Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Update:  here's the updated story from Queen Anne/Magnolia News .  Some interesting history but also some expensive trouble for the district. The building had various uses after it closed like being the home to the African-American Academy and a temporary fire station. The "uh oh" is that it has landmark status thru the City in a large way.  This means much higher costs than if they could just renovate it without that status.  This has been a problem at many schools like Roosevelt, Cleveland, and Garfield.  I'm trying to recall the last elementary that had a major update that had this status but I know Coe, Stevens and maybe T.T. Minor. end of update Opened in 1927, Magnolia Elementary School served the neighborhood’s children for nearly six decades, before it closed in 1984 due to declining enrollment. From then on, it served as a temporary site for several schools, including Adams (from 1987 to ‘89) and John Muir Elementary (1989 to ‘90). ...

Monday, Nov. 9th Washington State Charter Commission meeting from 10 am - 5 pm at the STAR Center in Tacoma. Highlights of the agenda: - State Supreme Court Ruling Calendar update - First Place Scholars presentation/update (after which the Commission has an Executive Session)

Update :  here's the presentation that Dr. Herndon is giving at the Board meeting. Early on  at tomorrow night's School Board meeting there will be a " Levies 2016 Update" that starts off with this ludicrous statement:

We've had quite the exhaustive discussion around SBAC testing and it hasn't even started. Here's one teacher's take on what should be assessed : * An assessment of children's nutrition before they come to school. * An assessment of how many times children have been read aloud to before they entered kindergarten. * An assessment on student attendance and student homework. * An assessment on children's financial stability at home. * An assessment of children's abilities to sleep each night in a loving home. * An assessment to gather data on the damage that is done to schools by politicians, CEOs and companies that lobby and manipulate schools into spending millions of dollars on products that are unnecessary, redundant and embarrassing. What do some Republican lawmakers in Minnesota want to do?  Break up Minneapolis School District...into six districts...

That was interesting.  I'm going to flesh this out because I think a lot of these questions asked about Eckstein might ring true for your school building. I was a little confused at first as there were very few parents (even at 5:45 pm) and no handout.  It was in the Eckstein auditorium (about 1/3 ish full by the time it started.) The organizers were smart; Eckstein's curriculum night followed at 7 pm.  (although what a parking nightmare). The district was represented by Flip Herndon, Richard Best, Bruce Skowyra.  The meeting was videotaped (by I don't know by whom). Principal Sherry Kokx was there as was Executive Director, Kim Whitworth.  Elected officials included Rep. Gerry Pollet and Rep. David Frockt.  I saw no School Board members. Dr. Herndon said he would answer some questions already submitted and then take questions.   It's pretty easy - as the parents/staff circled back to the same questions - what the issue is. The district has a c...

Update: so the 2.5 hour Executive Committee meeting of the Whole on Wednesday from 4:30-7:00 pm now has an agenda. The first 2 hours will be devoted to discussing the Superintendent evaluation, Board Committee Structure and Calendar and Board evaluation. The last half-hour is a closed session on the "performance of a public employee." end of update Update: a great conference is happening this week at the University of Puget Sound.  It's the 2014 Race and Pedagogy Conference.  Speakers include Henry Louis Gates and Angela Davis. The theme for the 2014 Race & Pedagogy National Conference is “What NOW is the Work of Education and Justice?: Mapping a New Critical Conscience.” In asking “What Now?” the conference challenges us to align concepts of education and justice in ways that call for conscience, critique, and change. end of update. I'm going to add in some events about public education as well this week. This week is, once again, Banned Books...

To note for tonight's Board meeting agenda ; the Jane Addams Middle School BEX IV construction item has been moved to the May 7th Board meeting by the Superintendent.  No explanation given.  The Superintendent has also asked to remove the Reduction in Force (RIF) item from the agenda.   I confirmed that this is because there will be no RIFs sent out.  As well, the bill to fix facade restoration at Franklin is - gulp - nearly $1M (coming from BEX III and good thing the money is there).  (When part of the facade fell, it was great luck no one was standing underneath it.)  Along with the backflow item at Jane Addams that had to be replaced recently (and I'm not sure how much that cost), we see that our buildings have a near-constant need for maintenance and emergencies fixes.  This is why the maintenance budget needs to be upped or we will likely pay more in the long term.  There are only five people signed up to speak so if you wanted to speak...

From SPS: Seattle Public Schools seeks members for School Family Partnerships Task force Seattle Public Schools is starting the process of revising the current School Family Partnerships District Plan. An important part of the review is to engage with our families, staff and community members and gather as much feedback as possible to help revise our school family partnerships efforts over the next three to five years. A key element to gathering feedback is the formation of a School Family Partnerships Stakeholder Task force . The task force, made up of approximately 40-50 people, will be a diverse group that includes families/guardians, teachers, principals, District staff, community members, city officials and university representatives. Task force members will offer feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the District’s School Family Partnerships Plan, give feedback on the vision, mission, and core beliefs of the District on School Family Partnerships, and make...

I'm off to go listen in on the Work Session this afternoon about Capital Program Planning.  I was talking with an aide to a City Councilperson yesterday about this very issue.  Apparently the staff and families at the NW Center for Kids have been very active in reaching out in all directions to try to stay in the SPS building they currently occupy.  He was mystified at how there could be two groups - Cascade and NW Center for Kids - both whom serve special needs children that have somehow become pitted against each other.  Inwardly, I thought, "Well, that's about par for SPS."  He was also surprised at the lack of preventive maintenance in our school buildings especially given how packed and well-used they are.  Again, no surprised if you know that the district has cut back on maintenance since the late '70s.  They cut back and never looked back.  Well, there has been a lot of hand-wringing from Board members and superintendents and staff an...

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...

I wouldn't call yesterday's work by the School Board especially stellar.  (I think the staff did a pretty good job on the budget but, as usual, what was left out is just as important as what was put in.) First came the Audit&Finance Committee meeting of the Whole to discuss the budget. It is unclear to me when the Board received their copies but there had been some small edits.  I am also not sure when the appendices all got put in.  Director Carr told the group she had not read the appendices as she had been on vacation.  President Smith-Blum and Director Patu were absent.  (Smith-Blum is out of town and Patu has a family illness.) I can only point out that one the Board's main duties and powers is to review the budget and then vote on it.  What I saw yesterday did not inspire confidence that the Board understood the budget they voted on. Here are some key links you may be interested in.  Budget Book Appendix A Appendix B Ore-Level Bu...

Let's start this conversation about BEX (again).  I like the BEX staff that I know.  They are bright and hard-working.  A few of the very problematic people are gone and that is truly a good thing.  That said, I have never been confident in the choices that the BEX staff has made over the years. Here are my problems with how BEX staff works.  One, there never seems, despite their use of the word "scenarios", any real evidence that you see them saying "if A, then, B but what about this ripple to C".   No school is an island and there are ramifications to all these choices and it's NOT just about capacity.  

I would really love to go in-depth on this subject right now but I am running a state-wide campaign against I-1240 (so I have my hands full). However Facilities has always had a special place in my heart so I digress to put up this post.  Charlie has pointed out the numerous issues of the lack of clarity in this BEX.  Frankly, I'm not sure the district has a real plan.  Again, instead of long-range planning and forecasting (could they please just hire Kellie LaRue already), it's triage and putting out fires.  It is also the wages of sin.  And the biggest sin our district has is to put off what needs to get done.  They started pulling back on basic maintenance in the late '70s and never looked back.  The chickens have come home to roost, folks.  We also have quite a few elderly buildings (over 40-50 years old).  Those buildings are in constant need of repair and maintenance.  I think most of you and most taxpayers would be shock...

From the Seattle Times comes this story about how much money it is costing to review the Facilities department.  Sigh. Yes, it wasn't just the Silas Potter-connected programs but the whole thing is getting a good look-see.  From the article: While the district's initial consulting contract was $25,000, the scope of work quickly grew. The district extended the contract three times for varying amounts that now total $162,000, according to records obtained by The Seattle Times under the state's public records act. I have to wonder, out of all the things the Times could investigate, how they picked this one but fine. It's a great thing, frankly, because ALL of Facilities and Capital Projects should get this look.  It's disturbing to listen to Board Committee discussions on these topics and get worried about where the money is going.  From the article: The hiring of the consultants and the scope of their work indicate the department was more troubled than ...

In the first story, I didn't know this but the U.S. Census counts U.S. school children and activities associated with back to school.  From the NY Times article : The bureau estimated that 55 million students would be enrolled in pre-kindergarten through high school this fall, and that 11 percent would be in private schools. That total is up by about 16 percent from 20 years ago.  Also, in an alert from reader Steve, a NY Times editorial about our nation's crumbling infrastructure (including school buildings) and job creation.   Take, for example, Fix America’s Schools Today , or FAST, an idea that has been incorporated into a House proposal to be introduced this fall by Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois. Public school buildings in the United States are on average over 40 years old and in need of an estimated $500 billion in repairs and upgrades. A $50 billion school renovation program would employ 500,000 workers (1.5 million construction worker...

Earthquake.  Tsunami.  Get that earthquake kit together. I'm at the BEX Oversight Committee meeting and a couple of things just occurred to me: - the money for the Silas Potter program came from Capital (you all understood this, right?)  Question is, which Capital pot of money - there are 3 possible choices.  It would be interesting to find out and see who had oversight for that money (likely Fred Stephens but there might be others).  - they are going to build decidedly bigger schools for elementary so for those whose schools might come in on the BEX IV list, you will get a new building but you will also have a larger school population.   The new size range proposal is 510-734.  (And there are plenty of large elementaries throughout the nation.  I think we are more of an anomaly for an urban district to have many "small" schools.) - KING 5 news had a blurb about the district cutting one-third of maintenance staff to fill the budget ga...

Several of us have seen advance notice of what Central Administration cuts lead staff is going to present to the Board this afternoon/evening at the Board Work Session on the budget. What I saw almost borders on the ridiculous. There are, to the naked eye, almost no coaching cuts. There are also no senior level cuts (and that's where we would save money). It is also confusing what they suggested and what got saved. Example: 10 people work in Child Nutrition Services - no cuts. Enrollment/Planning has 6.5; they would cut 2.3. Example of total elimination of work: cut all from the following: International Education (.5), Mail Services (1), Native American Education (.07), Native American (1), Risk Management (.9). Example: Systemic Interventions - sounds like an important thing to fund - it would go from 7 people down to 2.5. But Visual/Perf Arts, at 8, would go down just one position. How are interventions less important than arts? Biggest hit? 36 of 90 positions in ...

This Board work session was dubbed for the new plan for facilities, " Strategic Infrastructure and Maintenance Initiative (SIMI) . All the Board members were present as was the Superintendent. This meeting was not to ask anything of the Board but to give them a review and update. (Note: this thread is long and I apologize but if you do choose to read the whole thing, you will have a better understanding of what the district is doing for our facilities.) Glossary Maintenance Direct - what used to be called Regular Maintenance PM Direct - Preventative Maintenance SIMI - Strategic Infrastructure and Maintenance Initiative APS - Asset Preservation System APP - OSPI term - Asset Preservation Program BMAR - Backlog of Maintenance and Repair TCO - Total Cost of Ownership The reason you should be interested in this thread is two-fold. One, it explains how each school will now be filing maintenance requests and two, it is a sobering reminder of the state of our SPS infrastructure. Fi...

From the Board Work Session on the Budget. There were numerous handouts and much shuffling of paper. The budget gap according to Don Kennedy, COO, is now $24.6. It is tricky because we do not know what version of the state budget is going to win (House, Senate, Governor). Michael DeBell said that he was having difficulty in understanding what he had before him and wished to see inputs AND outputs. He said he also needed to see clear relationships between projects and funding source available for them. Mr. Kennedy said the coaches number was down by 28 because of reduction of I-728 money. Later on, he said they had 100 coaches but this differs from a figure of 116 given at a Board committee meeting where Meg Diaz' report was discussed. He also then said they were backfilled with baseline dollars to core areas. Mr Kennedy said that next week they would announce the cuts from the Central Administration budget. He said they needed to be at $6M and are at $5.4 so far. Kay said th...

( Update and just to make clear - I totally support Prop. 2 - Operations levy. My discussion here is ONLY about Prop. 1 - BTA.) Just to make sure, why are you voting for the BTA levy? As a SPS parent and certified (in one way or another) PTSA member, of course my first impulse is to vote YES. I mean, all of us here are regularly saying how there aren't enough resources for so many things and so the district needs money. So I'll give you a survey at the end and you tell me. But first, I am curious about how people feel about the building that houses your child's school. Does your school have facilities issues (of a maintenance kind, big or small)? The district has to figure out somewhere between $35M-$45M in cuts for the budget. I do know that most people want to believe that cuts are made to keep money going to the classroom. But where is the visible proof of that? Is that wishful thinking or can we look at the district budget and say, oh here's where it is? Th...