Seattle Schools Community Forum

I sent this e-mail to the School Board this morning:

Apparently the Alliance had an event at High Point Center this evening with Dr. Enfield, Steve Sundquist, and other district officials.  It was billed as an evening with Dr. Enfield. 

I had a half-hour meeting with Dr. Enfield on Friday. At first I had this long outlined list of topics of concern, but it simply wasn't realistic. Instead, I chose to focus the meeting on a single concern: What is the mission of the academic side of the Central Office? I'm not usually interested in Mission Statements. In fact, I freakin' hate them because they are useless and typically create unreasonable expectations. Just the same, I think people should know what they are trying to do. We know the District's mission - to educate Seattle's students. That work is done primarily in the schools. The mission of the schools - to educate students - no different from the District mission. The Central Office has two sides: Operations and Academics. The mission of the Operations side is also clear - to take on all of the non-academic work to free the schools to focus on academics. But what is the mission of the academic side of the Central Office? What academic task...

Let's look forward a bit to the next Superintendent. First, we don't need some national search for a superstar. Please, no national searches and no superstars. We don't need or want a superstar. All we need and want is a competent, honest administrator. Frankly, we can't afford a superstar salary or a superstar ego. We need someone humble, who speaks plainly and clearly, and who wants things done plainly and clearly. Second, we need a superintendent who understands that the work - the real work - is done in schools by teachers, not in the central office by administrators. The central office plays, at most, a supporting role. Most of the central office work is only indirectly related to teaching: operations, administration, and planning. The primary duties of the central office should be to take the non-academic work off the schools so they are free to focus on academic concerns. The central office's role in academics should be strictly a quality assurance role -...

Meg Diaz wanted to let readers know that she did an analysis of personnel cuts from the last Work Session (2/9/11) on the budget. Her full report is at her blog , Dolce & Nutella . (Did you know that Costco sells Nutella in big jars a lot cheaper than anywhere else? But I digress.) Her basic points are good (I did a bit of cut-and-paste to put point together rather than spread out in her thread): When basic school and student funding is on the chopping block – and it is, since WSS cuts are being considered – then everything else needs to be up there as well. And if it's not, saying "it's grant-funded" isn't enough. There needs to be detailed transparency justifying the protection of that much administrative expense. However . Only 2/3 of Central Administration employees were even listed on the "core FTEs" handout (compared to 100% of Other Support). Central Administration cannot be effectively restructured when over 1/3rd of the organiza...