Seattle Schools Community Forum

From OSPI:

In our Aug. 16 press release on statewide test scores, OSPI incorrectly reported some numbers.

The purpose of the Educator Working Conditions Survey is to gather input from educators, administrators, parents, and community members on the various factors that affect working conditions in schools. This includes parent and community involvement, leadership, professional learning, classroom support, and safety. You have until July 11th to take it.

Fourth in a series.  There is one new candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, David Spring , and I will be reaching out to him as well. Ms. Fleming's Facebook page . As a native Washingtonian raised by a single mother, who had a brother with Down Syndrome, and who attended eight different schools before graduating from high school, I understand struggle. As an educational researcher and published author with a doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership (with an emphasis on school finance and multicultural education) I understand educational research and policy. As a school nurse who for 13 years worked with some of our most vulnerable students, and with families, teachers and administrators, I understand what it is like to be in the trenches. I have lived in the world of policy now for more than four years, working collaboratively with internal partners at OSPI and with the many state and community partners I have nurtured during my long career of building...

I finally received one charter school's documents that I had requested via public disclosure; these were from Green Dot's Destiny Middle School.  Now it took some doing because initially a couple of charters did not want to give me anything, saying they weren't public schools.  When I pressed them on handing over documents that were created during the time that they were charter schools, then I got an okay but was put off to "March or April."  I'm still waiting for a couple of other schools.  (I note that Rep. Gerry Pollet also got this runaround which should tell you something.) Green Dot itself only sent them to me in hard copy which, of course, makes it more difficult to copy from and track.  They said they have to buy special "software" to send them to me electronically.  Guess what was in the huge stack of documents?  A letter dated October 2015 to a law firm saying that Green Dot would be sending them public disclosure documents...electron...

OSPI released new data about the 2015 high school graduation rates in Washington state .  Here's the presentation .

Apparently not, at least when it comes to charter schools.  My second batch of public disclosure e-mails raises more troubling questions. In my first batch, I explained how a couple of other districts' lawyers were worried about running afoul of state law in signing interlocal documents to allow students within their district borders to have an ALE with Mary Walker School District. This batch reveals more concerns from other people. Among them was the overarching role of Washington State Charter Schools Association. Who are they?

You could call it a soap opera or use another, more colorful, word (but this is - mostly - a family blog.)

I'll start with what I think is coming next.  A big fat fight in the legislature - one that will take time and energy away from the work of McCleary.  (Despite what Republicans think, a one-pager to the Supreme Court with some dates and thoughts on funding are unlikely to change minds on the court.)  The legislature starts its short two-month session on Monday, Jan. 11th. I think there will be at least one charter school bill in the legislature (I'm hearing there may be two which would make it interesting.  I'm also betting one of them will have Rep. Eric Pettigrew's name on it.)  Now, there are three major issues with the current law that would need to be fixed, two of them constitutional, and I think those two come with so much baggage, that a bill can't be created, vetted by both legislators and the public, amended and then passed.   It could happen but I think that's not likely. I think the charter schools will be opening their doors after the ho...

There are many contradictions between what OSPI tells regular districts about Alternative Learning Experiences (ALEs) versus what is being said that will be done for charter schools and ALE programs. (I have repeatedly tried to get clarity on these issues from OSPI. I am now using the documentation they have at their website.) There are two main issues.

OSPI announced today the release of new data on student discipline.  According to the press release:

Update 2:  I wrote to Kevin Jacka, the superintendent of Mary Walker School District, to ask him about his resignation from the Charter Commission and about taking the orphan charter schools into his district. Here's what he said (or didn't say);

This is one of the funnier press announcements I have read in a long time. In a ruling Sept. 4, the Washington State Supreme Court declared the initiative that established our state’s charter schools to be unconstitutional. This ruling potentially affects more than 1,000 students who have already started the 2015-16 school year. “Even before the initiative was finalized, I warned the drafters it was unconstitutional,” State Superintendent Randy Dorn said. “And after the initiative was passed, I sent a letter to key education leaders in the state legislature expressing my concerns. “But now that school is in session, we need to do everything we can not to disrupt the education of the students caught in the middle of this argument.” This is the second time in two months that the state Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of our current education system. Dorn urges the governor to call a solution-oriented special legislative session to fix the charter school law and to addre...

Time on your hands this summer?  This Index from OSPI and the State Board of Education has some interesting data (although it may be me, but I'm not sure I get how they get to their final number for any given school.)

OSPI has two  job openings of interest. - Special Education, Dispute Resolution Program Supervisor - Privacy and Records Governance Manager Yikes! the Schools First! group (the group that manages the district's levy elections) has "Mayor" Mike McGinn as honorary co-chair.  Wonder if anyone told them about Ed Murray. They have Lauren McGuire as BOTH an honorary co-chair AND a Board member. Both. She's busy. From the Wait, What? blog, Jonathan Pelto reports this: The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has provided its member states with most of the results from the spring’s Common Core SBAC testing. Unlike Connecticut, where the Malloy administration is apparently keeping the information secret as long as possible, the State of Washington has been updating the public about the results as they came in. As of two weeks ago, Washington State had already received the results for more than 90% of its students.

Thanks to Ann Donovan for this. From OSPI's Smarter Balanced Top 10 Reasons Why Washington is Making the Switch  In the "who says" category - #1 Washington’s new state learning standards in English language arts and math (Common Core) are designed to prepare students for career, college, and life. In the "what the heck does this mean" category - #3 The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium took advantage of each member state’s technical, practical, and political expertise to ensure a blend of everyone. In the "liar, liar" category - #4 Quicker results - Individual scores will be available within three weeks of a student completing the summative tests.

Remember when you got the message from SPS that said: The timing of the state assessment score reports has changed from June to September. SPS went on to say: Due to unanticipated delays at the state level, the district will now send score reports home in September.  September is the typical timing for state assessment score reports, but the district this year had initially anticipated they would be ready earlier. That "earlier" was never June so why they said that I don't know.  How do I know it was never June? I asked OPSI.

My first piece in this series was about how the City and other outside forces seem to be lining up to takeover the district, piece by piece. This thread is about legally mandated programs for students that have been an issue for the district for a very long time, namely, ELL, Special Education and Advanced Learning. I'm not going to go into a dissection of each because I'm not qualified to speak fully on ELL or Sped. (And I'm not looking for another discussion on Advanced Learning.  Please do not go off-topic on this point.) The issue is that our district has consistently either failed to provide services, provided partial service or failed to provide services in a timely manner for all of these programs at one time or another.  This has happened for many years.  The district has been under review for both Special Education services and ELL services by OSPI over the last year.  To be fair, I know that ELL and Special Education services are expensive and it...

State Superintendent Randy Dorn is having a press conference this morning to talk about his funding plan for McCleary    He says: “I want to make sure that every student, from Cape Flattery to Clover Park to Clarkston, has an equal opportunity to a basic education,” Dorn said. “That isn’t happening today. My plan will ensure that.” Also from OSPI, the announcement of math and science partnership grants to seven districts including Seattle. The grants will be used to help increase student achievement in math and science. Specifically, the grants allow for partnerships between schools and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) faculty at institutes of higher education. State funding for the projects totals $1.9 million, to be split among the grantees. Awards, which have yet to be determined, range from $500,000 to $1.5 million and will be distributed during the course of the three-year grants. The MSP grant program is part of the federal Title II, Part B sect...

This is strange.  Here's the description of the survey currently being taken by OSPI: Working conditions in schools are very important.