Seattle Schools Community Forum

It looks like the NWEA (the company that gives the MAP testing ) had a "denial of service" attack today.  This was at about 11 am and they sent a message out about the attack saying, "MAP is currently unavailable.  We apologize for the inconvenience."   Don't know any SPS schools were giving MAP today. I was doing some research on FERPA and found this clause: A school must inform eligible students of how it defines the terms "school official" and "legitimate educational interest" in its annual notification of FERPA rights.  Did anyone read their FERPA form carefully for this info?  Was it included? As to who on the Board might have requested the staff memo about charters schools , I got a little clarification but it's still a bit unclear.  Apparently someone senior thought the Board should know about the Oct 1 deadline for districts to file a Letter of Intent to become charter authorizers, told the Board and then Director McLar...

Tuesday, June 4th The Board will be evaluating the Superintendent in an Executive Session.  I would think that he would get a pretty favorable evaluation given that he has filled some key posts.  As well, at yesterday's Board retreat, various people were thanking others.  Director Carr said, about Banda's efforts on the Strategic Plan, that she appreciated his collaborative attitude as compared to the previous SP which she labeled "top-down." Wednesday, June 5th Board Meeting , starting at 4:15 pm.   Agenda . I regret to inform you that, once again, the school calendar for next year has been pulled off the agenda by the Superintendent.  I would assume this is about the teachers contract but this is now getting very late for next year's calendar.   Cleveland High School will name its library after a teacher who taught there for 25 years, Edward Landon, and was beloved by students. The district is getting a grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundat...

From Superintendent Banda via SPS Communications (red highlight mine): In February we formed a Task Force on Assessments and Measuring Progress to review our testing policies and explore concerns about the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. This group, comprised of principal, teacher, student, family and community representatives, met eight times and developed a list of recommendations for the 2013-14 school year. I want to thank this group for their time and efforts. This proved to be an effective and productive opportunity to work together to develop constructive solutions that put students first while addressing the concerns raised by some of our staff. I look forward to ongoing discussions about the use of assessments to support teaching and learning in our district. Based on this Task Force’s feedback, I am making the following decisions regarding the MAP assessment for the 2013-14 school year: ·        ...

According to the Seattle Times , the Assessment Taskforce is recommending that MAP not be mandatory for high schools...next year.  But it will still be mandatory for K-8.  The Taskforce will deliver their report to the Superintendent on Monday and then have the full report available later in the week.  Here's what the Times says they said: Among them: The MAP test alone should not be used to determine whether a student can enter a certain program; assessment results should be more clearly communicated to families; and teachers should be better trained to administer and understand assessment.  What the group didn’t address is how each school will determine optional use of the test, leaving that decision to each school’s leadership.  I want to read their report but this is a little wishy-washy.  And, it puts the district in the great position of saying, "See the Taskforce said to continue to use it" and renewing the contract (which is now up). ...

U.S. Department of Ed official to visit Cleveland High School today to promote "transformation efforts."  From SPS: Brenda Dann-Messier, who heads the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education, will visit Seattle’s Cleveland STEM High School on Tuesday, April 30, spotlighting the school’s transformation efforts aimed at promoting educational excellence for its students. As previewed in President Obama’s State of the Union address, the administration is proposing $300 million for a new High School Redesign program, which would fund competitive grants to districts partnering with postsecondary institutions, businesses and non-profits to help ensure that all students graduate from high school with college credit and career-related experience.   The irony here is that Cleveland was not created to be self-sustaining (because it got rolled out too quickly because of MGJ's ego) and the school actually needs the very kind of grant th...

Update:  For example, there is this story from Rockville Centre, NY from the Long Island Herald where 20% of the students in their district have opted out of their "high stakes testing."     These are students in grades 3-8.   This one is from the Courthouse News Service about parents who filed a federal class action lawsuit against the state of New York and their son's school over the school punishing him for refusing to take a test.  New York apparently has no policy on opt-outs so principals are free to do as they please.  In this case, the school called the sheriff's office to send officers to a ball field to make sure the student could not participate in playing baseball for his school.  Another student was denied recess and the parent told that the district may refer to Child Protective Services.   "Such disparities in terms of how school districts throughout New York state viewed and handled students who opted out, occurr...

 Update:  the Superintendent's latest message on MAP .   From his letter: I n the meantime, our spring assessments will be held from April 22 to June 7 . Beginning this spring, the District recommends that students enrolled in an Algebra 1 course take the NWEA Algebra End-of-Course (EOC) exam instead of Math 6+ test. Based on a preliminary review of MAP by staff, we’ve made the following adjustment to our testing policy: For 9th grade, only students below standard based on the state reading assessment will be required to take the MAP reading test. It will be optional for 9th-graders who are at or above standard in reading. Reader Joan Sias attended Thursday's Assessment Taskforce meeting.  Here are her notes on the meeting. The new MAP policy for 9th grade was handed out at the meeting. Not a single member of the TF asked what the process was for this policy decision. I am not a TF member, so I could not ask this question. A handout was ...

A very nifty flowchart from our friends at the Seattle Education blog (Sue Peters and Dora Taylor) showing the "lines of influence" both nationally and locally.  They created this awhile back and admit it needs updating like the line between Gates and the Alliance, that Goodloe-Johnson is gone, and there are even more connections than ever in 2013.

  Update:   I reviewed my notes and realized, based on questions about opting out, that I had missed one answer. I had asked the Superintendent about what would happen to the teachers who boycotted MAP and what would they do with students who opt out (given, for example, that word is that at least 50 Orca students had opted out). He deflected the teacher question with the "working on solutions" answer but with the students just said that students are able to opt out.  He would not say what any given school would be doing.  Clearly, he does not want students to opt out or for parents to know they can.  The district probably has given directives to principals in how to handle opt-outs but my experience is that teachers and principals tend to be a little more pragmatic and don't make it in a big deal.  End of update. It was interesting to be sure.  The Superintendent was accompanied by Michael Tolley, Interim Assistant Superintendent for Teachin...

From recent elections, there are those who confuse arguing with attacking in order to get what they want or to marginalize others.  I saw this during the charter school election when I got personally attacked by both Lisa Macfarlane and Shannon Campion at several debates.  (What is interesting is that Tim Ceis, the former city official who was known as a pitbull, could not have been nicer at the debates.)  I had thought, in the moment to respond back, but my reward was watching the faces of the audience and clearly, people think little of personal attacks.  Now from Ms. Campion, I expected that.  She's a shill for Stand for Children.  But Lisa and I have known each other professionally for years.  We have stood together on issues around the World School.  I expected better from her but apparently they wanted to win the election at any cost.  Now, over at the Times, there is an op-ed - well, really an advertisement - from the head of th...

I attended the May meeting of the Board Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee  where I heard some talk about the MAP test that I couldn't reconcile on my own. I wrote then that I would try to ask Wendy London about it, and I saw her - and Mark Teoh - about it yesterday. My confusion from the C & I meeting was quickly resolved. Ms London had said that the MAP test was nationally normed but she had also said that it was keyed to the Washington State Standards. These can both be true because the questions our students see on the MAP test are chosen from the pool of available questions only if they are applicable to the Washington State Standards. That's how the test is geared to the state Standards. The students' RIT scores can be compared to the scores of students across the nation even if they didn't get the exact same questions that our students got. That's how they can be nationally normed. It's worth noting that the MAP test is the only assessment ...

 This week has a large number of Executive Sessions (closed to the public) for the Board.  Most are on " Evaluate a complaint against a public employee ."  I suspect some of these may be about schools in the news over the last several months who had principal issues.  Wednesday, June 6th School Board Meeting - Agenda Our first Board meeting that starts at 4:15 p.m. with the Speakers List at 5:00 p.m .  Please remember to give testimony, you should call/write tomorrow morning starting at 8 am -  252-0040 or boardagenda@seattleschools.org. The Board will run through the Consent agenda, student presentation, and superintendent comments by 5 p.m.  Then there is Public Testimony, Board comments and then Business Action Items. The agenda has some interesting items.  To note:

The Board's Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee met on Monday, May 21. The meeting started just after the scheduled start time of 4:00. All three committee members, Marty McLaren (chair), Sharon Peaslee, and Harium Martin-Morris, were present. No other board members were in attendance. They quickly approved the agenda without amendments and then approved the minutes from the previous meeting, also without amendments.

Just heading out the door to the FACMAC meeting, I reviewed the Board agenda .  It has changed somewhat (and there are still open slots on the Speakers List, 252-0040). The renewal of the MAP contract through the Northwest Evaluation Association has been taking off the Action items and postponed until the November 16th meeting per a Steve Sundquist request.  They are late on this subscription renewal (having overlooked it) and now they are waiting?  Hmmm, I wonder why.   Also, the Intro Item on the exemption they are seeking from OSPI for the number of instructional hours for Cleveland High School has been radically rewritten.  It's almost like someone realized that there was a WAC attached to this kind of action and they needed more evidence to prove what they were doing.  I'm thinking this was the doing of some "activist" type person who knew the WAC and pointed this out to staff (but it sure wasn't me).    What is interesting is t...

Monday, Oct. 3rd Early Enrollment starts.  See SPS website for details. Tuesday, Oct. 4th Intermediate Term Capacity Management community meeting from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Mercer Middle School, 1600 S. Columbian Way Wednesday, Oct. 5th Operations Committee mtg (meeting of the whole which I believe means the entire Board) from 4-5:30 p.m.  No agenda available yet.  School Board meeting from 6-9 p.m. Sign up to speak starting 8:00 am on Monday, 252-0040 Agenda . This includes the (late) contract for NWEA for MAP testing.  There is a torturously long explanation of why this is such a great thing which leads me to believe staff thinks there will be pushback from the public testimony.  One thing I didn't know - all students new to the district have to take the fall MAP.   Also, Mark Teoh told the C&I committee that the cost was going up by $20k but here it appears that it is $30k.  It also says this: Due to staff reductions, unfortunatel...

The outside ethics counsel has delivered the first of two or three reports on ethics complaints brought against the superintendent for her failure to disclose her affiliations with non-profits with business with the District in the proper and timely manner required by law. This first report has to do with the superintendent's seat on the Board of the NWEA, the company that publishes the MAP tests the District bought. The outside ethics counsel concluded that the superintendent "did not violate the ethics policies of Seattle Public Schools ("SPS") by being a member of the board of directors of NWEA and not disclosing that board membership before the SPS first voted on the NWEA contract." The ethics counsel goes on to write that, as a matter of best practice, the superintendent and School Board members should disclose their non-profit board memberships and refrain from participating in matters related to those non-profits, but that " the current SPS ethic...

So much to talk about but I did want to put up some interesting highlights from last week's Audit and Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 13th. There was some discussion of how to get Director Patu up to speed (as she is new to the Committee and, seemingly, finance). Enrollment: district is up by 188 kindergarteners and over 900 9th graders. Wow. There was some discussion about the various ways that BEX and BTA dollars were being spent as well as the bond sale late last year to get even more capital money for the reopened schools. I tell ya, the money just gets moved around and around. So those who were waiting on the item about the Audit Response to AE3.1 conflict of interest issue. It was reported that: this was about NWEA which the Superintendent did not disclose that she was on their Board. What was said at the meeting is that the district noted that this was a specific item and not just "you did not fully disclose all the boards you sit on". the wording on audit re...

Last week's Board meeting was fairly interesting (well, until you got to the staff updates but more on that later). The room wasn't full of the usual suspects but there definitely were sides. Highlights from speakers list: District watchdog Chris Jackins pointed out that the sale of MLK, Jr . property gives buyers all the money. (Apparently the presumed buyers - First AME Church - is getting the money from the state and the state will give it to the district. This is because the church, in its offer, says it will be offering youth programming and other community activities.) The idea of selling it to First AME is to create a community center in that neighborhood that would offer community services like youth activities. Then came a long line of people against the sale of the property to First AME. This was introduced and will be voted on by the Board in two weeks. Everyone spoke respectfully of the church's long history here in Seattle but the issue seems to be tha...

Here's the headline at the Stranger Slog : Goodloe-Johnson Resigns from Board Amidst Criticism of Conflict of Interest I know, I know you read the first 3 words and get a little...well, something. The story is about her resignation from the NWEA Board that she announced at Wednesday's Board meeting. The SEA's comment (bold theirs): The Seattle teachers union, the Seattle Education Association, listed Goodloe-Johnson's position on the board as a conflict of interest when they voted to have no-confidence in her last month. "It's good that she is hearing concerns of educators in Seattle and taking account of what they think of her leadership," said union vice president Jonathan Knapp. "There would have been more confidence in her had she disclosed that she had this connection and nevertheless recommended the services of this company. In my opinion that's not good practice." Good for the Slog because they seem to be trying to keep up m...

I'll do a whole round-up of the part of the Board meeting I attended (this was a long one) but there was one choice piece of news. It came during the Superintendent's remarks. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson resigned from the NWEA Board (that's the company that sells MAP). She was quite pointed in her remarks and said it was NOT a conflict of interest (legally) and had nothing to do with MAP but "it is a distraction." I think this means she felt a lot of pressure and got tired of the question of how it looks to sit on a board of a company that got awarded a contract from the district you lead. And she didn't disclose it until AFTER the vote on the contract. I don't think it matters whether it was legal or not; to many folks it didn't pass the smell test. Folks, good for all who spoke out about this issue. This is pretty much one of the few times the Superintendent has not gotten her way.