do? hmm)

But my real question is the need for an elementary school to have a lighted field. I'm probably behind on this info but what SPS elementaries have lighted fields?

 

- Here's a biggie - the annual vote to accept the approval of each school in the district and their school improvement plan. That's the CSIP. There is a list of what items have to be in the CSIP. Well, as the HC parents have proven, some schools have the notation "under progress" in their CSIP for HC students. 

How is that okay with the Board?

There is no requirement that the School Board approve each school's CSIP. Instead, the requirement is only that the School Board ensures that the plans exist.

All the Board has is the promise from staff that they exist unless the Board members have done a spot-check.

 

Remember this for the future.

Regional Executive Directors of Schools are the central office leads for ensuring schools are making good-faith effort (sic) toward implementing and achieving their CSIP goals.

 

I have no idea how the EDs would define "good-faith effort."

There will be "a Highly Capable Services Update" but of course there is no documentation at this point. That's by design for sure. 

Ditto on "Strategic Planning Update." 

There was a report to the Board at the Audit committee meeting on rotating audits of schools, this time Nathan Hale High School. One disturbing fact: 

The volunteer sign-in log, located at the Nathan Hale office front desk, from 9/03/24-
12/19/24 was reviewed and compared to the official District volunteer application and
background check status record. 41 total volunteers signed in at the school during this
time period. Of the 41 volunteers logged at the school:
• 24 volunteers had current background checks and approval to volunteer
• 2 volunteers had applied, however, errors resulted from their background check,
incomplete information was provided, and one was expired.
• 15 volunteer sign-ins were not approved or listed as having a completed
background check. 2 of the 15 were illegible names. 13 had clearly written names
and did not have a record of applying or securing the appropriate approval to
volunteer.

That's a lot of volunteers who have not been vetted. Apparently, they only have one person who is program liaison, the Administrative Secretary. I'm sure it's a lot of work but you simply cannot have unvetted adults at schools.

Hale got high marks on their "cash handling and receipting." One not-so-great thing is that the combination to their safe hasn't been changed in 6 years. The recommendation is to change it when people who do know it leave the school.