Superintendent Jones, Please Come Back

 Update: I was reminded that the bargaining between SPS and SEA just started today.  

Also, there is nothing on the SPS website about this and, apparently, there has been no notification to staff at schools. 

end of update

 I had just wanted to post about a couple of things said at last night's Board meeting but then I made the mistake of listening to the entire Enrollment section. 

First, here's what was said about Superintendent Brent Jones' absence:

President Gina Topp

This afternoon we are going to start with superintendent comments, but I just want to make note that Dr. Jones is on health/medical leave today and his intention is to return before September 3rd.
In his absence, the delegation of authority goes to the COO, Fred Podesta, who is here at the podium with us and ready to provide superintendent comments this evening.
 

Fred Podesta
Thank you President Topp. Fred Podesta, COO. I’m going to make comments on behalf of Dr. Jones, who can’t be with us tonight. We’ll be on medical leave for awhile. We wish him nothing but the best.

The Seattle Times had a story on this:

Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Brent Jones, who plans to leave his job Sept. 3, is on medical leave, according to the district.

Jones is expected to return to his post by the end of June and remain through his previously announced departure date, Bev Redmond, SPS chief of staff and spokesperson, said Wednesday.

That date was not mentioned last night, only the September date which I believe would be his last day in SPS. 

Fred Podesta, chief operations officer at SPS, will be in charge during Jones’ absence. Podesta’s title will remain the same, but he’ll have the authority to act on the superintendent’s behalf, including making decisions about major issues before the district, Redmond said.

Oh, I don't think Mr. Podesta will last in that position long, not if some on the Board have their way. I will note this endangers the superintendent search because looking in from the outside, it's yet more churn.  

I would love for Jones to come back but I doubt he will.

There are two reasons this all looks suspicious to me.

1) There was an Executive Session right before the Board meeting and it was about an employee. For the Board to do this, means it has to be very high-level and the only person they oversee is the superintendent.

2) As is Director Liza Rankin's nature, she gave yet another lengthy amount of comments to the Board. Right at the end, she went off on a tangent (which is also in her nature). She's talking about moving through the Board policy manual with updates and revisions. 

(I want to make clear that, despite what she goes on about, previous Boards HAVE done the same thing. In fact, it's been less than a decade since the last full overhaul. This would not be the first time that Rankin disrespects those who came before and it won't be the last at this meeting).  

Also, I am doing a verbatim transcription so it may be somewhat hard to follow.

Policy Committee, we met last week? And we will be meeting next week. We’re moving through our 1000 Series.

As a reminder, we are not rewriting or making new decisions for the full Board in that committee. We are, um, I heard something that’s actually quite ridiculous saying that the reason that and something online and and I’m out of these and I encourage everybody to just not pay attention to Facebook but sometimes people send them to me.

Apparently policy committee is my way of disempowering the whole Board and handing everything over to the Superintendent. (She giggles here.) And I cannot overstate the ridiculousness of that comment. 

No, they didn't hand everything over to the Superintendent and senior staff but they raised way up the spending limit of the superintendent. They got rid of oversight committees where the real issues got raised and the Board was informed of what was happening in the district. Yes, that's just ridiculous to think that those actions gave the superintendent more power. 

Policy is the law of the school district. Okay? Our power is in writing and upholding policy and holding the superintendent and staff accountable for following that policy. If we do not maintain our policy manual, we are giving up our voice as the Board on behalf of you the community. And leaving it open and leaving us with only having veto power over things that staff chooses to bring to us in meetings.

Again, the Board made decisions and yes, staff has less to bring to the Board. AND, the Board has decided to roll more and more items over to the Consent Agenda to avoid discussion. 

That is not power. That is not community representation. By taking control of our policy manual as the governing body that represents the entire community for the education of our children. We actually claim the authority that we should have as the representation of the people who own this school district, who is all of Seattle, in setting expectations, clearly describing to the superintendent and district what we expect, allowing you, the public, to see in our policy whether or not we are living up to our commitments that we made to you. And that it is our job to hold the superintendent accountable as the representative of the district to us to make sure that our district is delivering on the education that our community wants and our children deserve. 

So I just have got to make that extremely clear. Policy is the law. We get to write it. We’re responsible for enforcing it. And if we don’t do it we are giving up all of our authority. 

(Thank you off mic - I believe from Director Michelle Sarju).

Rankin spoke, at this point, - in total - about 10 minutes. 

I think this rant was about them getting rid of Jones. Rankin clearly thinks he didn't do his job and, as we shall see later on in the meeting, what she thinks he failed at.