Seattle Schools Community Forum

Charlie went over what he thought striking from the Board's Investigative report. Here's mine: Another factor that may have contributed to decisions by employees not to take their concerns to the Board was the communication protocol developed in conjunction with the Board and instituted by Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson. The communication protocol was intended to streamline requests for information between the Board and District employees and was not intended to cut off employees’ access to the Board. Although the policy explicitly encouraged employees to bring concerns relating to activities that were not in the best interest of the District to the attention of management and promised no negative repercussions for doing so, some employees, including the internal auditor, believed the policy prohibited employees from having direct contact with the Board or the Superintendent. (bold mine) We also discovered that the Superintendent plays no active role in the budget formatio...

Good for the Times finding him. (I had my own little research going and found out that he went to high school in two schools in Michigan. He claimed he had attended Columbia and a Michigan university but no degrees listed. He also says on his Facebook page, "To know me is to love me." Well, the Seattle Times has an extensive review of his tenure at SPS so read it and tell me how much in love you are by the end. Me, not so much. I said elsewhere that I wondered if Fred Stephens, as head of Facilities, took his eye off the BEX ball as several projects had cost overruns. I mean if he gave Silas Potter free rein, then he probably gave Don Gilmore (then head of BEX projects) free rein. I have asked myself WHY Fred Stephens did this. (One thing I can say slightly in his defense is that a couple of years ago a son was murdered. I know it took a toll on him as it would anyone.) I do want to pose a couple of questions just for input (or just for the heck of it): should the ...

Thank you to Michael H for the heads up on another SAO audit document. This one has all the interviews the SAO did with SSD employees and certain vendors. I'm at page 54 of 264 and it's been jaw-dropping. I cannot believe the leeway and leverage and access to money and resources that Silas Potter had. It is just not possible for me to believe he did this on his own. Highlights : He repeatedly claimed to many who worked for him that SSD supported the transfer of the RSBDP from the district to his 501c3. Some of the people who had personal services contract through him come off very badly. Elaine Ko for one: We asked Elaine if she thought it unusual that a public program would be transitioning to the private sector at the expense of taxpayers. She said it was not unusual at that time. “It was not a questionable thing.” Also an administrator assistant reports that several people prominent in the African-American community had gone to Board me...

Seattle School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson and Don Kennedy, the district's chief financial and operations officer, should have done more to ensure that the manager of the district's small-business program wasn't misusing district money, according to the attorney hired to determine who should be held accountable . This is what the report from the lawyer, Patty Eakes, who the Board hired to investigate the current scandal according to the Times . She does conclude that MGJ and Kennedy had limited knowledge of the program. (First, when did she interview the Super? On the phone? Second, every single program is supposed to be in their knowledge base.) She says: no evidence that anyone expressed their concerns to MGJ about the program beyond an unfavorable review of the program (somewhat a hilarious statement because really who would go to her? I can't think of anyone who might feel comfortable going to her with the attitude she projects). MGJ trus...

Update: Checked with the Superintendent's office: she's on vacation. The Times has another story this morning with the words " financial abuse " in the headline. It follows with: Disclosures about the school-district program have put Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson's job at risk in what has become the most serious public corruption investigation in years. The release of the documents — the most comprehensive look yet at the allegations — comes as prosecutors conduct a secret criminal investigation of the financial dealings and the School Board considers whether to force out Goodloe-Johnson, sources familiar with the matter have told The Seattle Times. State Auditor Brian Sonntag on Thursday called it one of the most egregious cases he has seen in 18 years on the job. The Board: The School Board will meet in executive session Tuesday to discuss the audit, as well as a report from its own investigation, done by a private attorney, into what Goodloe...

Those over 45 will recognize the question. We have a number of people to ask about: the superintendent, the COO, Director of Facilities, the Board, and the Seattle Times. The answers are pretty sad. It turns out that just about all of them knew a whole lot and they knew it a long time ago. The Superintendent knew about the program, she knew what it cost, and she knew what it did. She is on the record praising it, which means that she reviewed it. She gave Mr. Potter an endorsement for his spin-off non-profit. She was fully informed. It is very likely that she will claim to have known nothing about it. It won't be credible, but even if it were, that would even more damning. The program was identified as a problem in the 2009 budget. Didn't she claim that she follows up closely on these audit exceptions? Is she telling us that she didn't know where the District was spending a million dollars a year? In a capital budget that didn't have money for needed repairs in scho...

More updates from the Seattle Times including: The program's former manager, Silas Potter Jr., was stripped of his ability to award small construction contracts in response to the warnings in January of that year. But the district allowed him to continue to award personal-service contracts and approve payments to small businesses that included minority- and women-owned companies, according to a recently completed state audit. Despite a reprimand and directives to improve his performance, Potter continued to flaunt rules with little oversight, the audit found. Evidence has emerged that some district employees informed superiors about irregularities with the program but were brushed aside, said a source familiar with the matter. Other employees had concerns but did not raise them because of "fears of reprisal," according to the state audit. "We found that many District employees were unaware of the District's whistle-blower and anti-retaliation polic...

More info on the crisis. This from the Seattle PI online : "We're not passing judgment on vendors," said Mindy Chambers, a spokeswoman for the state Auditor's Office. "These are places where the district didn't have systems in place to look at what people are being billed for. Whether people were correctly charging for their time or overcharging, will be up to the district to sort out." Good reporting over at The Stranger Slog. Reporter Riya Bhattacharjee asked the Auditor's office for a list of vendors who received money from SPS for little work. It's a troubling list. From Riya's piece: 1. The district paid Port of Seattle's former director of social responsibility Elaine Ko, community activist and business leader Eddie Rye (know for spurring King County into changing its logo from a crown to the image of Martin Luther King Jr.), former state legislator Velma Veloria, and former state chair of the Washington State Democrati...

Snappy answers to stupid questions, anyone? 1) Not saying it was timed (really, I'm not) but how is it that Dr. Goodloe-Johnson manages to NEVER be around when things get hot? I saw on the news that she's out of town somewhere. It never fails. 2) I appreciate that we have an Ethics Officer and now a visible whistleblower program but apparently there were people who had doubts, expressed doubts and either got brushed off or left the district. How is the district going to make sure this doesn't happen again? 3) Steve Sundquist, at the Seattle Channel Town Hall, gave the district a grade of "B". I wonder what he would give them now. 4) Who at the Times thought it would be a good idea to challenge Charlie? David Boardman took Charlie on. It went something like this: Charlie: Just so everyone knows: The Seattle Times knew all about this and has known all about this for months and months. Maybe they sat on the story so it would not negatively impact the Suppl...