Seattle Schools Community Forum

This is a community forum blog.  To me and Charlie, that means anyone can come and discuss anything relevant to public education from national right down to specific Seattle schools/programs.  We try to guide the conversation but not define it. You can opine/inform on topics on just about anything in public education.  We provide open threads for topics that Charlie and I might have missed. We try to be careful on not talking about issues where we - as the moderators of the blog - have no direct knowledge or have not been given direct information from readers on that issue.

I couldn't stay long (darn cold) but I did make some remarks and heard other interesting remarks. First up was Wayne Barnett of the City Ethics department who gave a concise and lively wrap-up of what has been happening with this joint ethics venture between the City and the district.  This is a mid-term report as they are in the middle of the 3-year process. He said that everyone at JSCEE had been given the ethics training as had all the principals. In terms of advice, as of now about 80% of the contacts had been via phone or e-mail.  He said they have slightly less active than at the City level but that is to be expected (given the relative sizes of each). Investigations.  He stated they received their 100th call this week.  He said about a quarter of all calls had launched investigations.  He said about 60% of those calls did not fall under their jurisdiction but that the City had been pleased to act as a liaison between the district and the callers t...

I had learned of a serious situation at Lafayette. Charlie and I both felt it better to say nothing (it is not our place nor could we do much). I did let a few senior SPS people know that I knew and that it was vital for them to give the situation their notice and best effort. As the situation has played out, I did not see that happening. Not from the principal, not from the Executive Director and not from SPS administration. Some of them are now saying they knew nothing about it and that is virtually impossible to believe. But it has now been leaked to the media and I believe will become front page news in the next day or so. I will try to fully explain this when I get home from the Board meeting.  I am sorry to see another scandal to try to explain but I will say that the district had better get principals better training NOW before a lawsuit drags this district down. There is no excuse for this to happen at this point.  Unless, of course, principals saw the h...

I knew about this investigation and the results.  I had being holding off on raising the issue until next week out of courtesy to the superintendent search.  The Times got the info anyway.   (I don't have a total for the amount of money that is likely gone/missing but I think it is around $20-30K which is a great deal of money for Van Asselt.) From the Times : Seattle police are investigating the possible misuse of school funds by a former principal and a parent coordinator at Van Asselt Elementary School. Former Principal ElDoris Turner retired March 16, two days after being placed on administrative leave following the release of an ethics investigation that found a "gross waste of public funds." The parent coordinator, Ramona Fuentes, was fired Tuesday, according to the school district. The investigation, conducted by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, found $30,000 in unexplained cash withdrawals from an unauthorized school bank account ...

I just wanted to make a couple of things clear on this issue and then move on.  I'm going to rely on the words from the Times' article of March 23, 2012 by Brian Rosenthal to make several points abundantly clear. It is a very dangerous thing to have people in authority who have legal responsibilities then look away or shrug when behavior issues between staff and children are brought to their attention.  It is a danger to the accuser, the accused, the child(ren) and to our district.  Everyone needs protection and attention must be paid.  There are two huge reasons why this particular case is concerning.

This is an interesting parallel story in NYC to the one here in SPS.

The Times talked to parents at Lowell.  They also talked to Susan Enfield via SPS Communications.  I can appreciate how tired the Lowell community must be.  First one split, then another, then a felon goes on a field trip, then Principal King says he's leaving, then he's staying and now this investigation that calls out both of Lowell's principals.  It's a lot. And there are questions: What led a special investigator to conclude that Principal Gregory King and Assistant Principal Rina Geoghagan mishandled the report? If they did mishandle it, why were they not fired? And why were the investigation's findings released after the close of the district's open-enrollment period? What led the investigator was the evidence which was fairly clear-cut in terms of both principals being told about a behavior issue by one IA by a couple of staff members.  The principals never did an investigation and then, when the district got wind of it, they both proceeded ...

Now we know a few more things about the situation at Lowell and I just have to ask Dr. Enfield and Mr. Apostle a couple of questions: This was in the comments section on the thread about the release of the investigation report.  Last year, Gregory King shared with the entire staff during a staff meeting, a "This is my life" power point. In it he revealed that his father had been killed by white racists when he was just a young boy, I believe at age six. His brother was killed as a teen ager, also by presumed gang activities. We knew that he had gone through what would have a major impact on his phyche. All year, when we saw teachers bullied, and his own outbursts, ranting at the staff, we all somewhat excused him, as we knew that he had suffered much in his growing up years.

As reported by the Times' Brian Rosenthal: It’s been quite an interesting few days for Gregory King, Capitol Hill’s Lowell Elementary and Tacoma’s Bryant Montessori School. But today, Seattle and Tacoma officials made clear that everything is back the way it was a week ago: King is Lowell’s principal and Bryant is searching for a leader. Apparently the district hadn't told Tacoma about the investigation at Lowell.   The results of the special investigation are set to be released in the next two weeks, Rogers said. It is being conducted by Cristin Kent, a Seattle attorney who also conducted the district’s investigation into its infamous small-business minority-contracting program. It would be interesting to know if Tacoma had asked King if he had anything in his professional background that he thought he should disclose to Tacoma (I've seen that on applications before).