A Few Interesting Items at Today's Audit Committee Meeting

Director Liza Rankin called the meeting to order. Neither Director Evan Briggs (Chair) nor Joe Mizrahi (Member) were there. However, new director Jen LaVallee was there. I was impressed with how LaVallee engaged with others at the meeting.

Agenda here. 

Among the staff were Superintendent Fred Podesta, Bev Redmond (Communications), Sarah Pritchett (HR), and Andrew Medina, Internal Auditor. 

Another person in the room who I recognized before she was introduced was former Board director, Sherry Carr. She has apparently raised her hand to volunteer to be an advisor to the committee and I think they are very lucky to have her. 

Apparently the district hired yet ANOTHER consulting firm - the BERC Group* - to do a review of three areas of the district. Those were:

- Community Partnerships

- PTA Facility Usage

- Personal Services Contracts

(On the agenda there was a notation that there would be a "corrective action plan" put forth from these findings but it was crossed out. Ted Howard, Accountability Officer, said that they want to review the recommendations and their associated costs.) 

It is, of course, always a good idea to know how the district is doing in working with outside groups, businesses, and individuals. 

It was interesting that when I previewed the materials before the meeting, I found myself shaking my head, over and over. Basically, it was "It's 2025 and they STILL don't have this work fully systemized?" and "Wait, what? Who is vetting volunteers at schools?

However, the discussion was quite calm and the issues I was concerned about were not really discussed. Here's some of what I read; I'll be interested to see what you think.

Community Partnerships:

Our evaluation was through the lens of four anchors of quality: clarity (roles, approvals, and requirements), academic alignment (fit with school priorities such as the CSIP), safety (background checks, insurance, supervision, and liability), and consistency/equity (how similar expectations are understood and applied across sites).

Absolutely valid on each point. 

The findings highlight where accountability and safety expectations are least visible or most variable, especially for student-facing work, so that school leaders and central teams share a common understanding of what “effective” looks like and can build on what’s working while providing the tools, knowledge, and procedural guidance to sunset partnerships or contracts that do not serve the best interests of SPS students.

BERC found that the MOU (memorandum of understanding) process itself "was relatively robust by the time this project began." However, 

Once partnerships were in motion, however, the system had far fewer routines for checking 

implementation and outcomes. District staff consistently pointed to the absence of a routine 

rhythm to revisit scopes, SMARTIE goals, or other commitments once the MOU was signed. 

One central staff member reflected that “twice a year I lead partner meetings with school leaders and I do site visits with certain partners… but we just don’t have that space to do it right now,” signaling individual attempts at quality assurance without a districtwide system. 

Troubling:

Despite working towards improved intake documentation, schools and central staff had only partial visibility into whether partnerships were delivered as described, whether they were advancing outcomes, or how well they remained aligned to evolving school priorities after launch. Decisions to continue or end partnerships were often based on relationship history or perceived goodwill rather than on a shared set of implementation and impact data.

Even more troubling is the section on Uneven Safety Practices:

Expectations around background checks and training were included in the template, but responsibility for carrying them out and storing verification often rested with the partner organization. One central leader recalled hearing only “bits and pieces” about “the accountability of background checks,” and another, discussing sexual-misconduct training, explained that “there’s language in the personal services contract that everybody that works with kids has to complete the sexual misconduct training. The scary part is I don’t know if that’s being verified—they could just email me that they did that and go on campus today. Who double checks to make sure you did that?

In conversations about potential improvements, one idea was that “if someone’s working with kids, they have to go through the Samaritan system, and then the background checks live with you [central office], rather than the partner just saying, ‘We’ve done background checks on our four employees.’” At the same time, leaders emphasized that staffing for safety systems was minimal; one remarked that “we have one person that does the volunteer checks and all that for the whole district,” calling this “a big issue as well.” 

The Samaritan system appears to be what the district uses in vetting community partners, volunteers, etc. 

There is a "Youth Program Services Roster" which is a list of vetted partners that is used by both central office and principals.

Even among central staff directly engaged in partnership work, the roster’s scope, vetting criteria, and update process were unclear. For principals, this meant that the roster was not a reliable tool for identifying vetted providers and no one interviewed knew how partners got onto the list or what being listed signified. As a result, schools continued to rely on informal networks and historical relationships, and the district lacked a simple, transparent mechanism to direct schools toward organizations that had met consistent standards.

BERC had good suggestions (which they would love to help implement) on these issues.  One big one:

The district should conduct a comprehensive audit of all partnerships. At the building level, this 

audit can be conducted by principals and their leadership teams, while at the district level, this 

can be conducted by Curriculum and Instruction or Accountability teams. Teams can collect and 

review documentation related to project scope, CSIP alignment, safety compliance (e.g., background checks, insurance), and deliverables. The goal is to identify gaps or inconsistencies in CSIP alignment, and inform future approval, renewal, or sunsetting decisions. 

In terms of volunteers:

For safety, consistency, and legal compliance, all partners and contractors working directly with students must complete the district’s Samaritan system application process. This important tool that is already in use for volunteers brings the background check process into district control and ensures that records are up to date and people that should not be doing work in the district are flagged before they enter a building. 

 

The Samaritan registration should be non-negotiable and monitored regularly to ensure that only fully vetted individuals and organizations are engaging with students in any capacity. Standardizing this requirement will also build trust with families and ensure that school-based programming adheres to the highest standards of student safety and legal accountability.

No kidding. From reading all three reports, all I could think was that the district is putting themselves in a very bad position to continue to get sued. 

PTA Facility Usage

In their intro, BERC mentions the many roles PTA plays in schools including funding staff. But this report was not about fundraising; apparently that will be for another day.

This strand of the audit focuses on how PTA funding and facility use intersect with studentng activities in SPS: PTA-funded staffing and programs, PTA-sponsored vendors working with students in school spaces, and PTA use of district facilities (often under rent waivers or reduced-fee arrangements). The aim is to describe the current state of these practices, identify core equity and oversight challenges, and outline corrective actions that preserve the strengths of PTA engagement while providing clearer, fairer boundaries for schools and families.

The ways in which PTAs engage external providers, use facilities, and blend PTA dollars with other funding sources have also created confusion about roles and expectations. Principals and central staff voiced a desire for clearer district guidance. During the course of our evaluation alone, multiple instances of PTAs wanting to engage a provider but running into roadblocks because of unclear pathways and guidelines occurred, with district staff wondering why these guidelines didn’t exist in the first place.

BERC's findings were:

• Lack of Clear Guardrails
• PTA-Sponsored Volunteers and Safety/Vetting Gaps
• Insurance and Liability
• Facility Use and Building-Level Processes

On Volunteers and Vetting:

PTA members and staff alike noted that there is “not sufficient staffing in central office to get 

background checks done quickly and effectively,” which has, in practice, led some schools to 

rely more heavily on parent volunteers to manage or track checks.

Volunteer management emerged as a major area of concern. Discussions with PTA interviewees

provide vivid examples of how, in the absence of clear and consistently applied processes at 

some buildings, PTA volunteers have been placed in quasi-official roles with significant 

responsibility for safety-related tasks.

In one case, “one lady was supposed to do the background checks, a parent, on volunteers for a frisbee [program] (on other parents),” and “no one on staff asked if all of these people passed the background checks.” In another school, a parent volunteer served as “a volunteer coordinator… [whose] job is to check [and] make sure that everyone has done what they have had to do, including background check.” 

These arrangements blur the line between district responsibilities and volunteer contributions and create significant liability and safety risks if not supported by clear oversight.

You think?

Recommendations

PTAs should no longer be asked to manage checks or determine whether someone has “passed.” Instead, central staff and school offices should have clear visibility into each volunteer’s status.

Principals, office managers, and designated staff should know how to confirm whether a PTA volunteer has completed the background-check process, what the different clearance levels mean in terms of whether a volunteer can be alone with a student or must remain under supervision, and what steps to take if a volunteer has not yet been cleared. This training should be repeated periodically and accompanied by written guidance, so that turnover in front offices does not erode capacity.

The same principle should apply to PTA-sponsored vendors and programs. Any external 

organization working with students on school property must meet the district’s standard safety 

and insurance requirements, irrespective of whether funding comes from PTA, PTO, grants, or 

district budgets. Staff of those organizations should complete required background checks and 

trainings, and their insurance should be documented and verified through the district’s existing 

system. PTAs should not serve as fiscal sponsors in ways that shift liability onto them; instead, 

outside organizations should clearly carry their own coverage.

 

On Facility Use and Building-Level Processes

PTA leaders highlighted facility use as a major source of “confusion and chaos,” but emphasized 

that the difficulty often stems from building-level processes rather than from the district itself. 

They reported that “confusion and chaos comes from principal/front office [who] puts up hoops 

for getting facility use forms filled and sent.”

 

For PTAs, the desire is straightforward: “We want to build community via these events,” and they would like a clear, predictable building-level process where the school says, in effect, “here are dates and facility use forms.” When this happens, PTAs felt, “the district process moves smoothly for the PTA.” When it does not, they experience delays, mixed messages, or inconsistent requirements.

I was interested to see this recommendation:

The district should fuse existing leadership structures to anchor this collaboration. As part of the 

Summer Leadership Institute, SPS could host a principal–PTA kickoff breakfast or session where 

the new PTA partnerships guidance is introduced, expectations are clarified, and examples of 

strong principal–PTA collaboration are highlighted. This is an opportunity for principals and PTA 

representatives to hear the same messages at the same time, ask questions together, and leave 

with shared commitments for the year.

When I was a co-president of a PTA, there WAS a principal/PTA leader breakfast. Hmmm

By making joint learning and engagement an expected, yearlong practice, SPS can strengthen 

trust, reduce misunderstandings, and align PTA efforts more tightly with school and district 

goals. Instead of confronting challenges only when a problem arises—a denied event request, a 

last-minute background-check issue, or an equity concern about a PTA-funded program—

principals and PTAs will have a standing structure for addressing them together.

Personal Services Contracts

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) uses Personal Services Contracts (PSCs) to bring in external 

expertise for a wide array of purposes.

Over time, the number and variety of student-facing PSCs have increased. Principals and 

program leaders have often turned to PSCs as a flexible tool, allowing them to respond to 

emerging needs, leverage grant or philanthropic funding, and pilot new services. Many of these 

contracts are perceived as essential supports, especially in schools with complex student needs or 

limited internal staffing. 

 

At the same time, district leaders have grown increasingly concerned that the systems surrounding PSCs were built primarily for fiscal and legal control, and not for the kind of safety, academic alignment, equity, and evaluation that are necessary when contracted adults work directly with students.

There is no separate academic or risk-based review embedded in the standard route for 

student-facing PSCs.

School-Led Vetting and Oversight: PSCs Place Responsibility on Principals 

Student-facing PSCs are typically initiated at the school level. Principals or other building 

leaders identify a perceived need, select a provider, and work with office staff to complete the 

PSC packet. In many cases, the impetus comes from informal networks or staff recommendations. One interviewee described how a teacher might approach the principal and say, “Hey, my friend works at such-and-such school, and they’re using TIPS tutors. Can we use TIPS tutors?” The principal, trusting the teacher, might respond, “Yeah… why don’t you look into it,” setting in motion the contracting process.

Some principals do this work thoroughly, drawing on experience, cross-school conversations, 

and local data. Others, constrained by time and competing demands, may rely more heavily on 

reputation or the perceived credibility of the person making the recommendation. Central offices 

have limited visibility into the criteria schools use or the decisions they make. There is no 

standard vetting checklist or shared framework, and no expectation that student-facing PSCs be 

reviewed by content experts for alignment with curriculum and instructional practices.

Another conversation raised the broader question: “There’s partners already doing work. Where 

is the accountability? Where is the impact analysis?” These reflections highlight an absence of 

shared tools, expectations, or rhythms for reviewing PSC-funded programs after they begin. 

At the system level, the district lacks a consolidated view of which PSC-funded programs exist, 

whom they serve, and how they perform. There is no structured way for positive models to be 

identified and scaled or for less effective or misaligned services to be phased out. This limits 

SPS’s ability to learn from PSC investments and to make evidence-informed decisions about 

where to focus future contracting. 

There is no built-in requirement that someone with responsibility for instruction confirm that a given contract is aligned with CSIP priorities, consistent with core curriculum, appropriate for the school’s context, or designed with clear educational outcomes in mind. A central leader captured this gap succinctly, saying, “I don’t think the issue is, like, fiduciary responsibility. I think that part is taken care of. I think it’s the academic part… that’s where this kind of all started. That plus safety.”

On the good side:

The fiscal architecture governing PSCs is widely regarded as strong. Staff described a clear 

system of thresholds and requirements. For services under a specified dollar amount, schools can 

proceed without formal competitive processes. Above certain amounts—often around $30,000 or 

$75,000 depending on context—informal quotes or full bidding processes are required. These 

rules reflect state and district procurement policies and are enforced consistently.

The rest of the meeting's topics were more dry. One interesting item - Audit Response Update - had a list of consultants in current use in SPS.

• Council of Great City Schools
• NSPRA (National School Public Relations Association)
• MWL Advisory, LLC (specialize in contract audit)
• Novak consulting (MTSS)
• Citadel Security Group
• Leading Edge Advisors
• Moss Adams
• Strategies 360
• Crowe LLP (audit and tax consulting)
• Westercamp Consulting

*The BERC Group is an independent evaluation, research, and consulting firm focused on putting research into practice. Our mission is to skillfully gather, analyze, and use data to inform, inspire, and improve all learning organizations. This firm is based in Bothell.