Seattle Schools Community Forum

A few quick notes. 1) There's a photo of Lady Gaga at the SPS website regarding the RULER approach to students' emotional needs.  That was bit startling (although she does have another connection to SPS, namely the Mighty C89.5 station at Nathan Hale High that was one of her earliest supporters and that she visited early in her career.)  2) Also, the heart that the kids and staff at Greenwood Elementary created yesterday made the national news on NBC.  As well, the Mayor dropped by the school to offer his thanks to the school for their support of their community after the Greenwood explosion. Audit and Finance Agenda

Next Tuesday, Feb. 9th, Seattle voters will decide on the Seattle Schools' Operations levy and the BTA levy.  Both are renewals but at higher amounts than were voted on last time. Most of you know this is a sticky wicket for me.  I've frequently spoken out frequently against capital levies but not because they aren't needed, but because I don't think this district spends the money in either levy in a transparent manner.  I'm also not sure of their priorities for spending and, given how much parent unhappiness there is out there on many issues, failing a capital levy might be a good way to get the district's attention. Let's be clear on a few things.

Today I received a notice about the kick-off for the Seattle Schools levies via Schools First.  They also asked for money to help support and run the campaign.  But they started out saying: Fifty-two thousand students in Seattle’s public schools need our help. And I thought, "What? That's not the number of kids in SPS." So I went to the district's Fast Facts and here's what it says:

Yes, I like that Local 609 continues to stand up for its members who work for Seattle Schools.  They have, once again, prevailed in "wage theft" cases against the district.  From The Stand: In July, Local 609 attained settlements of $11,000 on behalf of six members in the Nutrition Department for missed meal and rest breaks that their work schedules prevented on a daily basis. As part of the settlement, a whole new employee time-reporting system has been implemented at Seattle School’s Nutrition Program that will help address this issue of missed breaks and unpaid “extra time.” They also settled an issue where workers were required to take mandatory training off the clock. This month, two settlements of just under $30,000 were also achieved on behalf of two longtime workers in the Facilities Department of the School District, who had been misclassified for nine years. This settlement was a lengthy and extremely difficult process. No, I don't like that t...

Tonight's Board meeting is the last for this particular make-up of the Board.  They certainly are leaving with major issues that will be decided tonight. Items of note for tonight's meeting:

It will be quite the week by the time we all get to the end of it. From SPS Communications : Tuesday, Nov. 3 Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) community gathering cancelled Due to an unforeseen circumstance we must cancel and reschedule the Nov. 3, 2015 DHH Community Gathering. A critical component for this meeting is appropriate interpretation services. Despite early requests and multiple agency contacts, interpretation services were not secured. The district was informed of this on Oct. 30.

Not so many comments but a lot of QAE parents coming in support of Principal David Elliott.  Several of them did manage to speak on QAE via BTA IV and thought acquitted themselves quite nicely.

 Update:  here is a link to all the updated BTA IV documents .  There is now a line: Capital and Technology Financing Obligations principal payments - $8.1M Where did this money come from (did they add dollars or rearrange?)  They rearranged but I'm not sure what projects lost what. Now I did ask if this is all just to pay off JSCEE.  The answer was...not sure.  I really would love a full accounting of all that has been paid into JSCEE, how much remains, when payments are due and when there is an end in sight.  This is patently ridiculous at this point.  While I realize there is virtually NO one at JSCEE who helped enact this nonsense, the fact of the matter is a lot of people there - both on the Board and in management - have kicked this can down the road for a very long time. end of update In advance of Wednesday's public comment meeting for BTA IV levy and the Operations levy, I have uploaded the handout from the community meetings ...

A quiet week but maybe the quiet before the storm that may be the results of elections next week. The UW's College of Education Master in Ed Policy is having a documentary film series on public education with panel discussions on each topic covered in each film.  This week, they will cover The Cartel. The   Cartel ;  Tuesday, October 27th, 6-8pm , 120 Smith Hall, UW Seattle

I attended the Operations/BTA IV community meeting at Roosevelt this week.  It was disappointing on several fronts. Attending staff included Charles Wright, Flip Herndon, Tom Redman, Joe Wolf, Richard Best, and Carmen Rahm (and a budget staffer whose name I didn't hear and can't find at the district website). There was a dizzying array of handouts.  I don't know if staff has something against trees or cannot devise a couple of handouts to cover the issues but this was overload.

Editor's Note; there are two important groups of meetings over the next three weeks.  One is for the Feb. 2016 renewal levies for Operations and BTA IV, the other group is for Bell Times Analysis.  If both issues are important to you, plan accordingly. I would love for staff not to eat up 30+ minutes explaining the levies and just give an overview and have more Q&A for the ENTIRE group (not just 20 minutes and then force everyone to ask any further questions one-on-one.)

I believe that this year is to be a pivotal one in public education - for our district, our state and nationally. I'll go in reverse order.

Those two factors - a hot summer night and a full moon - might just set things off.  Word is that many Middle College supporters will be at the meeting and want to be heard.  Here are some updates from the supporters (and that includes me):

Update :  here's the presentation that Dr. Herndon is giving at the Board meeting. Early on  at tomorrow night's School Board meeting there will be a " Levies 2016 Update" that starts off with this ludicrous statement:

Seen the new district website ?  I haven't used it yet but I think it looks much better.  (I do think their Facebook/Twitter/Instagram section is too big and too prominent.  Also,  the district calendar is way too hard to find. And again, why do they call Enrollment "Admissions?") Monday, June 1 Community Meeting with Director McLaren from 6-7 pm at the Southwest branch Library. Tuesday, June 2nd BTA IV Capital Levy Community Meeting from 6:30-8:30 pm at the JSCEE. This is likely the ONLY community meeting until the fall so try to make it if you want to give input.  I suspect that after the meeting we will know the preliminary ideas for this levy.  My stand will be if more than one-third is for technology, I'm not supporting it.  You will likely be asked - after their draft plan is presented - to weigh in via e-mail.  I'll get that info for you later this week. Wednesday, June 3 Board meeting starting at 4:15 pm at the JSCEE.  (T...

Some topics of interest in the Friday Memo from the Superintendent and senior staff:

It was suggested to me to have a "Throwback Thursday"where we revisit what the district was going to do at a previous place in time.  (Luckily this reader also provided the topic.  Also, because district staff have a bad habit of not dating documents, I'll guess this was about 2009.) Here is the Future BEX IV list, circa BTA III. 

Want to "nominate" a project for BTA IV?  The deadline is Thursday, April 30th.  The form seems to be just for nominations for projects but frankly, use it to weigh in.  We would like your input regarding possible projects that may be included in our BTA IV capital levy. You may nominate a project for the BTA IV capital levy using our online form: http://bit.ly/BTA-IV-Nomination . Printable nomination forms and translated versions are posted on the Levies 2016 page . We will collect, record, consider and share your nomination with the Seattle School Board. The deadline to submit a nomination is April 30, 2015 . Read about the Seattle School Board's BTA IV project selection process, find contact links and get more information on the Levies 2016 page . Learn about all BTA capital projects at http://bta.seattleschools.org . Here's what I said in my nomination: The district needs to put an auditorium at Wilson-Pacific.  Why? One, there needs to b...

Seattle Senators add school construction funding for Seattle Public Schools to capital budget FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1 5 , 2015 The Senate capital budget would provide money for critical school construction projects in Seattle School District under an amendment proposed by the Seattle Senate delegation and adopted by the full Senate. The amendment was signed by Senators David Frockt, Jamie Pedersen, Sharon Nelson, Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Pramila Jayapal, Bob Hasegawa and Maralyn Chase. The amendment to SB 6080 would provide an additional $33 million over four years for school construction, renovations and improvements for local Seattle schools.

Let's start with the local which would be the Work Session on Seattle Schools becoming a charter authorizer.  This work session on was April 8th and the staff leads were Ronald Boyd (Legal),  Erin Bennett, Director Policy and Strategy Research, and Clover Codd, Executive Director of Strategic Planning & Partnerships. All the Board members were present as was Superintendent Nyland.  Nyland led with "From some time ago, the Board opposed them (charters) and that was then and this is now."   He said something about SPS being the biggest district.  He said the deadline to apply to to be an authorizer was in June and "we have just enough time to get on-board."   He also said SPS had " no option of not playing" as part of future levies will be going to charters (which is true).  He said SPS would want to know about charters located within district; what their focus is, location, etc.  He failed to mention that that information can be easily...