Seattle Schools Community Forum

At the most recent Board Retreat, the Deputy Superintendent, Charles Wright, told the Board, in a rather elaborate fashion, that if the Board added a bell time switch to the list of Board priorities, it would have a severe impact on the staff's work. Nearly every department would bear part of the burden and nearly every current initiative would be delayed. The claims were an obvious exaggeration. I contend that the addition of a bell time switch to the list of Board priorities would, in fact, have no impact because the staff doesn't work on Board priorities. As evidence, I present the Board priorities for the past five years:

It's the end of spring so, I'm spring cleaning.  That means going thru my vast SPS files and throwing out/reordering. Naturally, I found some interesting stuff (but threw out two bags of paper).  Among the things I found: - Did you know I was an education activist in high school?  Me, neither but apparently I wrote, for the school newspaper, an op-ed in support of a bond measure to building onto our school.  I mention that our high school was built for less than 1,000 students and we had over 1500.   We had 30-year old stadium lights that leaned like the tower in Pisa.  We needed science labs and a new auto shop. It was for $3M but I don't know if it passed.  - Did you know the Alliance for Education - at least in 2011 - actually included Spectrum in the feedback they received from folks attending their State of the District luncheon.  " Increase access to Spectrum and ensure consistency across the district."   - Did you k...

The District has claimed that equitable access to quality programs and services for all students is important to them. They say that, but where are the efforts to provide equitable access beyond the flowery talk? In one step towards equitable access the District math department has standardized math placement in middle school. All of our comprehensive middle schools use the same assessment and make the same placement based on the results. This is a positive step towards equitable access. A student is assigned to the same 6th grade math class regardless of their attendance area school. Too bad that commitment ends in the 6th grade.

In response to an apparent need, I offer this explanation of the Equitable Access Framework. It begins with the differences among schools, services, programs, and curricular foci. The distinctions are based on the definitions provided in the Superintendent’s Procedure 2200SP. This document should have ended the confusion about what is a school, a service, a program, or a curricular focus. Unfortunately it did not - mostly because few people took the time to read and understand the procedure. That includes the people who purportedly wrote it. Some of the confusion lies in the legacy names for things or our habitual way of speaking about them. Some of the confusion lies in the historical trespasses on authority. Some of the confusion is rooted in the large amount of overlap.

I doubt it. I'm reading the presentation for tomorrow's Work Session on Transportation and School Start Times.   Staff is explaining why they could not implement any change to high school start times in 2014-2015.  There are valid reasons, of course, but then there are several references to "all stakeholders who will be affected need to be consulted and kept informed."   You read that and think, "Is the district finally getting the message on that kind of transparency and consultation?"  I would not hold my breath.  I think it's just a fairly convenient reason to NOT make the effort this year.  (And by effort, I don't mean change the start times for 2014-2015 - I mean actually start the process that they say is needed.) I think the Next Steps/Questions is something of a throwdown to the Board but frankly, one the Board should consider.   Did they really get the right information to decide on district priorities?  It's unclear ...

Update:  I just went in to correct the link to the new document (see paragraph below) and found that the Board Agenda looks like a crazy quilt.   I'm not sure what I have seen or not seen.  I would say - with no hesitation - that at the end of the voting on the Growth Plan and the Intermediate Capacity Management Plan that will not be one single person in the room who could really tell you what will happen.  I'm sure that there are staff and parents who know certain parts well but the whole thing?  It will unfold as it will.  The district has just unleashed (and yes, that's the word I'm using) a new document    for pathways for the North/NE. I'm trying desperately to keep up so did I miss this?  Two days before the Growth Boundaries and Intermediate Capacity Plan is NOT the time to hand this out.  Who can really digest what this means? They say this on the last page about "program placement": Board Policy F21.00 deleg...

Charlie and I are at the retreat (he was here most of the day) and I can't resist some early alerts/news: - the Superintendent says that the number show that enrollment is at nearly 52,000 .  To understand, this is NOT the case for most urban districts. - still no clear answer on the Equitable Access Framework.  President Smith-Blum pushed back when it was deferred (again).  She stated it does not have to be the same for every program but she believes parents needs to understand how programs work and what is the definition for equitable access. Oddly, Director DeBell pushed back, saying "they could get to this eventually."  He called the programs she called out like language immersion "higher level" programs.  (Of course, later he called out how his goal is to meet the LI goal of 12 schools.  Why that is at the top of the list over a clear understanding of equitable access is unclear to me?) The facilitator got a big laugh when he asked, "Do you ha...

Back at the beginning of the summer, when I was being a real nudge, I was invited to a half-hour meeting with Michael Tolley and Shauna Heath scheduled for today. We had that meeting this morning and it consisted entirely of my questions and their answers. They were gracious and relatively candid. Half an hour isn't much time and I wanted to cover a few topics in great depth.

Today is July 31st, the due date for the quarterly program placement report. I was recently reminded of an email I sent to the Board at the end of January in which I asked about the status of the program placement process and the equitable access framework - both of which were overdue then. I was reminded of that email because I just saw it among the documents sent to Linda Shaw of the Seattle Times as part of a public disclosure request about all email traffic between Director Smith-Blum and Mr. Banda in January. Director Smith-Blum forwarded my email to Mr. Banda and asked him: " Just fyi below, and it is accurate - would love to have an update on the EAF - program placement - so we can start to get on top of the process and comply with the policy. Is it possible for Aleta to set a date for us and whoever else might be appropriate in the conversation so I can determine where on the Board calendar we might need an entry point in the plan as well? " Here we are, six m...

From KPLU : Taking stock of his first year at the helm of Seattle Public Schools, Banda told KPLU a divided board has a definite effect on how he does his job. “[That’s the] reason for my taking a very strong stand with the board to say that we need to be able to do that job unimpeded. They need to have trust in the leadership team, that what we’re doing is in the best interests of the district and our children, ultimately,” he said. Well, yes, but he's new, a lot of the leadership team is new and until everyone has shown some mettle, I'm on the side of Board oversight. Banda said the job review process took place over several weeks, and that he believes by the end he was able to win over the skeptics. “I believe that I have the full support of all seven members of the board,” Banda said. Any change of heart is not reflected in the report produced by the board, and no board member has said publicly that he or she has come around from doubting Banda’s lead...

On June 1st, at the Board Retreat, there was a lot of talk about trust. Here's one statement from that event that I recall clearly: "You cannot talk yourself out of a trust issue that you acted yourself into." Everyone at the retreat - Board directors and senior staff - pledged themselves to building trust. That was just a few weeks ago. Then, yesterday, we get a presentation from the senior staff, Board Work Session - Equitable Access, Growth Boundaries & Capacity Management , which is rife with dishonesty and deception.

The attendance area boundary work is scheduled out and will end in a motion before the Board introduced in October and approved in November. There is also work scheduled out for discussion and decision about the re-vision of Advanced Learning and Special Education. The timetable for that work should have it finish up some time around January of 2014. There is no current timetable set for the Equitable Access Framework. It was supposed to be done by April, but it has hardly been started. This represents work getting done out of sequence.

Here's Superintendent Banda's Performance Evaluation .  You will see that this is based on a "supermajority" of the Board (I would assume that to be 5 people) with a minority assessment coming at the end of the evaluation.  From the evaluation: These evaluation criteria focus on five areas: Hire, Develop and Strengthen Leaders: Teacher/Principal and Central Staff evaluations; Hire quality leadership to fill vacant positions; professional development Raising expectations and improving academic performance and opportunities of all students: narrow achievement gaps, growth for English Language Learners; implementation of Common Core State Standards; Building relationships with selected stakeholders to connect them to our schools:  Family engagement, Labor Partners and community based organizations. Governance Team Priorities and Areas of Continuing Emphasis:  Develop a plan for BEX IV and EP&O levies; a framework and process for collective bargaining; brin...

Are you genuinely concerned about equitable access to programs? Take a look at the  enrollment  and  wait list report , and you may notice the number of students wait listed for access to Spectrum. These students have been denied access to the program due to an element in the student assignment process. Unlike before, there are no seats in these buildings reserved for Spectrum students. Before they can gain access to the Spectrum program within the school, they have to first gain access to the school. If the student does not live in the school's attendance area, then there is little real opportunity for the student to be granted assignment to the school, and, therefore, they are shut out of access to Spectrum. The solution would be for the schools designated as Spectrum sites to set aside seats for the program - as they used to do and as the District assured families that they would when the New Student Assignment Plan was introduced.

The two items I took away from this Work Session on April 10th were these: The phrase "differentiating resource allocation" came up prominently.  I didn't really hear the Directors call it out but my own notes reflect "uh oh."  I say that because the Strategic Plan - in its early stages - seems to lean towards closing the achievement gap rather than supporting ALL students and their learning.  Differentiating resource allocation would tend to support that view.   And, with parents putting in more and more financial support to schools, I can see where some schools could become resentful of their efforts being taken for granted as the district guides money in certain directions. Director Patu called this one out and Michael Tolley said that it meant not necessarily "equal support" but to support students who need help. The other phrase was "academic assurances - basic education - for all students".   One of my first concerns...