Seattle Schools Community Forum

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...

Let's see. One story is that the District is consistent in collecting fines from the State over workplace safety violations for Local 609 members.  It's a sad thing because 1) it's money walking out the door (just this money $32K) and 2) because apparently the District does not care enough about the safety of its employees.  (I'll note this is not the first time for the District - they have paid out $28K in fines since 2011).  It's things like not properly training employees to use equipment that can burn their hands or amputate fingers.  No emergency eye wash station.  No training on hazardous chemicals.  Out of eight violations, seven were labelled by the Department of Labor and Industries as "serious." The West Seattle Blog reports that the largest elementary in West Seattle, Schmitz Park, is receiving three more portables (for what I was told is called "Schmitzville" by parents) this month.  They are expecting 642 kids at SP in Septe...

There's a story in today's Seattle Times about the re-assignment of the former head of Nutrition Services, "Seattle schools nutrition director tried, now he's off the menu" . The article is by Nicole Brodeur and it provides about a third of the story, so it's impossible to determine the actual course of events, but the former nutrition director of Seattle Public Schools, Eric Boutin, is no longer in that role. There is some vague, dark talk that suggests that he was somehow forced out by the union, but there are no facts and there's no explanation. Ms Brodeur only tells one side of the story and doesn't even tell all of that, but it clearly prompts union bashing (which dutifully appears in the comments after the story). Where is the District's Communication department riding to the rescue? Nowhere.

The Board had a half-day retreat last Saturday with all the directors in attendance.   Others in the room included Noel Treat, head legal counsel, Holly Ferguson, director of policy and governance, Susan Enfield, superintendent, Karen Reed, consultant, Theresa Hale, School Board office administrator.  (There was to be someone from the Alliance but she didn't show.  This was somewhat disturbing to me because even though the Alliance states they now want to guide SPS policy, I have no idea why the Board thinks this should be so.) Michael DeBell and Sherry Carr have been the lead directors around this work.  This work is slated to be finished and voted on by the Board by May./June 2011.   Karen Reed led and guided the discussion. This retreat was around revisions/additions to core policies around the Governance and Oversight Policy .  Basically, what is the work that the Board does?  Namely: Board Oversight of Management - purpose, oversigh...