Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Seattle Times is reporting the following: - Silas Potter was sentenced to 3 years, 7 months in jail.   He could get credit for the eight and a half months time that he has already spent in jail. - One accomplice, David Johnson, was convicted in early November of 30 counts and will sentenced in early Jan. - Potter and Johnson "are jointly responsible for restitution of $168, 275." - The other accomplice, Lorrie Kay Sorensen, was sentenced to 60 days of home detention with electronic monitoring.   She must pay $83k in restitution. The most basic lesson is accountability. There was failure from the top down.  Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, the superintendent at the time, is the least responsible but she should have realized that Mr. Potter's direct supervisor, Fred Stephens, was distracted by the murder of his son and the subsequent trial.   Additionally, employees within JSCEE either feared or avoided Potter; that was a well-known situation and yet no o...

When a vendor for the District has overbilled the District they can be subject to debarment - the District will refuse to do business with them in future. As a result of the scandal around the Small Works roster program and the state auditor's office investigation into the potential loss of public funds, a number of cases for debarment arose. Here is a district memo summarizing the status of those debarred. You will note that the debarment of the Urban League has expired. It ran for 18 months from September 2011 to March 2013. I was troubled when Micheal Tolley contracted with the Urban League to provide mentoring to "at-risk" youth AFTER the Pottergate scandal broke. I was particularly troubled when the SAO reported that, once again, their invoices lacked sufficient detail. Yet the District is ready to do business with them again. Astonishing.

From today's Seattle Times: $1.3M more might be misspent in Seattle schools scandal The hits just keep coming.

Charles Rolland, a former state Democratic party chair and education leader in Seattle, died yesterday.  Mr. Rolland helped to start and lead CPPS - Community & Parents for Public Schools - in Seattle in 2004.  He also served on the City committee that selected a new police chief. He was also one of the vendors caught up in the Silas Potter Scandal in 2010.  He had refused to cooperate in the SPS investigation and the King Country prosecutor found insufficient evidence to show that he had failed to perform the work under his contract with SPS. Mr. Rolland was 61.

From the Times : Silas Potter Jr., the central figure in the Seattle Public Schools financial scandal, was arrested during a traffic stop early Wednesday near Tampa, Fla., after he failed to appear for arraignment Tuesday on theft charges in King County Superior Court. A King County sheriff's detective who handles fugitive cases received a tip and relayed it to U.S. marshals, who found Potter, sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart said Wednesday morning. I had a feeling that since Potter was a non-violent criminal that it might hard to find him (he only pays cash and had disconnected his cell phone).  But sure enough, he got stopped on a traffic stop. He will make his first court appearance in Florida on Thursday, Kincheloe said. Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office, said prosecutors hope to learn on Thursday whether Potter will waive extradition. If Potter agrees to extradition, he could be brought to Seattle in a matter of days, Donohoe said...

I attended the arraignment this morning.  Always interesting to see how these things work. I had never seen the two co-conspirators before - Lorrie Sorenson and David A. Johnson - both appeared and both put in a plea of "not guilty."   Both Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sorenson were to be fingerprinted and processed and then released without bail. The lawyers for Johnson and Sorenson said that they needed to work together on discovery items.  Additionally, since Ms. Sorenson lives in Nevada and had to fly in for the arraignment, her lawyer asked for two months so she could make arrangements in her life before coming back for the trial. The trial date was not set (from what I could hear) because of the non-appearance of Potter.   Given the request by the lawyer for Sorenson, I would assume it would not start for a couple of months. They called Potter's name and he did not appear.   The prosecutor said they had attempted multiple times to contact Potter....

Here's are some notes from the press conference and follow-ups from it.

Way back when, David Letterman used to give celebrities about $5,000 to make a short film for his "Holiday Film Festival."  My favorite was one with Bette Midler who made a film about a boozy barfly laying out her life and views and she always ended with, "Why bother?" The Lady Di one was about Bette's character explaining how Diana came to the U.S. for the first time and "she brought 2 trunks and 15 suitcases.  She went to...JC Penney.  And I said, Lady Di, why bother?" And so I say about the media in Seattle on Seattle Schools, why bother?

Got up this morning, lots to do and a huge number of stories to write about.  So errands first but tell me, dear readers, what should I write about first? Reuven Carlyle's blog thread on the incumbents/paying School Directors/limiting campaign funds for School Board races  the fairly pitiful Times' story on the SB races (no bias there) with the great headline, "School Board races hinge on whether district needs change"  last night's very interesting and insightful talk with Dr. Dina Brulles on - yes, I'll say it because she used this word repeatedly - teaching "gifted" students updates on Silas Potter case  Whatever has the most votes, that's what I'll write up first. 

Just got back from the press conference with Dan Satterberg, KC Prosecutor, Dr. Enfield and Director DeBell.   I'll write a longer thread but here are the highlights: Silas Potter is to be charged with 9 counts of Theft in the First Degree David Anthony Johnson is to be charged with 9 counts of Theft in the First Degree Lorrie Kay Sorenson is to be charged with 4 counts of Theft in the First Degree I do not recognize Ms. Sorenson's name but Mr. Johnson had been mentioned in the State Auditor's report. The accused funneled about $250k through two corporations - one, a non-profit called Grace of Mercy and the other, a for-profit, called Emerald City cleaning.  Mr. Potter operated on cash with several large cash withdrawals in his name.   Potter turned over about $21k to his accompliances and kept the rest.  There is no evidence that anyone further up the food chain had knowledge of or benefited from these actions. If convicted as charged, Potter and...

The Seattle Times is reporting that  King County prosecutors plan to file first degree felony theft charges against Silas Potter Jr. for his role in the recent school district financial scandal. Others may be charged as well. Mr. Potter has said that he was scapegoated and that people further up the org chart knew about everything he was doing. Given a chance in Court he might provide details about who knew about his activities.

 Tuesday, Sept. 6th West Seattle Elementary starts school Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for Denny Int'l Middle School from 1- 2 p.m. Audit & Finance Committee Mtg. (Audit) f rom 4-6 p.m.  This meeting's agenda reflects topics on the audit response to both the performance audit of capital and the RSBDP (better known as Pottergate).  Perhaps this means the King County Prosecutor has something to report from their investigation.  There's a report from the new Internal Auditor, Anthony Medina.  Not wasting any time, there will be discussion of the Series 5000 policies of the Board policies which look like they cover HR.  Also, a discussion of audits other than those done by the SAO or Internal Auditor - interesting. Wednesday, Sept. 7th First Day of school for SPS  (fyi, the Superintendent will be visiting the new Lowell at Lincoln school from about 9-10 am .  She will also be having lunch at RBHS at noon.) School Board meeting from 6-9 p.m. ...

So out in Philadelphia, they ousted their Superintendent.  She was due, under her contract, $1.5M but they paid her $900,000 to leave (of which $400k came from anonymous, private donors).  Boy, they really wanted her leave.  It didn't help that she did this (from the Huffington Post ): With the situation becoming increasingly untenable, Ackerman faced it head-on Thursday in a speech to district principals. She publicly challenged school board members to "sentence me ... or set me free" in what many saw as an unannounced farewell speech. She entered the room to Sade's song "Is It A Crime?" – which became the theme of her remarks. She also read Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise": "You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I rise." Ackerman then referred to the past year as "full of lots of challenge and controversy for me" and said her cr...

Tuesday the 23rd Audit&Finance Committee meeting from 4-6 p.m. (for Audit issues) Agenda reflects these items:  capital performance audit follow-up, update on Pottergate, update and action plan on yet another audit, intro of Internal Auditor, schedule of departmental reviews, more School Board policies updates (HR) Wednesday, August 24th Board Work Session on Technology in Schools from 4-6 p.m. Thursday, August 25  Audit&Finance Committee meeting from 4-6 p.m. (for Finance issues) Agenda reflects these items: financials update, community schools report, daily attendance issues, budget update Saturday, August 27 Community Meeting with Director Kay Smith-Blum from 10-11:30 am at the Douglass-Truth library, 2300 Yesler Way at 23rd Anyone attend the Parent Summit or Martin-Morris community meeting on Saturday? 

District One Candidates were interviewed on KUOW yesterday on Weekday .  They were interviewed separately and each had different questions.  (I get this for incumbents versus challengers but overall, I'd like to see the answer from all to at least one question that is the same.) Sharon Peaslee was first up.  She came across to me as strong and confident with ready answers.   She was asked about her assertion that there was too much "top-down" governance and what she would change.  She said she would bring back site councils or strengthen BLTs, put the needs of students and schools first and allow math teachers to use whatever materials they needed to teach math.   She also mentioned replacing MAP testing with another called ALEX(?) which I couldn't find info on so if someone has a link, please let us know. Peter Maier was next and like all incumbents spoke well (although I felt he mumbled a bit and I was having a hard time understanding what he was s...

Not a complete bust but not a great interview with these candidates on The Conversation this afternoon.  First, KUOW should make up its mind on the format.  For District 2, the candidates were interviewed individually and for a longer period of time.  (There were three of them.) For District 6, they had them all in the studio and interviewed each for a much shorter period of time but did allow them to interact.   I think it would be better to have the interaction among candidates AFTER the primary and allow people more time to get to know these candidates now.  Steve was first.  He was asked about Pottergate and the sale of the MLK,Jr. building.   His answer will now set the tone for his campaign.  He says they acted promptly when they had the State Auditor's investigation report.  What!?   If he is saying he had no idea anything was wrong until that point, he was simply not paying attention.  He stated that the...

The West Seattle Herald ran an interview with Director Steve Sundquist where he says some pretty interesting things.   (They will be running interviews with challengers Marty McLaren, Joy Anderson and Nick Esparza soon.)   The Herald made one mistake (I believe) which was to only list the other incumbents running and not their challengers. 

From the Stranger comes reporter Riya Bhattacharjee's look into Peter Maier and red flags that he either didn't follow-thru on or didn't wave in the faces of his colleagues.   The key one? As chair of the school board's Operations Committee, Maier acknowledges that he read warnings in a document called the Sutor report, commissioned by the district, about irregularities with a small-works contracting program, originally a component of the regional small-business development program. Peter had The Sutor Group report (given to him at an Ops Committee meeting by Stephens).  I have never heard Peter say why Stephens gave it to him (and only him) but that seems to be the case. At a March 6 school board meeting, right before the board unanimously voted to fire superintendent Goodloe-Johnson for her role in the scandal, Maier said he had been alerted to the problems and didn't tell the board. Bhattacharjee was looking for evidence that it might have made a d...

From AP via Seattle PI online: Former Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall knew about cheating allegations on standardized tests but either ignored them or tried to hide them, according to a state investigation. An 800-page report released Tuesday to The Associated Press by Gov. Nathan Deal 's office through an open records request shows several educators reported cheating in their schools. But the report says Hall, who won the national Superintendent of the Year award in 2009, and other administrators ignored those reports and sometimes retaliated against the whistleblowers. The yearlong investigation shows educators at nearly four dozen Atlanta elementary and middle schools cheated on standardized tests by helping students or changing the answers once exams were handed in. The investigators also found a " culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation " in the school district over the cheating allegations, which led to educators lying abou...

This Accountability Audit Report by the State Auditor was better than the one in February if you are only looking at money.  But yes, money was once again lost and while the amounts are smaller than in February, it still damning and painful.