Seattle Schools Community Forum

Checking the Board's webpage, as I often do, I find that the Work Session on HR has been stripped down because.... Closed Session, per RCW 42.30.140, and Executive Session: Potential Litigation, Evaluate the Performance of a Public Employee

Monday, May 9th Curriculum&Instruction Meeting , JSCEE, from 4:30-6:30 pm Agenda Lots of reviews with one of them being "research activity and assessment" - wonder if that will be an assessment of how testing is going this school year.  Under "Special Attention Items" there is "Native American update, K-5 ELA Adoption* and Initiate Middle School math adoption." Open House for English Language Arts Adoption at JSCEE from 5-7 pm in the second-floor library. Wednesday, May 11th School Nurse Day - thank you to all the nurses and health care professionals working in Seattle Schools for caring for our students! Board Work Session - Human Resources From 4:30-6:30 pm.  Agenda Executive Session immediately following - closed to the public This is a rather timely work session given issues that have arisen around who gets hired and who stays and who gets placed where at several of the district's schools.  Thursday, May 12th Audit&Finance...

KIRO tv will be airing a story on the ELL situation today. There's a challenger for State Superintendent Randy Dorn and her name is Erin Jones .  Ms. Jones has taught in private schools and been an ESL instructor.  She is currently the AVID director for Tacoma School district.  She speaks four languages.  Her LinkedIn page says this: I have worked in Caucasian communities, African American communities, and some of the most diverse communities in the nation. My 3 children have attended public schools in WA, from Tacoma to Puyallup to Spokane to North Thurston. Two of my children attend state colleges. The third is a senior in high school. My husband is a public school teacher.  I am running for state superintendent because I want to leverage my vast experiences to serve my state in the most impactful way. What I hope to bring to the position: 1. Advocacy: I wish to advocate for educators at every level, so they are resourced at necessary levels ...

Tuesday, April 29th This date sees two Work Sessions ; both closed.  They run from 4:30-7:30 pm.  I am a bit puzzled by these as the calendar notation has one about HR and is an open session and the other as a closed Executive Session.  But I went to the agenda and now both are notated as "Closed" sessions.  I thought an Executive Session was always closed any way and also why are both now closed? The HR presentation is still linked. 

I reported previously on the discussion of the issue of NW Center and Cascade as discussed at the Board meeting on Wednesday, March 5th.  That, along with later start time advocates, was the bulk of public testimony.  I note that it seems that a call seems to have gone out that at every Board meeting, there needs to be two non-profit groups working with Seattle schools that come and tell the Board how much they need student data and how careful they are with it.  They also come with an "example."  There were two people at the Board meeting that night. I think I mentioned previously how one of these providers came to a meeting and practically outed a middle school student (with a lot of personal description about the student).   Coincidentally, the district is having a Work Session on how they take care of student data just this coming Wednesday but I'll write separately on that.  I'll just say this the district does NOT have everything in place...

Seattle Public Schools bureaucrats love to play word games. Their favorite word game is to re-define words. They do it for a variety of reasons. They have re-defined "task force" and "advisory committee" to evade control by Board policy. They have re-defined "program" and "service" to expand superintendent authority. They have changed the definition of "curriculum" at least six times to confuse the Board and discredit activists. Today we learn the new, revised meaning of the word "interim". A person appointed to a position on an interim basis has the job for a year. The interim appointee gets a mid-year review and, if they pass that review, they are appointed to the job on a continuing basis. For example, interim principals are appointed to schools without any consultation with the school community. That interim principal gets a mid-year evaluation and, with a positive evaluation, they are then appointed as the full principa...

There are sometimes days doing this watchdog work that are defeating, sad and frustrating.  Today is one those.  I'll get to the issue at hand but a few thoughts first. I've said this before - I do truly believe we have some good and decent people working in SPS.  There are several up the food chain who are almost great but, like many a bureaucracy, have those whose work either drags them down or mires them in place. I've also said this before - anyone who works in leadership at SPS who does not read and heed the words in the Moss-Adams report of 2002 is doomed to failure.  Or, at least doomed to frustration. The echo in my head from that brilliant report (and I paraphrase here) -   It does not matter what structural or systemic change you bring to an institution, if the culture of bureaucracy at an institution does not change, nothing changes. This has been, and continues to be, the problem with our district. You really need someone at the top ...

There are not further details/information on the Hamilton substitute incident that occurred last week as the investigation is on-going.   SPS replied to these basic questions about substitute hiring. 1) Why did the reporter say the sub wasn't employed by the district? Is that right? We did not tell the reporter that the substitute wasn’t a district employee. We did say that because he isn’t a permanent teacher, he couldn’t be placed on leave. Instead, we would not give him any more assignments until the investigation was completed.

It would seem something is amiss. From Q-13 News : The 12-year-old special education student at Hamilton International Middle School reported the alleged incident Wednesday to school officials, who called police. The substitute teacher isn’t employed by the school district, but a spokesperson said he won’t get any other assignments in the district until the police investigation is complete. The boy, who is not being identified since he is underage, said the alleged incident happened between classes while he was alone in a bathroom with the substitute teacher. The details are troubling and thank goodness this student said "stop" to the teacher and went and told other adults.  Those adults rightly called the police but it is unclear from this report if the teacher was arrested.  Oddly, the district says the sub wasn't employed by the district.  I'm not sure what to make of that. But an HIMS parent reports that this same teacher was in her child...

Monday, March 11th Curriculum&Instruction Committee meeting , 4-5:30 p.m. Hey, they're going to discuss Advanced Learning; I'm calling this one a "must attend."  Also, they will be discussing a math adoption timeline.   I appreciate an agenda that doesn't look like overreach on the part of how much a committee can get done and discussed in the time available. Tuesday, March 12 Special Education Advocacy&Advisory Council Meeting from 6:30-9:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 13th Executive Committee meeting, 8:30-10:00 am.  Agenda .   Review of agendas for upcoming Board meetings, "timeline for community engagement for BEX projects", Race&Equity PD training request, Strategic Plan.  Wish I could go to this one. Operations Committee meeting, 10:30 am- noon.  Agenda .  Discussion seems to be around construction contracts and technology plan. Oversight Work Session - Human Resources , 4-5:3-0 p.m. Agenda.   This is a basic ...

It seems that Seattle Public Schools is found to have committed unfair labor practices just about every year. When it happens the Board has to read a notice from the Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) into the record at a board meeting and promise to be good. Then they go ahead and do all of the things they promised to never do again.

Monday, March 19th Another community meeting the City is putting on about Arts Education .  This one is at South Shore K-8 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 21st Board Work Session on HR from 4-5:30 p.m.  No agenda posted yet. School Board Meeting from 6-9 p.m.  Agenda .  As Charlie pointed out elsewhere, a big agenda with many property issues but a couple of major votes.  One is about continuing the contract with TFA and the other is over the governance policy, 1620BP.  Because of TFA, I'm sure this meeting will be full, both in the attendance and on the speakers list.  I feel fairly certain that the contract will be retained by a 4-3 vote.  I think there are some Board members that believe if more TFA aren't hired and/or a donor found for the TFA fees, that the contract will just peter out in a couple of years. Maybe but there are two items to consider.  One, the powers that want TFA in SPS will open their wallets and pay...

One point before the public testimony info.  Last night I put forth arguments on three topics that seem to neatly line up with accountability (Sealth elevator), transparency (TFA donor) and public engagement (Series 4000).  I hope the Board realizes that mouthing these words without backing it up with action means little.  Last night had some interesting testimony (along with some funny lines).

It was pointed out in the Crosscut thread on UW and TFA that our new Manager of Recruiting, Nathan Fitzpatrick, is a former TFA alum.  Actually he has quite a long association with TFA from his Linked-In page: Current: Manager, Recruitment at Seattle Public Schools Past: Manager, Non-Profit Alliances at Teach For America Recruitment Director at Teach For America Corps Member at Teach For America   Now by my count we have but one Broad person left in the person of Jessica de Barros.   (The district just recently bid farewell to Cordell Carter. I only know of two TFA SPS staff (there are a couple of teachers but I wouldn't count them): Nathan Fitzpatrick  (he did testify in favor of TFA at the November Board meeting but this was before he wa...

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...

This was an interesting Work Session not least of all because of its topic - HR .  (And no one said anything about "human capital.")  Much of my interest was in how the Board acted.  They acted like people who had questions and wanted answers, polite but firm. Sherry started off by explaining that Don McAdams, who is guiding the Board on governance issues, encouraged them to do overviews of all the departments.  They just happened to start with HR.  Ann Chan, who is the new head of HR, started out by explaining HR's focus which is ensuring every classroom has a qualified teacher, supporting teachers and providing timely staffing and evaluation data and support to principals, executive directors and central office managers.  Michael pointed out that 40% of SPS employees were not in the classroom.  He said the recent issues that "reflected badly" on the district occurred in Central office functions.   He was following up on a comment Sher...

Monday the 21st Reminder of the lecture on water tonight at by Robert Glennon for the Chief Sealth Int'l High School World Water Week.  Doors open at 6:15 for music and refreshments with the lecture at 7 p.m.  Robert Glennon is the author of "Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It." Tuesday There is a discussion at Jane Addams about serving their advanced learners .   This meeting is a Jane Addams school community discussion around how best to serve their advanced learners. Current Jane Addams families, and families considering the school are welcome to join the conversation.  It runs from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the library.  Please note this is school event (not district) with the discussion about Jane Addams only. Wednesday Oversight Work Session on Human Resources Department from 4-5:30 p.m.  This should be interesting as I haven't seen a work session on human resources previously.  Then there is an half-hou...

(Update at bottom.) From the SPS communications department, we found ourselves a Chief Talent Officer. No, don't get all excited that there is someone combing the schools for the next Justin Bieber. It's just the new-fangled way of saying the new head of Human Services. (I'm sorry but that is just a ridiculous name that doesn't fool anyone hired at SPS into thinking, "gee I'm talented AND people like me!") We also have a new Director of Labor and Employee Relations AND a new Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Partnerships. Ann Chan is from Chicago Public Schools (hey, maybe she knows Arne Duncan) and our Talent Officer. Howard Pripas is the Employee and Labor guy who hails from the University of California system but was previously at UW from 2001-2004. Mark Teoh is the new Executive Director of Strategic Planning et al. He comes from the Boston school system. (Now he follows a woman who had her salary paid for one year by the Alliance a...

Look, I am not a business person so I am probably wrong on this one so help me out. Once again, while looking for one thing, I found another. I was looking for school maintenance information and found a link for a SPS job listing...at a headhunter firm called Waldron and Company (they cover the NW/SW). Now the listing I found is old but they currently they are looking for someone for another SPS job. I do understand that higher-end people are harder to find but we have a bad economy (read, more people out there looking for jobs even high-end jobs) and SPS has no money. So how do we have money for a headhunting firm? I went and looked at the SPS jobs listings and it was maybe 25 jobs. Maybe there's more openings that aren't advertised? I don't know. (The one that the Waldron group is working on is there as well.) Don't we have a Human Resources department?