Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Last week the district had a "community" budget meeting (I was not invited and had only seen it as a one-line note on the district calendar.)  They invited 400 people and 8 came.  Maybe next time they might just invite anyone from any school community. Luckily the good people from Soup for Teachers sent a rep and here is Jason Rankin's write-up (thank you to him.)  He asks some good questions for the next meeting and hopefully, this thread will generate some more.  (I have to smile as Jason reports that the next meeting is on September 26th from 4-5 pm but it's not even on the district calendar right now.) I'll just note that on page 17, it states that the district had carryover funds of $31M. I'm sure those are restricted in some way but that seems like a lot of unspent money when there is need in all directions.  As well Sped spending has gone up 10% in three years. Page 31 has all the groups paid thru collective bargaining but I see no slide for the...

The Board has now smushed today's Executive Committee of the Whole together with the Work Session.  Agenda here . Kids Not Cuts is planning to listen in, hoping the Board may talk about the current staffing issues.  The meeting starts at 4:30 pm so be there by 4:15 pm if you want to sit with the group.  To the meeting topics: - P reschool - there is some delusion out there that City's pre-K program is both going to expand in SPS as well as trump before-after school program space.  Given the two classrooms that are City-enrolled and way under capacity, I find it hard to understand how the district could choose to take on more. - Alliance for Education.   This should be interesting, given how bad the relationship has been for the past year.

Dear Ken, I am working with the parent leaders from various schools over the staffing cuts announced last week.  I know you have given of your time to several parents in order to explain the situation.  But it continues to be murky and honestly, this is not good.  Parents are losing faith in what they hear from senior staff.  To that end, I'm asking for clarification on some issues.  1) In Jan of 2014 you said this: The WSS committee which includes both Central Office and school staff, examined the WSS formula, which makes up 53% of school funding. We looked at deciding on the best revisions to WSS if we have to make school-based reductions ranging between $3 million, $6 million and $9 million this year. What is the current WSS formula being used?  I tried to search for it at the SPS website but cannot find it.  2) I note that Superintendent Nyland said at the Board meeting that hiring and trips are to be curtailed at headquarters.  Could y...

Audit and Finance Committee meeting today at 4:30 p.m..  Agenda

Update:  here is what Superintendent Banda said in a press release on Tuesday: As a result, each school was given a funding amount based on student population, including weighted discretionary dollars, to make budget decisions that best fit the needs of their school. The goal was to provide as much flexibility to schools to meet the needs of their school population. Subsequently, we have heard from our school staff that this new formula is detrimental to our schools. Please know we listened to your concerns and funding of our classrooms and schools remains our first priority. As of today, $1.8 million has already been restored to schools and the Executive Directors of Schools are working with school leaders to have the remaining amounts in place this week. We intend to fully restore what was cut during the WSS allocation. End of update. In an e-mail that was sent yesterday to SPS principals, Executive Directors and the Superintendent Leadership Team (but not the B...

 Monday, December 16th   Seattle Special Education PTSA Meeting, 7 pm at Rm 2700, School District main offices at 2445 3rd Ave S (3rd and Lander). Tuesday, December 17th Audit&Finance Committee Meeting (Quarterly Audit Meeting) from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda . Wednesday, December 18th Work Session: Budget, WSS, and Transportation from 4-7 p.m.  Agenda I see some troubling and yet vital info in this presentation but I think that will be a separate thread. JAMS meeting from at the Jane Addams library at 6:30 p.m.  Thursday, December 19th Operations Committee Meeting from 4-6 pm.  Agenda not yet available. Saturday, December 21st Community meeting with Director Patu (yes, this is still on) from 10 am to noon at Cafe Vita.

I wouldn't call yesterday's work by the School Board especially stellar.  (I think the staff did a pretty good job on the budget but, as usual, what was left out is just as important as what was put in.) First came the Audit&Finance Committee meeting of the Whole to discuss the budget. It is unclear to me when the Board received their copies but there had been some small edits.  I am also not sure when the appendices all got put in.  Director Carr told the group she had not read the appendices as she had been on vacation.  President Smith-Blum and Director Patu were absent.  (Smith-Blum is out of town and Patu has a family illness.) I can only point out that one the Board's main duties and powers is to review the budget and then vote on it.  What I saw yesterday did not inspire confidence that the Board understood the budget they voted on. Here are some key links you may be interested in.  Budget Book Appendix A Appendix B Ore-Level Bu...

The budget is supposed to treat every school fairly, but there are seven schools singled out for unfair treatment. The Board should address this unfairness - which clearly violates policy and the strategic plan - when they vote to today to adopt a budget for the coming school year.

At today's School Board Retreat a sheet with definitions was part of the packet. Some of the definitions may surprise you.

Very busy week. Monday, December 10th Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee Meeting from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda Some interesting issues but there is not enough detail to know what they are specifically going to cover.  Work Session on Weighted Staffing Standards from 6-7:30 p.m.  Agenda Tuesday, December 11th  Work Session on Creative Approach Schools from 5-6:30 p.m.  Agenda Special Ed Advocacy & Advisory Council Meeting from 6:30-9:00 p.m., Room 2700 (2nd floor), JSCEE Community Meeting on Capacity and BEX IV from 7-8:30 p.m. pm at JSCEE. Wednesday, December 12th Executive Committee Meeting from 8-10 am.  No agenda available. School Board meeting at 4:30 p.m.  Agenda Of note: - Native American Education update - election of new President, Vice-President and Member-at-Large for the Board (nominations to be posted on Monday).  I suspect the president will either be Smith-Blum, Martin-Morris, Carr or Patu as they h...

There are four schools which are cheated by the District every year. They are South Lake, The Center School, The NOVA Project, and The World School. These are high schools which are not funded in accordance with the Weighted Staffing Standard used to fund every other high school. Instead of getting the funding that they are supposed to get, these schools get much, much less. High schools with enrollment under 800 are supposed to be funded with these staff positions: High School Staffing for schools with less than 800 students (AAFTE) Principal 1.0 Asst. Principal 1.0 Admin. Secretary (260) 1.0 Data Registrar (220) 1.0 Attendance Spec. (201) 1.0 Fiscal Specialist (220) 1.0 Activity Coordinator 1.0 Nurse 0.8 Counselor* (per 400 students) 1.0 Librarian 1.0 Academic Intervention Specs 1.0 These schools, however, are not allotted these staff positions. These schools are singled out to be intentionally underfunded. You might think it is because they are small schools, but Rain...

Folks who watch school board meetings have probably heard students from The NOVA Project speak to the board about how their school is funded. You may wonder what the heck they are talking about. They are NOT talking about the 15% reduction in funding that the state grants to Alternative Learning Experience schools. This has nothing to do with decisions made at the state level. Instead, they are talking about how the District unfairly under-funds NOVA, along with The Center School and South Lake High School. The story is not hard to understand, but it it is tricky because it doesn't make any sense at all. Nearly every school in the district is funded through the Weighted Staffing Standards. There are, however, a few schools which are not. It might make sense to fund and staff schools like the Homeschool Resource Center, Interagency, and Middle College differently from the way that other schools are funded. They are not organized or structured like other schools. But if you were to...

As our school district begins the annual process of developing a budget for the year we will hear all of the same messages that we hear every year at this time. People will go on about how the legislature has cut funding, they will claim that they want to protect the classrooms from budget cuts, and they will describe programs and initiatives that are too critical to cut. I don't want to make folks' eyes glaze over with the tiny details of the budget, so I hope those who follow it much more closely than I do will forgive my describing it in very broad strokes. A lot of the budget isn't really available for re-allocation. There are all kinds of laws, agreements, grant restrictions and such that obligate the District to spend its money in certain ways. There is, however, some discretion. In the past, the board has sat passively and waited for the superintendent and the staff to bring them a budget proposal. That didn't work out so well, so now the Board takes a more act...

As most of you know, budgets are now being developed at both the district and school levels.   There is a WSS (Weighted Staffing Standards) Committee made up, I believe, of a several principals and staff members.  At the budget work session last week, the principals spoke up and said they could not take any more cuts and, in fact, needed some money restored. I wasn't at this Work Session but Dorothy Neville was and said you could hear the worry in their voices. I do wonder what would happen if PUSH really did come to SHOVE.   Meaning, what if district administration would give up something BIG to protect the schools?  Like MAP or some athletics programs or ??? - you tell me. If you are interested in the budget process, it will be the topic of discussion at the next Seattle Council PTSA meeting on Monday, Feb. 13th.   Here's their blurb: Join us at our next Seattle Council PTSA General Meeting where we will discuss the nuts and bolts of school al...

I left after 5 hours at the Work Session on the budget. I know Dorothy Neville was still there so I hope she can fill in the rest. I have 18 pages of notes. It was a room packed with staff and tension. It was clear this was not some exercise and staff was very careful to not name specific jobs (and therefore people) in their discussions. The entire Board was present, Dr. Enfield was there the entire time even though she had just learned of a death in the family and Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was not there because of a health issue. There were 3 handouts: Budget Workshop, Feb. 9, 2010 Central Office Staff Reduction Proposal (note: Central Office, not Central Adm.) A hodge-podge of different documents stapled together that included the above proposal, WSS Team Prioritization Reduction, Personal Contracts, etc. These are not vital documents so don't get worried if they are not on-line. As soon as I see this posted at SPS, I'll link them. I have two meetings this morning so I'm ...

UPDATE: Here is the Powerpoint link. Item 8: There was some confusion/frustration over an item on page 12 ( Strategic Plans: Moving Forward ) about the item " School Performance Framework (to include MTSS) . Thanks to Kay who said, "What is MTSS?" Turns out that RTI is now MTSS ( multi-tiered system of support ; a response to intervention) Susan Enfield talked about using what they have learned works and taking it out to other schools. This generated a lot of discussion. The item has its original cost at $8.7M and its proposed cost at $0-3.1M. The focus here has been on Level 1 and 2 schools and the interventions scale-up for all schools. Duggan said that of the $5.2 current budget for 37 schools, they have revenue for $2.1M so they need $3.1M to keep up. But Sherry could not follow the bouncing dollar signs (I couldn't either). Duggan said the $8.7M is in the gap. MGJ said that in a Dece. 15th conversation (I believe it was another ...

UPDATE: Here's the Powerpoint link. Following up on my Summary thread, here are the highlights of the discussion. Steve started with a bit of a monologue about Board's role versus staff's (I'm going to have to have him repeat it for me). He did say something interesting that I'm not sure the rest of the Board would agree with, namely, that if the Board asked more questions than staff could answer in this Work Session, it is the job of the Audit&Finance Committee to prioritize them. It is unclear to me if he meant that if some of the lower questions didn't get answered, it was okay. It seemed that way. Frankly, with this kind of climate and for a budget, I think ALL Board questions should be answered. Overall themes: a struggle over what will take priority; the Strategic Plan or WSS for schools. frustration by several Board members but mostly Sherry and Michael over the lack of clarity in this presentation. The Board seemed very frustrated ove...

Here's a new spreadsheet from Meg Diaz with the WSS data for almost every school in the district for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. We can each draw our own conclusions. Meg notes that one of biggest hindrances for reviewing the district's data is that anyone wanting to analyze it has to first be willing to sit down and do tedious line by line data entry. It's incredibly tedious, and is a considerable barrier. I have done some of it myself and I know exactly what she's talking about. Meg wanted to know what the community makes of this data.