Seattle Schools Community Forum

Between the issue of the Pre-K mission study junket and the appalling action (or lack thereof) on the issue of the Garfield field trip rape case, it's hard not to feel very angry.  As you may recall, in the e-mails about the Pre-K mission study, there was a lot of back and forth over where the money - about $2700 per person - was going to come from to pay for the trip.  Well, I found out where the "temporary" money came from.  I say temporary because there were funds used from one pot that will now have to be paid back to that pot by finding another pot of money. Here's how it breaks down (from SPS Public Disclosure): Budget codes that were charged Charles (Wright) - baseline funds (meaning not grant-funded) from the Office of Strategic Planning Keisha (Scarlett) - South Shore funds (Title I, I believe), “borrowed” due to the time crunch to get good flight prices, meant to be paid back Laurie (Morrison )– ditto Cashel (Toner) – Teaching and Learning, “bridg...

I will do my best to get this in a linear order but the e-mails were not always provided in that manner. To note, the trip was March 3-6th so clearly, getting started in early Feb was difficult on staff.  I wonder how the City thought the district had so much travel money to try to send 5+ people to three cities.   Key staffers involved: Cashel Toner - head of SPS Early Learning, seemingly the lead on this effort - went on trip Flip Herndon - head of Facilities, pushed to go on the trip by Toner - went on trip, provided an overview of his impressions vis a vis Seattle (I'll put this up separately as it gives some insights as to what the district's current thinking is.  I have no idea what the Board thinks but Blanford wanted to go on this trip.) Patricia Stambor - in HR, oversee Strategic Partnerships - had the biggest lift of anyone involved and seems like a good foot soldier in all this.  I note that at the end of all the work Toner thanks everyone but Stamb...