Seattle Schools Community Forum

I had been wondering where the agenda for tomorrow's Audit and Finance Committee Meeting was.  Well, now I can see why it was delayed. 1) It's HUGE. 2) It's a mess.  Literally.  Things added links not there - very confusing. The minutes from the last meeting note note a troubling trend - the end of funding for number of programs.  To whit:

I attended the Budget Work Session on Wednesday.  It was pretty sobering.  Key facts: There is a projected deficit of $18.4M .  I would love to explain it all to you (and I will try to at least get the PowerPoint up by tomorrow) but frankly, I look down at the paper version and I don't know what half of it is.  Imagine my happiness (and surprise) to hear Board Directors say, "Now, what is this?" because they don't know either.  I don't know if it is the Budget office trying to use smoke and mirrors or just too much jargon but if the people who will make the final decisions don't know what you are talking about, you're doing something wrong. By April 10th, we will have the Governor's budget, the House budget and the Senate budget.  We were told that is when "the rubber meets the road."  The Governor released his budget today and it seems quite favorable to K-12 ed (if not quite the amount everyone would want).  He seems to be finding the m...

From the House Appropriations Committee work of last week, comes these results (via Ed Week ): Winners: Extension of allowing teachers in alternative certification programs to count as "highly qualified" through the 2014-2015 school year.  This would include those "higly qualified" TFA 5-week trained teachers.  Losers :  organizations, many of whom support disabled/Special Ed students, like the council for Exceptional Children, National Center for Learning Disabilities and the NAACP who do not want the provision extended.  Here's what they said: Absent expiration of the problematic provision ... low-income students, students with disabilities and English-learners will continue to be disproportionately taught by teachers-in-training and that fact will be masked from parents and local communities. Yes, because while TFA thinks the world of their teachers, they don't feel districts have any obligation to tell their parents where their teacher cam...

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

I'm behind on this one and I forgot about something happening today - it's National Library Week and today a picture is going to be taken in every Washington state library.  I hope the schools put this word out and got kids in their school library for the photo.  My apologies.

I just had a call from the School Board office. Action on the TIF consultant contract has been deferred to the May 4 meeting. Here is a link to the updated agenda for the April 6 meeting. This is a positive sign for the Board and their effectiveness as a governance and oversight body.

From headquarters, Dr. Enfield has requested that the TIF consultant contract be moved to the May 4th Board meeting. Smart girl.  Better for the Board (to do due diligence and oversight), better for staff (to be able to coherently explain it to the Board and the public) and better for the public who barely had 2 days to read and think about it.  

I received notice that the TIF contract is now available for viewing (and is attached to the Board agenda item). In the motion itself there is some interesting wording like: The ultimate outcome of TIF will be a dramatic improvement in student achievement. Specifically, SPS expects that over the next five years the district will see a reduction in the percentage of schools in the lowest two segments on our quantitative performance framework from 40% to 25%. I like action wording but saying improvement will be dramatic seems pretty bold. Is that a guarantee because it sounds like it. Exhibit A, Scope of Service, Background is interesting in that it is a lot of what the district ends up getting and not what students get.  To whit, TIF " will position SPS as a strong regional model of how performance-based compensation systems can support teacher and principal professional growth and, in the process, improve student learning outcomes. " Note how improving student outcom...

Just when you think you've heard it all - this from the Seattle PI blog (and our alert readers here): The financially-struggling Seattle Public Schools has paid an outside consulting agency for public relations help since October. Patti Spencer, school district spokesman, said Seattle-based Strategies 360 was retained after the district’s executive director for Public Affairs left on leave. “We brought in Strategies 360 in to help until such time as a new person is appointed,” Spencer said Thursday. I'll interrupt here to say that is just nonsense. We live in a major metropolitan center full of smart PR people and we're in a bad economy. Bridgett Chandler (the former head of Communications) left months ago. They really couldn't find anyone? FYI, Communications, since MGJ, has been one part communications and two parts public relations for MGJ. Spencer didn’t know how much the consultants were being paid, but said their fee was coming out of private donor ...

Update: Apologies - the slides, if you look at them, are for a TWO -year period and not one as you might have assumed just reading the thread. So I put up the links to the Powerpoint for the Board Work Session on the Budget. But then I notice this other link to some slides on TIF . I was not there when this was discussed (if it was) but I am dumbfounded because sure we want to reward good teachers if they move to a low-performing, high need school. But the costs for all the managing of this? Sadly, the slides don't feature a total but I added it up: in total, for recruiting, mentoring, support, evaluation/assessment, recognize/reward/retain and "other", it's $3,837,959 . For the recruiting fees for high performing teachers to move to a low-performing school, it's $25k (@$2500 per teacher). For the stipend for teachers in Level One schools who meet evaluation requirements, it's $450k. For the recognize/reward/retain, it's $450k. So add the merit pa...

I am watching and reviewing the School Board meeting on Tivo. I need to listen again to Jessica de Baros presentation on the TIF grant. Michael DeBell questioned her about some issues relating to sustainability. I was baffled by her answer but he left it at that. Not Kay (who is a lot nicer than I would have been or at least I would have been more direct) who asked her again. Didn't clear it up so the Superintendent jumped in. I got so confused that I will have to go over it again. Nothing like baffling them with BS. I think the bottom line really is that at a future point, some 3-5 years hence, the district will be taking this on as an expense. How we will do that seems to be a mystery. A few announcements to take note of: Sherry; the Greenwood Neighborhood Center has closed due to city budget cuts. That's where she had been having her neighborhood meetings. She is now at the Bethany Church right across the street from Bagley Elementary. Peter: took note that Congr...

The Committee for Responsible Education Spending (opposing passage of the supplemental levy) has been going to different venues to speak. Our goal is to give people the fullest picture of what the levy will and will not do. I'll write up a separate thread and try to go through each statement by the district. (We did get support from Dem. district #11 who voted a No on their endorsement and the 43rd Dems voted to give no endorsement at all. It's interesting because some PTAs are choosing to remain neutral and/or still haven't taken a vote.) One question we have gotten is " what happens to the teachers' raises if the levy doesn't pass ?" We researched this question and here's the answer and readers can all try to decipher how it got bargained this way. (By the way, this is information the district and Schools First haven't answered at all.) According to the contract, if the levy doesn't pass, the teachers will not get their raises for ...

( NOTE: I updated this thread a couple of hours later to reflect other info I saw in the news release.) It was announced today that the district has won a $12.5M Teacher Incentive Grant. This is money to be used for staffing at 34 high-need schools over 5 years. There are a lot of interesting things in both the feds' press release and the district's. Let's start with the district's PR. The five- year TIF program seeks to strengthen the education profession by rewarding excellence, attracting teachers and principals to high-need and hard to staff areas, and providing all teachers and principals with the feedback and support they need to succeed. “I want to thank our teachers and leaders for their work to reach this historic agreement, which was a key factor that evaluators considered when they awarded this grant to our district.” (Dr. Goodloe-Johnson) Glenn Bafia, Seattle Education Association’s (SEA) Executive Director, said that “SEA is excited that portions o...