Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Board is having a work session this afternoon from 4:30-6:30 pm.  It's an annual topic - results of the District Scorecard/Operations Data Dashboard - and the Board needs it to assess whether the Superintendent deserves a raise (still a no from me) but the timing. I see more and more work sessions on Fridays. This is NOT a going thing and never has been.  But it makes me wonder if there is a rush to get a lot done and/or there's just more work. I, for one, am not trekking down to the JSCEE on a Friday afternoon in rush hour traffic.  I do wish the work sessions were taped for later viewing. Here's the presentation and it's a whopper at about 80 pages.  Absolute credit to staff who created this huge document.  It must have been a lot of time and effort. I slogged thru but did I truly read it?  No.  One issue is that it is very "in the weeds" and I suspect that will be an issue for the Board.  I'm not even sure what some of it means....

Monday, November 17th  College Application Event , 2:20 PM - 5:30 PM at Franklin High School. State of the District Speech at Group Health headquarters from 4:30-6 pm (with a wine reception to follow the presentation).  RSVP only.  Put on by the Alliance for Education (although, oddly, no mention of it at their own website).  Tuesday, November 18th State of the District speech at  JSCEE at 4 pm.  It is a 20-minute presentation that will be broadcast live streaming and on Channel 26.  I don't think there will be a wine reception. I think of the two dueling speeches (and their location/format) as the Snobs versus the Slobs. (No disrespect to anyone but when a state of the district speech - the first one, the main one - is not at district headquarters, you have to wonder.) Work Session DistrictScorecard/Operations Data Dashboard from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm.  Presentation  There are quite a few interesting stats in here but I may write...

Shockingly, I neither attended nor watched the School Board meeting.  But I did hear about it from other sources so here is some of what went on (plus some input from a careful reading of agenda items on the docket).   Apparently it was a love fest for Banda and some tension on the Board.  Here's the information I received from the organizing group for later starts where the tension comes in. Later start times analysis passed, 6-1, with Director Blanford the sole no.  Apparently, though, both Carr and Martin-Morris claimed they felt staff was  "bullied" by others on the Board.  I'm suspecting they mean President Peaslee who can be quite strong-willed.  Is she a bully?  I have never seen evidence of it but I'm not sitting with her behind closed doors.  From the Later Start group e-mail message: We WON!  Bell time analysis was passed 6-1 with only Blanford voting against. Cautions were made about not overworking staff, particular...

The superintendent declared the State of the District to be fabulous, despite failing to meet 22 of 23 statistical goals for academics. The District remains focused on closing the academic achievement gap, but still refuses to develop a plan to achieve the goal. The Superintendent claims some progress and attributes it to improved instructional quality resulting from the new teacher evaluation system.

The Board will conduct a work session to discuss the District Scorecard on Wednesday, the 13th, starting at 4:30pm. Here is a link to the scorecard . You will notice that while the district made positive annual change on 20 of the 23 measures for Academic Growth and Student Outcomes, and has seen positive change over the baseline on 21 of the 23 measures, the District has met  only 1 of the 23 targets for 2013. Let me say that again. Of the 23 measures of academic progress on the District Scorecard, the District has met the 2013 targets on one  of them. Oddly, the scorecard reports having met none of them. The goal that the District met was 60% of 6th graders passing all classes, and the result for 2013 was 61%. That goal was reached. Funny that they didn't notice. This data is supposed to be used to hold District staff accountable. We will see, on Wednesday, what accountability looks like in Seattle Public Schools.

To note: KIRO-tv (channel 7) will be running a two-part series on district spending on Monday and Tuesday.  Monday, November 11th No school in honor of Veteran's Day Tuesday, November 12th Road Map to College event, 2:30-5:30 pm at Ingraham High School Wednesday, November 13th Quite the important and jam-packed day. Executive Committee Meeting, 8:30-10:00 am. Agenda .  Given what has been on the agenda in the last couple of Board meetings, it will be interesting to see what is placed on the upcoming Board meetings.  They will also be discussing what is on the Board Retreat that is coming up in early December. State of the District address by Superintendent Banda    Updated: This presentation, which includes highlights of the District Scorecard and individual School Reports, will be from 4-4:30 p.m. in the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence auditorium, 2445 3rd Ave. S. Work Session: District Scorecard/Operations Data Dashboard from ...

The Annual School Reports and the District Scorecard have been released. Discussion follows. The District Scorecard reports that the District is on pace to reach ZERO (0) of the 23 Goals. That is how bad they suck. Not only are they missing, they are missing badly. The District is within ten percentage points of the target in only four of the twenty-three categories. I cannot imagine a worse report. Superintendent Banda, on the other hand, says things look great: “The State of the District is strong,” Banda said. “We have work to do to make sure all of our students are succeeding, but I am pleased to see our schools improving and growth occurring both in test scores and enrollment.” That's from the District Press Release . Here's the PowerPoint that came with the State of the District .

Looking ahead to the next couple months, there are few items of interest that will come due.

Yesterday Dr. Goodloe-Johnson gave her unapologetic apology for the false statistic about Seattle Public School graduates who met the entrance requirements for a four-year college. She only did it because the Board Executive Committee forced her to do it. It wasn't much of an apology - sort of "we should have told more people that we were changing the number" instead of what it should have been: "sorry we were deceptive". Here's her fake apology . Look hard. If you can find the word "sorry" or "apologize" in there, let me know. I couldn't find it. This is not, in fact an apology at all. If anything, she seems angry at the people who quoted the number for not attending a Board work session in which the change in the number was mentioned. She continues to pretend that the number was poorly explained instead of an intentional effort to mislead. In these ancillary notes to the official "apology" we finally see an actual...