Seattle Schools Community Forum

Monday, December 9th Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda.  Update on math adoption scheduled. Wednesday, December 10th Executive Committee Meeting, 8:30 am to 10 am. Agenda .  Mostly review of upcoming Board meetings and legislative matters. Oversight Work Session; Finance . 4-5:30 pm.  Agenda Interesting to see on page 13 that in nearly every division in the Budget department, spending is to go up in 2013-2014.  This after our new CFO (and that's what I'm going to call him because these lengthy titles are a pain), Ken Gotsch, said at the Board retreat that the current shortfall is between $18-19M and they have to look for reductions.  They could try keeping the budgeting for these divisions at their current levels for one.  (In fact, the "assistant superintendent" - I'm not sure who this is -  has a budget that goes from  $301,117 to $484,269.  That's up over 30%.) On page 15, they have a pa...

From SPS(bold mine): With an increasing number and complexity of Seattle Public Schools’ capital projects underway to accommodate enrollment growth, safety upgrades and technology infrastructure, Superintendent Jose Banda announced today that he is making organizational changes to provide additional leadership in the District's Capital, Facilities, Operations and Technology departments. Voters approved a $694.9 million Building Excellence IV (BEX IV) capital levy, the largest and most comprehensive in Seattle Public School’s history, in February 2013. This, along with the current Building, Technology and Academics (BTA) capital levy, has significantly increased the scope of work in capital projects over the next six years. To ensure that the district is organized effectively to implement this work, the Superintendent asked for two independent reviews of the district’s organization related to capital projects and operations. The reviews were conducted by the national Council of the ...

Audit&Finance Committee (Audit) - from June 7, 2011

Just so we all keep up to date, looking at the district website, it appears we now have four Assistant Superintendents.   Pegi McEvoy - Operations (interim) Robert Boesche - Business and Finance (interim) Cathie Thompson - Teaching and Learning  Noel Treat - Deputy Superintendent (interim) It states at the Superintendent's page: The process of restructuring central office at the John Stanford Center has a near zero budget impact.  What?  Cathie Thompson has a new job title and her old job is being filled by someone else.  Don Kennedy was COO/CFO and now those jobs are split into two.  Noel Treat isn't being paid more for his new workload?   So that statement about zero budget impact is a little hard to believe but like most statements about money in the district, no data is ever given. Also, I see they are advertising for not only Cathie Thompson old job, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, but also for the additional Executive Dir...

I had written to the Board about the lack of engagement during this budget cycle. I had mentioned how Bellevue seemed eager to ask parents for help in guiding difficult budgeting choices. I heard back from Director Sherry Carr. She said that Bellevue had modeled Lake Washington and that they are both a best practices model. (She also noted that Bellevue had started its reform/improvement work over a decade ago and so is in a different place than Seattle.) June 10th is the next meeting for the Audit and Finance Committee. At that meeting they will be discussing improvements for the 2011-2012 budget cycle and it must include improved community engagement. She is interested in hearing from parents and community on how these improvements might work. Here are some suggested questions to help guide your answers: What about the process worked? What didn't work? What changes would you recommend? Would the process that Bellevue used work? Anything else? Here is a link for a r...