Seattle Schools Community Forum

One thing is clear - there were people in the district who just did not want the MLK, Jr. Building to go to an affluent private school.  Didn't matter the price - it was a non-starter.  The issue was also about gaining something for the public besides money.    How that was to be balanced in the minds of the School Board is not ever made clear. 

 Update:   a reader asked about who pays for these audits and I mistakenly said the SAO.  It turns out that the Legislature had passed a law for a hotline but had not funded it.  For the first year, the SAO ate the cost  for hotline investigations but could not sustain that cost.  So if the State Auditor chooses to go forward with hotline requests (and I'm sure they don't follow-thru with all of them), it costs the district $83.60 per hour.  (I just removed that "number of hours" as that is for the NEXT audit, not this special one.) On the one hand you could say, "Well, look at that money and the SAO found nothing illegal."  On the other hand, you can look at this sad and sorry mess of a process and say that it sure doesn't look good or smell good.  I'll have more to report on this after I read the SAO work product documents which I believe will make compelling reading.  End of update A new low for reporting is the Times' article a...

The State Auditor's office has determined that the sale of the Martin Luther King, Jr. building to First AME church did not violate any laws and there was no conflict of interest.  However, digging deeper, there are some interesting items. Update:  I got it wrong about Noel Treat being on the selection committee.  The selection committee was made up of Don Kennedy, Ron English, Holly Ferguson and Chanin Kelly-Rae (public member).   Mr. Treat only attended the August 2010 meeting with MGJ at the request of Ron English (and this was right after Mr. Treat was hired). New Update:  Yoo hoo, Seattle Times?  Are you there?  There is nothing at their website on this story.  I have searched and I found nothing.  What an odd thing (especially since it clears the district).  Maybe they are worried about what this looks like to voters in terms of the School Board incumbents.   The lobbyist's name is Clifford Traisman (it is unclear to ...

First up, a commentary from David Brewster over at Crosscut about the upcoming elections citywide.   It gets so much wrong about the School Board that Charlie and I just couldn't stop ourselves.   I'll just hit the highlights: It was different with the Seattle School Board , where all four members of a particularly inept board were swept away (or declined to run) by an informal slate of business-backed, big-organization-experienced newcomers. The result was a transformed board. It changed overnight from a board dominated by petty bickering, meddling, superintendent-undermining, inexperienced bumblers. This time there is a swarm of challengers. I don't know much about them yet, but none seems to have much community stature.  I wouldn't call the previous majority on the Board inept at all but throwing that at all four of them seems wrong (especially if you know those women).  I'm not sure what "big organizations" that Steve, Harium and Michael ...