Seattle Schools Community Forum

To note for tonight's Board meeting agenda ; the Jane Addams Middle School BEX IV construction item has been moved to the May 7th Board meeting by the Superintendent.  No explanation given.  The Superintendent has also asked to remove the Reduction in Force (RIF) item from the agenda.   I confirmed that this is because there will be no RIFs sent out.  As well, the bill to fix facade restoration at Franklin is - gulp - nearly $1M (coming from BEX III and good thing the money is there).  (When part of the facade fell, it was great luck no one was standing underneath it.)  Along with the backflow item at Jane Addams that had to be replaced recently (and I'm not sure how much that cost), we see that our buildings have a near-constant need for maintenance and emergencies fixes.  This is why the maintenance budget needs to be upped or we will likely pay more in the long term.  There are only five people signed up to speak so if you wanted to speak...

I won't be attending the Board meeting tonight but note that the speakers list is a lot of BEX IV and the superintendent search .  One notable speaker is Councilman Bruce Harrell speaking on the super search.  Checking some of the other speakers on this topic, I think there will be speakers talking about the superintendent search in the context of race and social justice.  I also note a new Intro item which is a resolution for authorization for a Reduction in Force (RIF).  This doesn't mean there will be RIFs but this has to be in place for them to be possible.  Also, some corrections to Director McLaren schedule for BEX IV discussions : - She will be at the Neighborhood House event this Friday the 6th but thre will NOT be general discussion there of BEX IV.  She will be available for questions at a resource table from 7:00-7:30 p.m. - She won't be at the Denny BEX IV meeting tomorrow night because of an Executive Session meeting to discuss the su...

Let's go back to those days of yesteryear when we were a district with little money.  The district had: "hiring freezes",   RIFed teachers, laid off central administration workers,  laid off elementary counselors  and the state cut teacher and principal pay Oh wait, that's today, right?  I think anyone looking at that list would say that the district is experiencing a severe money crunch. But as I've always said, this is a district that finds money when it wants to do something.   STEM?  No, don't go out and do the hard work of getting the program at least half-funded by private companies and entities (even though our area is rich with science/technology companies).  No, we just take money from other schools.  (Not saying they shouldn't have created the program but that they could have done it in a way that was more cost-efficient to the district like the STEM school over in the Tri-Cities.)  Consultants?  S...

I note that the RIF motion passed.   Here is coverage from this morning's Seattle Times' article by Linda Shaw. Anyone attend or speak?

I note that Directors DeBell and Patu have Community meetings this morning.  As well, Dr. Enfield is having a meeting this morning with Fillipino parents and community. If you attend any of these events, let us know what you hear. The Board finally gets back on track with Board meetings this coming Wednesday, May 4th.  Here is the agenda .   And, in the category of colliding issues, there will be an appreciation for teachers as it is Teacher Appreciation Week AND they will introduce the motion for RIFing.

The information comes from the April 13th meeting of the Executive Committee.  The three Committee members - DeBell, Sundquist and Smith-Blum -  were in attendance.

From a reader: We are organizing a letter-writing campaign on the counselors issue, since we have limited opportunities for public comment before the RIF. Basically, we are asking people to write letters to Dr. Enfield, cc'd to the Board, with two basic sentences: Our counselor has helped our child by ____. To pay for elementary counselors, I think we should cut ____. Please join the fray and forward to other parents who would be interested! Dr Enfield - saenfield@seattleschools.org School Board - schoolboard@seattleschools.org

Tomorrow is a big day in Olympia as House Bill 1609 (the so-called "Great Schools" legislation) will hold a public hearing. LEV and Stand for Children are all for this bill which would overturn the teachers contract issue of using seniority for RIFs. Let me go on the record as saying I see both sides. I can see why, in the face of the lack of any known method of assessing teachers fairly, teachers would go with seniority. On the other hand, it does seem wrong that being a teacher longer than another teacher would necessarily be the game changer. It says absolutely nothing about your abilities (except that in all your years of being a teacher, you had done nothing to get kicked out). It's quite the dilemma. I also want to point out that in Seattle, the SEA signed their contract for 3 more years of continuing the use of seniority in RIFs. But I also want to point out that the School Board agreed to this and the district signed off on it. So don't put it all ...

Here we go. Is it inevitable that we will be RIFing teachers? Good question. In SPS, maybe. In other districts, probably. In this morning's Seattle Times is a story about Rep. Rodney Tom who is sponsoring a bill that would make teacher effectiveness the main factor in RIFs. Okay, so first of all, someone who is a lawyer, help me out. If they pass this law, it overcomes the teachers contracts that have already been signed? That seems wrong to me. What is weird to me is that we know the SEA contract has a new evaluation process in it so the district is getting there. We also know that the district and Board negotiated the contract WITH seniority being the main criteria. So they knew very well what they were signing even though parents told them they didn't like seniority as the first criteria. From the article: Mary Lindquist of the Washington Education Association said lawmakers started last year to move toward a new teacher-evaluation system. About 17 school district...

As I previously reported, I attended the Town Hall last night on the legislative session coming up and what impacts it might have for public education. The speakers were Rep. Scott White (who becomes Senator on Monday when he gets sworn in) and Directors Sherry Carr and Peter Maier. It was hosted by Principal John Miner of Thorton Creek who told the crowd he had been had TC for 25 years. Wow. I would say there were about 50 people in attendance including Seattle Council PTSA reps, Stand for Children reps, and SEA reps. There were several handouts. They had the letter that MGJ sent to the Seattle delegation. There were some interesting sentences that I'll put in here: "Thus, while we began this year with a balanced budget for 2010-2011, we must now find an additional $5.24 million to end the year balanced." Now initially I thought, "How did this happen?" but I know that at least $2M of that is because of the Auditor's finding over the Small Business w...

36 certificated staff got RIF notices. Some will almost certainly be invited back (if they haven't hired on somewhere else in the meantime). According to this story in the Seattle Times, " Pink slips will go to 25 teachers and 11 elementary-school counselors in Seattle schools " The 25 RIF'ed teachers, all from middle and high schools, include: 2 art teachers 6 career-technical education teachers 3 history/social studies teachers 10 language arts teachers 4 physical education teachers The work sites of the laid-off teachers does not necessisarily match the work sites that are losing FTE. Yes, two art teacher positions will be lost somewhere in the district, but the two art teachers who got laid off will be the two with the least seniority, regardless of their work location. Also, there were reportedly 85 employees in the central office who will not see their contracts renewed as their positions have been eliminated. Only five of them are known: the five education dir...

I attended the public testimony portion of the Board meeting (and spoke up myself). The crowd was filled with many elementary counselors hoping to get their jobs back. Director DeBell was not present as he is in South Korean as part of a sister city delegation. Princess Shariff of Cleveland accepted a principal's award from the UW. She was cited for her advocacy for STEM among diverse populations in her community. As is the Board practice, two students from a high school, this time Sealth, spoke. And again, it was interesting. A very articulate young man spoke. He had quite the resume but what was interesting was that he said he got started (partially) as a leader when he led students against the co-joining of Sealth and Denny. He made some good points about summer school being too much about credit retrieval with not enough push in it. He said that the high school core requirements are not enough for college (I don't know if he feels it is Sealth or just the dist...

As I said, it was quite full and quite rocking at the beginning with many counselors with signs about their job loss and teachers with signs against the performance policy. Also, as previously mentioned, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson left because of her daughter's preschool event and the crowd was not happy. (As it turns out, she magically appeared almost to the minute when the testimony ended which seemed odd. Maybe she had to make sure to give her Superintendent's remarks but it did not leave a good impression.) Some of the speaker comments: "It sounds like blame the teacher is the message." Meg did a great presentation that the audience really appreciated. Her data-driven testimony really strikes a chord. She explained how the Superintendent had given an explanation in a letter about Title One and LAP money but did not give a full picture/details to the story. Her specific example was what will happen to Thurgood Marshall with the loss of Title One dollars. an executi...

May 22, 2009 Dear friends of Seattle Public Schools: The weather this month has been typical of Seattle in the springtime: warm and sunny one day, then cold and rainy the next. We know it will lead to summer, but sometimes it is hard to remember those bright, sunny days when it’s the middle of May and the skies are gray. Perhaps mirroring the weather outside, we’ve had a mixture of sunshine and rain clouds here at the Seattle Public Schools this month as well. On the bright side, more than 900 people showed their support for our schools by participating in the Alliance for Education’s 2009 Community Breakfast. But that good news has been tempered by the difficult decisions we have had to make recently to lay off teachers and other valued staff members in response to the State Legislature’s unprecedented cuts to K-12 funding. ALLIANCE FOR EDUCATION 2009 COMMUNITY BREAKFAST Our work in Seattle’s schools would simply not be possible without the support we receive from families, neighbors ...

Notices came out yesterday and 172 teachers, counselors and other certificated staff have been RIF'ed. Most are teachers. In years past, many teachers have been rehired due to retirements or attrition but with the poor economy that may not be the case this time. That number represents about 5% of the 3,000 certificated staff in SPS. From the Times : "Along with 33 first- or second-year teachers whose contracts were not renewed a few months ago, that means that 205 of the district's certificated employees now need to look for work." "High schools had 54 of the 172 layoffs. Middle schools had 29, elementaries 61 and K-8s 20, Spencer said. Six teachers on leave also were notified they no longer have jobs. Staff members at 17 schools — those that are part of a joint union-district effort to close the achievement gap — were largely exempt from layoffs. Among them are Rainier Beach, Cleveland and Chief Sealth high schools and the middle and elementary schools that feed...