Seattle Schools Community Forum

Don Kennedy, the former CFOO of Seattle Public Schools was kicked out on his ass a year ago. The School Board softened his landing with six months' severance, but now we know ( from this Seattle Times article ) that he has landed in clover as the interim operations chief in Bridgeport, Connecticut. At $900 a day, and assuming a 260 day contract, that's $234,000 a year. Any questions? He'll have to get back to you on that. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, as we know, has been made the superintendent of the state-run district in Michigan which is made up of all of the "failing" schools taken over by the state. I have no doubt that she got that position based on her analogous success with the Southeast Education Initiative here in Seattle. In case you're wondering, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson really did declare that effort a success. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson rather famously (or infamously) denied any responsibility for the scandal in the RSBDP saying that she couldn't be expected...

My, but this was a year of change for Seattle Public Schools. Change at the top. The biggest news of the year was the sudden dismissal of the superintendent, Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson. The Board, which had dragged their feet from June to March in response to the State Auditor's report, acted expeditiously between their receipt of a report from an internal investigation of the Regional Small Business Development Program and their decision to fire the superintendent. We can make all kinds of conjecture about why the Board decided to fire her, but we need to give strong credence to their stated reason: they no longer felt that they could trust her. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson had been losing the Board's trust bit by bit in a number of other incidents over the course of the previous three years. The "Pottergate" scandal was just the last step - a big one - that took her over the line. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was fired "without cause" and took a year's pay (over a qua...

Yes, it's going to be Open Thread tonight. Be our eyes and ears at the School Board meeting for those who can't go or watch. They don't take shots of the audience so if you recognize any of the usual suspects, let us know. I want impressions, details and your thoughts. (If you go see Wendy Kopp, let us know how that goes as well.)

The stories are flying fast and furious. The Seattle Times has a story about the coming ouster of the Superintendent and COO. A couple of choice quotes: "It's a sad situation," DeBell said after the meeting. "Maria is a good person. Don Kennedy is a good person. "But when they have that much responsibility, they have to be held accountable." Asked if she let him down, as one of the School Board members who had hired her, DeBell said that "lax management and lax oversight let the city down." So wait, does that mean he believes the Board was lax? Again, this isn't about likability or if someone is good. It's about skills, ethics and vision. I believe MGJ has the skills to be a good superintendent but not the ethics or vision. She made bad choices in the name of her vision and was trying to marginalize the Board and consolidate power since the day she got here. Maybe for legal reasons DeBell couldn't say outright - "...

Following an executive session, the Board has amended the agenda for tomorrow's Board meeting by adding votes for the termination of the superintendent and the appointment of Dr. Enfield as the interim superintendent. From the amended agenda: Approval of this item would terminate without cause the employment of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson as the District’s Superintendent. See the Board Action Report here . And this one: Approval of this item would terminate without cause the employment of Donald Kennedy as the District’s Chief Financial and Operations Officer. With it's own Board Action Report . And finally this one: Approval of this item would elect Dr. Susan Enfield to serve as Interim Superintendent and authorize the Board President to execute an Interim Superintendent Employment Agreement with Dr. Enfield on behalf of the Board. With a Board Action Report as well. All of them are for introduction and action at tomorrow's meeting. Immediate action is in the best interes...

Charlie went over what he thought striking from the Board's Investigative report. Here's mine: Another factor that may have contributed to decisions by employees not to take their concerns to the Board was the communication protocol developed in conjunction with the Board and instituted by Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson. The communication protocol was intended to streamline requests for information between the Board and District employees and was not intended to cut off employees’ access to the Board. Although the policy explicitly encouraged employees to bring concerns relating to activities that were not in the best interest of the District to the attention of management and promised no negative repercussions for doing so, some employees, including the internal auditor, believed the policy prohibited employees from having direct contact with the Board or the Superintendent. (bold mine) We also discovered that the Superintendent plays no active role in the budget formatio...

Danny Westneat of the Times has a column about the financial crisis. In his own dry way, he picks out the issue which is says is not what happened but how district leadership reacted. I kind of agree. As Goodloe-Johnson told one investigator: It was happening "too far down." So far down she didn't know a thing about it, and therefore isn't responsible. Oops. Wrong answer. Kennedy, the CFO, said that even in hindsight, and even though the troubled program with all its red flags was in his department, he wouldn't have done a thing differently. Really wrong answer. It's never the wrongdoing that gets you. What matters is how you deal with it. He breaks it down: This scandal is also a perfect storm of Seattle school neuroses. It was born of political correctness. Nurtured by lax management. Prolonged by timidity about race. The program, launched to bring racial equity to construction hiring, was considered "untouchable," employees tol...

Please send an e-mail as soon as you can with what you think the Board should be doing. I can tell you what I think but really, you have to decide what you think is best and LET THEM KNOW. They are going to make a decision this weekend and probably announce on Monday (unless MGJ's lawyer ties them up in knots). I believe the Superintendent and Don Kennedy should be let go for cause. I believe that Phil Brockman is the most honorable and believable person to be interim Superintendent. I believe the Board should careful examine the role of legal counsel, Ron English, in this episode and whether he did do, as an officer of the court, all he should have done.

Seattle School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson and Don Kennedy, the district's chief financial and operations officer, should have done more to ensure that the manager of the district's small-business program wasn't misusing district money, according to the attorney hired to determine who should be held accountable . This is what the report from the lawyer, Patty Eakes, who the Board hired to investigate the current scandal according to the Times . She does conclude that MGJ and Kennedy had limited knowledge of the program. (First, when did she interview the Super? On the phone? Second, every single program is supposed to be in their knowledge base.) She says: no evidence that anyone expressed their concerns to MGJ about the program beyond an unfavorable review of the program (somewhat a hilarious statement because really who would go to her? I can't think of anyone who might feel comfortable going to her with the attitude she projects). MGJ trus...