Seattle Schools Community Forum

Franklin High ranks #1 in Seattle high schools in sending students to UW and 6th in the state. (I'm assuming the #1 ranking is for public schools and the 6th is includes private schools.)  From a letter from UW President Ana Mari Cauce about the incoming class of freshman (partial): For example, last year Seattle’s Franklin High School ranked sixth among all high schools for sending graduates to the UW, which I imagine is a point of pride for Principal Jennifer Wiley, who herself earned two UW degrees. Her students have faced challenges throughout their lives, with 70 percent qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches and an unknown number having faced discrimination, whether because of their race, their nationality or their language. As someone who knows from personal experience how access to education can change a life, I’m thrilled that we’ll be welcoming students like those from Franklin and beyond who are eager to learn with you. Let's see - positive academic outco...

Common sense writing on teachers, testing and public education from an unlikely source in the New Yorker - noted film critic, David Denby .  (Yes, the ed reform blogs have not been happy.) Another of-note writer on education is Erika Christakis whose new book, The Importance of Being Little , asks for more play for younger students.  This via NPR: That's because, she writes, "the distinction between early education and official school seems to be disappearing." If kindergarten is the new first grade , Christakis argues, preschool is quickly becoming the new kindergarten. And that is "a real threat to our society's future."   Chronic absenteeism is an issue in many districts and it was just announced that Seattle would be one of 10 districts under a new effort by the White House and the Department of Ed to address this problem.  Nationwide, between 5-7 million kids a year are chronically absent each school year.  The Times reports that in Washington S...

I put up another update on the Center School incident yesterday.  It sounds like both staff and students did a great job in handling the situation. Fun fact: there are now only about 20+ schools where parents pay for kindergarten.   The district has managed, through LAP dollars and other funding, to fill in that half-day that the state doesn't pay for.  McCleary can't come fast enough.  I also note that the district has financial documents, like Race to the Top, that reference "in-kind" staff time "donations."   Keep this in mind around initiatives like RttT and preschool.  1B likes to say that SPS doesn't have to give space but I'm certain that any partnership will include a lot of staff time from several departments.  In-kind donations of staff time, whether dollars exchange hands or not, are REAL money. A reader had mentioned this previously but here's a list from OSPI of school bus violations statewide by drivers in cars.  Number of v...

The answer to that headline is - not really.  Are they getting more money?  Yes.  Enough money? No.  Can the Supreme Court really do anything?  Doubtful. So really, it's a lot of legislators blowing smoke about education.  (And no legislator should pat themself on the back for finally getting a budget.  That said, I know many districts are relieved to finally have some answers so they can finish their own budgets.) The Times reports that half the money would go to fund "student transportation, school supplies and building utilities" (things districts now pay for that the Supreme Court - go figure - said the state should pay for). The rest would go toward expanding state-funded all-day kindergarten and class-size reduction in kindergarten/1st grade in high-povery schools. This is all great but not enough.  (I believe the class-size reduction is about two students per class.  I don't know if the kindergarten funding means no more pay-fo...

 Update from Duggan Harmon, Assistant Superintendent, Business and Finance, and his budget update (partial): "While the level of increased K-12 funding is relatively similar in both the proposed House and Senate budgets, the two bodies differ significantly on strategies to fund these increases. In simple terms, the House wants to close tax loopholes to fund K-12 enhancements while the Senate proposes to do so through cuts in other areas of State spending. Failure to adopt a budget by July 1 would result in at least a partial shutdown of State government. Given that this has never happened before, it is difficult to say exactly what such a shutdown would mean, but it is likely that government offices would close, apportionment payments to school districts would not be made, State bond ratings would suffer and other obligations, such as capital program construction match, would not be paid as scheduled. I’m confident a state budget will eventually be passed and it will have in...

It was a lively meeting to be sure.  I stayed until after the discussion of the introduction of the TFA item.  Here are links ( Part 2 - testimony, Part 3 - rest of meeting). The testimony was more varied than I might have expected as TFA was not the only issue discussed.  In fact, testimony about Graham Hill's preschool led to discussion at the Audit & Finance Committee meeting the next day and Sherry Carr's community meeting yesterday.  I will sum it up here but it deserves another thread of its own as it is a larger part of the discussion about the budget. I am going to write a separate thread on the TFA testimony as it is quite telling to the discussion about ending the contract. 

Thank goodness for The Olympian ; they really keep up-to-date on the Legislature.   Here's the latest on education measures: Passed and gone to the Governor for her signature: Collaborative schools: A proposal for universities to work with school districts to assist low-performing schools cleared the Legislature. The pilot project would implement instruction models and other strategies in chosen elementary schools. This is a bill I supported - HB2799 - in place of the charter school bill.  I think it's a great start to helping low-performing schools find better academic outcomes with the help and support of our universities.  Failed: All day kindergarten funding: Legislation to fund all-day kindergarten by removing the sales tax exemption for out-of-state residents failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote to pass, which is required to raise taxes. Signed into law by the Governor: Teacher evaluations: Gregoire also signed an overhaul of the teacher e...

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

When we last left Pay for K in November, the district hadn't been able to figure out what money had come in or even who was supposed to be paying.   At a later Audit and Finance Committee meeting, it appeared more under control but the handout still didn't explain if they had fully implemented it and were receiving all the money due to the district. On the heels of that comes another snafu, this time with Pay for Play which is for students who want to participate in competitive athletics in high school.  (This is not for PE or intramural sports.)   The old fee was $50 for the first sport and $25 for the second sport (with a cap at $75 for 3+ sports).  The Board approved raising the fee for this year.   I believe that the new fee was $100 for the first sport and $30 for the second (again, with a cap at $130 for 3+).  (Still checking on this because the new website has old data and no one answers at the School Board office but it was raised.) All st...

So they hashed it all out about the $3.3M at the truncated Work Session this afternoon. All the Directors were there, save Betty Patu who was traveling. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was also in attendance. There were several options laid out including breaking the money into chunks to help several different areas. The bottom line is that the Directors felt the over $100 increase per month for full-day kindergarten was too much. They agreed to a $30 per month increase for 2011-12 with the sum gradually going up year-by-year to meet the costs. That will take up $2.1M. The rest of the money will go into a "risk" reserve contingency fund. To be clear, the district already has a contingency fund of $4.6M but that is truly disaster money. Staff identified a number of "risks"for this budget year from either federal or state funding (or both) that are still unknown. If the numbers don't come thru (and the latest state economy numbers that came out are not good), then the d...

One, there is an agenda up for the Work Session and basically, staff will review how the gap is to be closed and the other item is...Pay for K. So whether or not the "found" $3.3M will go to it or not, it is to be discussed in some way. Two, I was checking the Board meeting agenda and there was one change on the Transportation document which is to call AS#1, Pinehurst K-8. I don't know why; does anyone else know? Is it to reference them being a K-8? Also, the following information was in the document and I urge you to take it to heart and spread it among your communities. We don't want anyone to NOT understand that there may not be transportation for some elementary students next year based on whether they are attending their attendance area school or not. There are a number of changes to transportation eligibility and service for 2011‐12; please refer to the Transportation Service Standards for 2011‐12 for specific information. Some elementary grade students who...

I left after 5 hours at the Work Session on the budget. I know Dorothy Neville was still there so I hope she can fill in the rest. I have 18 pages of notes. It was a room packed with staff and tension. It was clear this was not some exercise and staff was very careful to not name specific jobs (and therefore people) in their discussions. The entire Board was present, Dr. Enfield was there the entire time even though she had just learned of a death in the family and Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was not there because of a health issue. There were 3 handouts: Budget Workshop, Feb. 9, 2010 Central Office Staff Reduction Proposal (note: Central Office, not Central Adm.) A hodge-podge of different documents stapled together that included the above proposal, WSS Team Prioritization Reduction, Personal Contracts, etc. These are not vital documents so don't get worried if they are not on-line. As soon as I see this posted at SPS, I'll link them. I have two meetings this morning so I'm ...

I am going to create a one-sheet list of my suggestions for easy reading but here it is fleshed out. (I'll have the one-sheeter by the end of the evening.) As a preamble to what I would suggest the district should cut, I make these disclaimers: I have looked through all the documents available for 2011-2012 budgeting. They do not follow in a real and coherent fashion so it is not really possible to discern exactly what staff is saying. There was an initial listing , followed by another presentation and the Strategic Plan Budget Planning Tool followed by the Budget Balancing tool . I can't tell if the planning tools overlap. I know that the Board pushed back on some initial ideas (like selling the radio station at Hale) so naturally it fell to staff to look at other areas. Staff is right about the difficulty of planning when there are unknowns looming. What will the economic update forecast be on March 17th? What will labor partners have to say? I am going wi...

Update 7:03 p.m.: It appears that the amendment to eliminate funding for highly capable programs and full-day K (except for high poverty schools) has FAILED . It is unclear to me whether the highly capable funding is going to still be suspended for this year but we'll probably know this week. There was a sigh of relief last week over the state funding for highly capable programs (called Advanced Learning in SPS). However, the funding is again being threatened. A so-called " striker amendment " introduced by Rep. Alexander has appeared in Appropriations bill 1086. What is particularly onerous about this amendment is not that it cuts some funding; it would eliminate all state funding for highly capable programs. Allocations for school district programs for highly capable students shall be distributed at a maximum rate of $401.08 per funded student for the 2009-10 school year and $401.08 per funded student for the portion of the 2010-11 school year from September 1, ...

So much to talk about but I did want to put up some interesting highlights from last week's Audit and Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 13th. There was some discussion of how to get Director Patu up to speed (as she is new to the Committee and, seemingly, finance). Enrollment: district is up by 188 kindergarteners and over 900 9th graders. Wow. There was some discussion about the various ways that BEX and BTA dollars were being spent as well as the bond sale late last year to get even more capital money for the reopened schools. I tell ya, the money just gets moved around and around. So those who were waiting on the item about the Audit Response to AE3.1 conflict of interest issue. It was reported that: this was about NWEA which the Superintendent did not disclose that she was on their Board. What was said at the meeting is that the district noted that this was a specific item and not just "you did not fully disclose all the boards you sit on". the wording on audit re...

From our Open Thread Sunday. The district seriously sent out huge bills for Pay for K right before Christmas? I just want to say that I got my $828 Pay4K bill on DECEMBER 24!! Really, SPS? I knew it would be coming, although I NEVER once got any information about it before school started - I never got a Welcome to Kindergarten packet from the district, but I have been saving my money while waiting to learn how to Pay4K- but to send them out Christmas week? I just think about all the families that could barely pull Christmas together this year, who are not FRL...makes me sick. Annoyed K Parent

Okay, husband on a plane, college-age son off in his room, decorating done, so let's humor Charlie and finish the Audit and Finance summary. (This also means for my effort I get to eat some of the Theo's Fig, Fennel and Almond dark chocolate bar.) So I left off with the pending or impending) capital program management audit. Sorry, Charlie but Sherry misunderstood Michael and let Noel Treat leave. No Ethics program review. (Yes, a shame but it was an honest misunderstanding. I realize now that I also misread my notes and this occurred BEFORE the audit review information. I include this so that you know that Sherry Carr DID hear the audit review information.) They were then talking about the i ntegrated planning for the 2011-2012 budget . I didn't get the handouts so this was very hard to follow. The one data point I got was that we are losing $66M from grants not included in the previous budget update. (I do not see this info online; I will try to find it Monday...

As requested. The issue has never made sense to me. Some schools offer free all day Kindergarten and other school charge. I believe the schools in the NE cluster talked about creating a standard fee because it wasn't fair for families to get assigned to a school with a higher monthly fee. My understanding is that each school's Building Leadership Team (BLT) determines how many Kindergarten classes to offer and whether they want to charge parents to pay for additional FTE (full time employee) since 1 kindergarten teacher could teach 2xs as many 1/2 day kids. Title 1 schools have free all day Kindergarten and kids who qualify for free/reduced lunch don't have to pay either.