Seattle Schools Community Forum

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...

Dorothy and I attended the Board Work Session on the budget yesterday afternoon/evening. It was not a pretty meeting and not just because of the subject matter (which is grim). Here's a summary first and then some general items of interest in a separate thread (it's way too much to write every question and answer but ask me questions and I'll see if that got covered). Dorothy, you chime in if I heard it wrong or leave something out. The meeting was videotaped so it should be available at some point for viewing. I also can't find the Powerpoint yet so that is to come. UPDATE: here's the link . Summary The budget gap is $36.6 million . Here is the explanation Don Kennedy gave in a staff memo: Our current budget gap, based on the governor’s proposed budget, for next year is $36.6 million. While the impact of her budget to Seattle Public Schools was not as negative as we projected, we nevertheless have a significant budget problem. In addition to the $36.6...

It was called to my attention that, for whatever reason, the district is using recommendations from a group of principals without giving other staff the same ability to give input. Backstory: the Superintendent created a training group, the Superintendent Initiative for Leadership (SILD) to give professional training to principals that includes working with staff at headquarters. Fine (although part of this professional development work for leadership has been done with contracts with a UW group and we've spent roughly $300K on this over the last two years). However, now it seems that group of principals (and a few other staff0 who went through this training got to sit down for 3 hours last Thursday to go over the budget. What about the maintenance staff? Security? Custodial? What about all the other people who keep our district running? What about their ideas and concerns? Here's what I wrote the Board today: I am planning to attending the Work Session on the budget tod...

Update: found the listings for elementary tours. Very convoluted to find. Most elementaries do not have tours until late January and most go into late Feb./March. However, Bailey Gatzert has two this week (on the 11th and 13th) and Madrona has an evening tour on the 13th. I have to say that with very few elementary schools having a tour during Early Enrollment (ending Jan. 31), it might make it hard for parents to decide "do I enroll now or do I want to want for Open Enrollment?" Elementary school tours are organized by service area: Aki Kurose Service Area Denny Service Area Eckstein Service Area Hamilton Service Area Madison Service Area McClure Service Area Mercer Service Area Washington Service Area Whitman Service Area The district has put out some info on enrollment . if you are continuing at your school (or are a new student who completes Early Enrollment by Jan. 31), you should receive a confirmation letter by mid-March . Assignment letters will con...

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...

Sorry this took so long. As I stated previously, I did not stay for the budget portion of the Work Session so this is only about the Strategic Plan. Here is a link to the presentation . Betty Patu was not there and so they recorded the meeting (both audio and video) so it should be available somewhere. Michael DeBell stated that this was to listen to the information but not to set any priorities. What ended up happening was that there were 88 slides to cover and yet for some reason they let the Family Engagement section go on for about 35 minutes. It was interesting info from each of the schools with a FEAT team (Family Engagement Action Team) but I didn't feel it was the right time to present it. So by the time Dr. Goodloe-Johnson got started, she really whipped through the slides. (I've stated in the past that I think the staff presentations are too long and I still believe that is true.) I stepped out as they went into 2010-2011 Governance Priorities starting on slide ...

First up this week, if you want to speak at Wednesday's Board meeting, sign ups are taken starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning (Monday the 6th). Also tomorrow (night) is the NW School Reports meeting from 7-8:30 p.m. at Whitman Middle School. Again, all the principals from schools in that region will be there along with central staff. Tuesday afternoon is the Audit and Finance Committee meeting with the focus on Audit. This is a longer meeting, from 4-7:00 p.m. which leads me to think something big is being covered (or they need so much time because our district has so many issues to cover from the audit). Tuesday, the 7th is the Central School Reports meeting from 7-8:30 p.m. at Washington Middle School. Wednesday is the School Board meeting starting at 6 p.m. One highlight will be the election of new Board officers with Steve Sundquist expected to be the new Board President. If you don't want to attend a Board meeting, LEV is having an event discussing The Pa...

Apparently the staff is integrating budget and capacity management. (Which is fine.) However, they didn't make that clear to the Board at yesterday's Work Session and I wanted to let anyone know who was planning to come to today's Work Session. It will NOT be just about capacity management but will include the budget. I attended the Board Executive Committee meeting this morning and a couple of the Board members let it be known that they had not expected this to happen without some notice. From the Board webpage: Note to Public: The board and district leadership are taking an Integrated Planning approach to the 2011-12 student assignment plan transition, long-range capacity management, program placement for 2011-12, and budget development for 2011-12. Upcoming work sessions and workshops may focus on one or two areas per workshop but may have information on all topics. This calendar will be updated as the work moves forward. Those work sessions are: Tuesday, Novemb...

A Roundup of Meetings and Activities: School Report Community meetings , co-sponsored with the SCPTSA, start this week. The first one is on Monday, Nov. 29th at Roosevelt High School from 7-8:30 p.m. (These are going by region so this is the NE region meeting. You can, of course, attend any of them but your region's school won't be represented by your principal or regional director.) There's also an APP Advisory Council meeting : * Monday, November 29,* *at Garfield High School (in the commons)* *6:30-8:30pm* This will be an opportunity for the APP community to learn about Garfield capacity issues and possible solutions, the proposed APP high school path to Ingraham, and to express all your questions, concerns, and hopes. The next School Report Community meeting is the SE Region on Tuesday, Nov. 30th at South Lake High School from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 30th is the Board Work Session on the Budget from 4-8:00 p.m. Director Maier has a communit...

Update: here's a link to Bellevue's survey and supporting material . Very interesting and detailed. Their PowerPoint presentation shows WA state as 38th in spending in the U.S while Seattle always uses the 46th in the nation number. The PowerPoint has some great charts where Seattle's central spending really comes across. Yet another fascinating yet odd survey , this one on how the district spends the dough. It's live until December 3rd. Shall we go through it together? First page are questions that are informational. Second page (and here's where you have to put on your thinking cap): ranking areas, from 1-5, that you feel are necessary to maintaining an efficiently run school district that consistently improves learning. (BUT, you can only use your 1-5 once each question.) Your choices are: student/teacher ratio books and instructional materials that are aligned to state grad req and college entrance standards wide range of program offering...

This is critically important. This is the most important and most urgent crisis in Seattle Public Schools. This is also indicative of the deep flaws in the District. This conversation is from the School Board meeting of 11/3/2010. It occurred during the discussion of an introduction item, the update and revision of some enrollment policies. The conversation begins with Director Smith-Blum expressing her concern about the inadequacies of the interventions available in our middle and high schools for students working far below grade level. I would encourage you to watch the video of the conversation from the start, but I offer here a transcript of it starting at 54:40 of Part 3 of the meeting: Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Susan Enfield: Director Smith-Blum and I did have the opportunity to have a conversation about this and actually I think that many of the issues that Dr. Smith-Blum raises are legitimate, but I think that they’re really separate from this actual policy question t...

The Board held a work session on budget planning on November 2. No supporting documents for the discussion are yet available save the agenda. Here is the agenda: Agenda 1. Call to order 4:00p 2. Workshop on budget 3. Adjourn 8:00p So that's not very telling. Does anyone who was there have a report?

I need someone with a legal background to read this thing but I do see some problems here. Here is WAC wording for why the district can do this (italics mine): "(a) The purpose of the conditional certificate is to assist local school districts, approved private schools, and educational service districts in meeting the state's educational goals by giving them flexibility in hiring decisions based on shortages or the opportunity to secure the services of unusually talented individuals. The professional educator standards board encourages in all cases the hiring of fully certificated individuals and understands that districts will employ individuals with conditional certificates only after careful review of all other options. The professional educator standards board asks districts when reviewing such individuals for employment to consider, in particular, previous experience the individual has had working with children. " How do we know the TFA teachers are un...

Okay, here in one place (but if I missed something please let us know): information about both sides of the Seattle Schools Supplemental Levy. Schools First - the levy support group Committee for Responsible Education Spending - the group challenging the levy Facebook page for Teachers Against the Levy Facebook page for No on the Supplemental Levy CRES page with links to: official resolution, explanatory statement for Voter's Guide, teachers contract and levy, and endorsements There are 11 days until the election. You have your ballot. Sadly (and I think this hurts everyone) the levy is the last item on the back side of the ballot after judgeships. I have no idea how this bodes for either side as my experience is that many people don't vote for judges because they have no idea who to vote for. So look for a huge drop-off of votes for the levy which means every vote counts. Seriously. What can you do? Well, vote of course. Also, follow the directions . I can...