Seattle Schools Community Forum

Audit&Finance Committee (Audit) - from June 7, 2011

The Board Directors are busy attending high school graduations this week so the district is fairly light on meetings. There will be a Work Session with the topic "Strategic Plan Refresh" on Wednesday before the Board meeting . The Work Session is from 4-5:30 p.m. with the Board meeting starting at 6 p.m. There are no presentation materials yet available.

The Directors did their comment section, mostly about community meetings. However President DeBell did make a fairly major announcement. He read a formal statement that he would be recusing himself from any discussion or vote about certificated staff negotiations. His wife is a certificated nurse with SPS. He said as a practical matter his wife's employment would not affect his impartiality or judgment but he concluded that the statutes regarding his role would indicate that he should refrain talking to other Board members about that issue. He said he would attend Board meetings about this particular negotiation but only to listen. Steve Sundquist, in his role as Vice-President, would chair those meetings. Also as I said elsewhere, he said that they are in the processing of figuring out the non-compliance for Native American Students funding. (He also complimented Director Carr for meeting with some Native American parents.) He said now they are on a path to compliance. H...

( Update: Tuesday 4ish. Well, gone are both the Executive Sessions and now only the Work Session form 4-5:30 about SBOC is happening. Hey, look at that, Meg, me and Dan D. all made the speakers list. We're also hearing from the head of the SEA and some teachers as well. Also, not picking on Hale but I note that we are spending about $600K to rebuild Hale's greenhouse. It has to be moved over by Summit because City Parks wants their land back where the current one sits. It's a great program but man, I could think of a lot of maintenance that could be done with $600K.) Talk about packing it in! On Wednesday, before the Board meeting, the Board is having not one but two Executive Session plus, in-between, a Work Session. The first Executive Session is called a " quasi-judicial hearing" (this under an RCW) for a student bullying incident. I'm thinking it was the cyber-bullying over at McClure but who knows? They are allotting 15 minutes for this so it...

The contract with New Technology Network has been re-written and the new contract will be re-introduced at the next Board meeting on March 17. The Board can then re-approve it at their following Board meeting on April 7. The Contract has a new section which reads: (j) Specific Provisions relating to Cleveland High School. The parties acknowledge that the New Tech High Schools will be located at one campus, Cleveland High School. The two schools will be termed "academies", one for Engineering & Design and one for the Life Sciences. There will be a single principal for the campus, with separate assistant principals to lead the development and implementation of the two separate academies. The individual academies will have a separate identity wherever possible. Classes for each academy will be largely separated into one of the two main buildings at Cleveland. Students from both academies will continue to use the commons and gym. For the purposes of sports and extra-curricul...

Just found out that the Board retreat tomorrow is an open meeting but it's like a committee meeting - no interaction permitted. So if you are interested: Capitol Hill Public Library 425 Harvard Av E Seattle WA 98102 Board Retreat March 13, 2010, 10:30am Oddly, the agenda for the Board meeting for next week on the 17th is not yet available. I suspect that it will be a dogfight for the speakers list so get that phone call or e-mail into the Board office right at 8 am. Your best chance is to be addressing an Action item or Intro item so check that agenda . Also, just to follow up, there is a chart at the SB webpage on previous meetings. It says this about the Jan. 10th meeting: Approval of NTN contract for Cleveland STEM Michael De Bell just let me know that the NTN contract will be introduced at the meeting this week. So what did they vote on in January? I think they voted on picking NTN to be the provider, not the actual contract but that's what we were told.

This from my public disclosure request for the signed NTN contract: I wanted to provide you with an update regarding your request for an electronic copy of the finalized New Technology Network (NTN) contract. This contract has not been finalized between NTN and SPS. We anticipate finalizing and signing the contract as soon as all required documentation is completed. As soon as the contract has been signed by both parties, we will send you a final version. I had wondered aloud in another thread about issues other than staffing ones that I had raised in a previous thread. Maybe those will be addressed. I think I have some work to do on an e-mail to the Board this weekend in anticipation of the signing of the contract. What "soon" means, I don't know. I know that the one at the website was labeled "draft" but as Charlie has pointed out, it was published 2 days before the vote. How much could have changed? So, as of now, they have NOT signed a...

I went through the NTN contract and found any number of concerns. I wrote them up and handed them to each Director at this afternoon's Board Work Session on the budget. I got there early and was able to ask Harium about it. I only asked about the issue of separate schools with separate staffs versus two academies in one school. He claims that in the appendix with the criteria this is not true. So I went back and reread that. It is open for interpretation. You could either see it as each academy is a school (and therefore has to have its own totally separate staff from the other academy/school). Or, what it means is that Cleveland can't be bigger than 450. Here's the actual wording: Size: Schools will be designated a small school with no more than 450 students for grades 9-12, with a firm commitment from the district to hold enrollment level. I would read that as saying the school can't be bigger than 450. But I still think Harium is wrong because the last pag...

Now that the decision-making of the Board has been given a bright public spotlight via the math adoption ruling, I thought it might be worth going over what each Director had to say last Wednesday on the NTN $800,000 contract ruling. First, Dr. Enfield gave a CAO report on NTN. She had a chart comparing different programs similiar to NTN but she zipped through it so fast, I had no time to read it. She also claimed that staff, community and parents support NTN. My notes reflect: "I'd like to see the data on that." I'm sorry but I sincerely doubt that they asked parents and community about which program to buy. Her points on NTN: all-school package with project-based learning timeline planning development national network of other schools web-based resources I didn't do research and maybe Dan D. did so maybe he can help us out. But one of the biggest points (if not the main point) is the NTN is the only source of all that we need to lay the foundation to get ...

I just wanted to set the tone for what followed after the speakers portion of the Board last night. So, per new Board tradition, they had some high school students speak. Last night these students were from Roosevelt. They were speaking on a high school group they had formed called STICK (I know it's something like Student Team for Information, something, something - I'll find it). What this group does is try to follow district activities especially as it affects students. For example, they created a video (I was in it) explaining the new SAP to RHS students. They then did a survey to students and of those who answered, 65% said they felt better informed after viewing the video. Now they are trying to branch this group out to other high schools in the hope for all high school students to be more aware of the decisions made that affect their academic lives. I think it's a fine idea for these young people to want to do this and be part of the process. There were a...

The Board voted 4-2 to buy the NTN program for the STEM program at Cleveland. (Michael DeBell was not present and Smith-Blum and Patu voted against.) I left after the vote (in disgust) and so missed the LA Adoption vote (but I can guess). This after speakers who seemed to showcase all that is not working in this district. I still believe that most Board members get into office, drink some kind of Kool-aid and just turn off just enough common sense that makes them then side with the staff. Every. single. time. I will write a blow-by-blow (because you should understand what each director said and they each spoke; there's some great new info on the SAP I didn't know) but I'm pretty tired and discouraged now.

The School Board has a meeting this Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 6 p.m. The agenda is quite full. Among the items: approval of the NTN contract for STEM for $800,000. As has been widely discussed here, there are some troubling aspects of this contract with the bottom line being that it might not be the best and most cost-effective way to set up STEM at Cleveland. The Board has pushed back a lot and now we will see if they stand by their objections or not. From the agenda item: "The funding source for this project will be a combination of Learning Assistance Program (LAP), Building Excellence (BEX), and Cleveland High School budget dollars. Federal and private grant opportunities are also being pursued. " Which BEX and how much from each source? It's this kind of vagueness that always comes back to bite the Board. High school LA arts adoption. The 2010-2011 schedule is being introduced on Wednesday night.September 8th will be the first day of school and June 21 (!) the...

I heard back from Director Carr on her query to Dr. Enfield about NTN (New Tech Network). Her reply: Yes. Here is the text that was included in the document: The New Tech Network started in 1996 as a replication model for schools focused on building 21 st Century Learning Skills through a project-based learning experience. This network currently includes 41 schools across nine states. Within this broader network, 13 high schools (31%) have a focus on STEM content. In 2008, New Tech Network became a wholly owned subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation based out of Ohio. KnowledgeWorks was originally a student loan organization that converted into an endowed foundation. It is governed by a board of directors comprised of business, education and community leaders. A list of their board members can be found at: http://www.kwfdn.org/about/board . I looked at the link. They look good but it does seem like NTN would have this at their own websi...