Seattle Schools Community Forum

I will be better able to flesh this out at the end of the week but I'm hearing some pretty serious rumblings. It appears one high school principal will lose a job (not just RBHS) and may not be placed elsewhere. I believe this may be happening as a signal to other principals to get with the curriculum alignment program or else.  (So far there doesn't appear to be any other reason like a criminal act or fraud.)  Meaning, less flexibility/creativity in how teachers can teach the curriculum and principals will be expected to bear down on teachers who don't follow the direction of the alignment.  It also appears the district is unwilling to state whether or not they are closing RBHS for a year and then reopening it as a "transformation" school.  This would have HUGE repercussions for the entire district as whether or not you think is something that should be done (or should have been done long ago), the question would be - where would those 350 kids go? Gar...

There were a couple of new op-eds in Crosscut this week.

The Superintendent announced these principal assignments today: Appointments: * Kelly Aramaki to Beacon Hill International School (Susie Murphy is retiring) * Anitra Pinchback-Jones to Rainier View, which opens this fall * Lisa Escobar to Viewlands, which opens this fall * Dr. Robert Gary to Principal-on-special-assignment at Interagency Academy, joining Kaaren Andrews Note: Pinchback-Jones has been at Bagley Elementary, Lisa Escobar and Robert Gary have been at RBHS.   Also, the word is that Bryant will either have an assistant principal or head teacher and not continue having two principals. The following individuals have served in an Interim role this year and are officially being appointed as principal. In each case the ExecutiveDirector of Schools gathered feedback from staff, families and communitybefore making these recommendations: * Keven Wynkoop at Ballard * Kelley Archer at Stevens * Keisha Scar...

Kelly Aramaki, the award-winning principal at John Stanford International School, is leaving at the end of the school year to move to Beacon Hill International School.  From a letter to parents: It’s with this utmost admiration and confidence I have in this school community that I have decided that the timing was right for me to leave the school at the end of this year in order to help our district continue to grow and strengthen international education. About one month ago, Dr. Susie Murphy, the principal who led the transformation of Beacon Hill Elementary School into Beacon Hill International School (BHIS), announced to her school community that she was retiring. BHIS is now in its third year as an international school with Mandarin and Spanish immersion programs up to 2 nd grade. Dr. Murphy and the dedicated staff at BHIS started something very exciting for a student population very different than ours; 65% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch and 40% of the...

This looks to be a busy week for K-12 Education at the Legislature.  It looks like Reuven Carlyle's bill, HB 1593 , to provide a 3-year alternative waiver for people who want to be principals.  Basically, this is TFA for principals.  The candidates have to be able to present their qualifications (but they do not have to have them from working in a school setting) and be working towards a principal certification.   (i) Strategic planning; 26 (ii) Supervision and evaluation of personnel; 27 (iii) Budgeting and allocation of resources; and 28 (iv) Employee professional development. 29 (b) The standards must also include a consistent record of 30 satisfactory performance in previous employment. Just like TFA, it will expand the pool but you can be someone who just needs a job for a couple of years (with no intention of staying in education).

Last story: shocking news but all this turnaround and transformation? It's just dawning on some ed reformers that it might not be so easy to find replacements for principals. This was also in the NY Times. The Obama plan for turning around low-performing schools has hit a snag: That policy decision, though, ran into a difficult reality: there simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over. Many school superintendents also complained that replacing principals could throw their schools into even more turmoil, hindering nascent turnaround efforts. And, guess what? They have to slow down the machine, allowing principals in place to stay on for three years instead of two. Although the program created an expectation that most schools would get new leadership, new data from eight large states show that many principals’ offices in failing schools still bear the same nameplates. About 44 percent of schools receiving federal turnaround money in these states still have t...

As I reported before, tomorrow is the day when the district has their " Construction Management Exit Conference " with the State Auditor's office. This is an audit of the capital building program known as BEX (Building Excellence). I believe it covers the last 3-5 years. I've said repeatedly that this is important because: this audit has taken the Auditor's office two years to get through (not normal at all) that on the first reading of the audit more than a year ago, members of the BEX Oversight Committee starting talking about how to cover themselves and because Garfield went nearly double over its original construction budget (the early published number was $60M) and it costed out at about $120M. That is not a sign of a well-managed project or program. we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when we have a huge backlog of capital work I want to be clear that we have gotten a lot of building done under the BEX program. But, like ma...

Flying under the radar, we finally have a 3-year principals contract that has been approved by PASS, the principals' representative group. It needs to be approved by the Board at Wednesday's School Board meeting. I attended a meeting where Director Sundquist and Howard Pripas, the Director of Labor and Employee Relations went over the principals contract. It is quite an interesting contract. Here's some highlights: Steve says the key change is the principal evaluation process which is being worked on and is due to be done by April 1 by the Principal Performance Evaluation Task Force. The evaluation would include student and school growth. To get the increase in pay, this evaluation system has to be completed by April 1, 2011. This contract takes principals from a 3-step salary range to their salary (beyond base pay) being determined through the annual opportunity to earn both a Performance Increment and a Student Achievement Bonus. The district had done assessm...

I do wish I had attended the Washington Policy Center breakfast last week. One reason is the speaker was Dr. Andres Alonso, the head of Baltimore Schools. He sounds like an interesting guy and I would have liked to hear him in person. However, a couple of readers (Greg is one), pointed out that there was coverage of his speech in this week's Crosscut . What is interesting is he seems the non-firebreathing, anti-union, anti-parent Michelle Rhee. He came into an incredibly poor situation: Only 35 percent of Baltimore’s students received high-school diplomas the year before Alonso arrived. Proficiency levels as measured by standardized tests were in the cellar. Over nine years the district lost 25,000 students, dwindling from 106,540 in 1999 to 81,284 in 2008. In the same period the district gained 1,000 staff, Alonso said. With costs rising despite continuing enrollment declines, "baseline aid from the state to the city had doubled.... It was clearly an organization ...

From the district website: Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, Ph.D. and Patricia Hunter, President of the Principals Association of Seattle Schools (PASS) today announced they have reached a tentative agreement on a three-year collective bargaining contract. For the first time in Seattle, principals’ compensation will be tied to student achievement and performance. Approved today by the members of PASS, the three-year contract will cover the current 2010-11 school year through 2012-13. The contract will be introduced to the Seattle School Board at its January 19 legislative meeting and is scheduled for a vote at the Feb. 2 meeting. Additionally, A new evaluation system will be developed by a joint PASS and Seattle Public Schools taskforce by April 1, 2011 and will tie principal performance to student achievement. The new evaluation system will be in place beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. The adjustments in compensation also recognize the...

Turns out my spidey sense was correct; the Executive Session on Wednesday/Thursday is about the long-awaited principal contract. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in its final form. Also, just as a reminder, there is a new head of labor relations for SPS, Howard Pripas who came to us from the UC system. As well, the Board did make a decision on their new policy/governance person but I will wait for their formal announcement. I would like to ask the Board how this person will work as she/he reports to district staff but works for the Board. How will the Board take this person's research/advice in context to what they hear from parents/community.

It was written in the presentation, although not verbally noted, at the Strategic Plan Work Session, that the principals' contract was not completed. It seems that our friends at the Alliance and their Our Schools coalition has been interacting in this process (to what degree is unclear but I think they are in the loop). Apparently the district is near to closing the deal with principals (it sounds like they've resolved school issue details but now they are talking about salaries). It will be interesting to see the principals' contract versus the teachers' contract.

Two Seattle education stories from the Times appeared over the last couple of days. One is about the number of Washington state school districts that are going to take advantage of the lifting of the levy lid by the Legislature . Some levies will be in August and some in November. Everett, Edmonds, Northshore and Marysville will each have one in August. Bellevue and Tacoma say they aren't because they aren't sure how voters will respond. SPS says it has "no choice" because the state isn't supporting education the way it should. (On that point I have heard legislators say, for many, many years, that they did not want to give more money to Seattle schools because of what they hear about the district. Michael DeBell acknowledged this as a problem several years back. When the Legislature doesn't feel the oversight/management is there and there are results to point to that trend upward, it does make a lot of people unwilling to listen. This is a key poi...

A number, actually a Large number, of schools will have new principals next year, although not all of those principal appointments have been announced. As we get answers, it will be Stacey Loftin at Coe, we get questions, who will it be at Southshore? Let's put together a list. We talk about churn in the principal's offices, let's get a measure of it.

There have been some principal assignments announced recently. The District hasn't provided a press release, so let's see what we can put together here. New Principals for 2010-2011: (I'll edit this post as people fill in the information) Bagley - ??? (Kimberly Kinzer to teaching) Coe - ??? (David Elliott to Queen Anne) Green Lake - Joanne Bowers (Cheryl Grinager to McDonald) John Hay - Karen Hanson (Dan Warren to Sand Point) Interagency - Kaaren Andrews (Cindy Nash to Middle College) Lawton - ??? (Beverly Raines to retirement?) Madison - Henterson Carlisle (had been interim) Madrona K-8 - Farah Thaxton (Kaaren Andrews to Interagency) McGilvra - Mary Lane (Birgit McShane to ??? ) Middle College - Cindy Nash (John German to retirement) North Beach - ??? (Joanne Bowers to Green Lake) The Center School - Oksana Britsova (Lisa Escobar to Rainier Beach) West Seattle Elementary - ??? (Gayle Everly to ??? ) West Seattle High School - ??? (Bruce Bivins to outside the district...

Just so it's clear, the principals' association (PASS) is also up to negotiate their new contract this year. Word is that the district did not even want to take this on last year and just kept the old one. One major sticking point (and I'm not sure exactly why) is that the district wants the principals to be classified more as executives than hourly workers. The principals don't. Clearly, the principals are not hourly workers; they receive a salary. But I think the issue might be that the principals have so much piled on them that they wonder how to get everything done. What came to my attention (and my surprise) was how new the idea of the principal being the "academic leader" of a school is versus just a manager. Principals now have a lot on their plate. They must manage a school and its budget, provide academic leadership to teachers (and, if they are secondary schools, to departments), be available for PTA issues and, of course, be the public face of...

There are a lot of new principals out there. How are they working out? If your school got a new principal this year or last year let us know how well that new leader has assimilated into the existing school culture, how the new principal has changed the culture of the school, and how the leadership change has impacted teacher, staff, student, and family morale? Here's a list from an earlier post. It may need some updating or editing to be made right, so let me know and I'll fix it. Roy Merca from Summit to AS1 Ernie Severs from AS1 to Sanislo Debbie Nelson from Sanislo to Jane Addams Chris Carter from Jane Addams to Hamilton Katie Cryan Leary from Hamilton to Leave Dewanda Cook-Weaver from Lowell (SpEd) to McGilvra Jo Shapiro from McGilvra to Assistant Principal at Hamilton Wayne Floyd from JSCEE (he was working on the Southeast Initiative) to Loyal Heights Cashel Toner from Loyal Heights to Leschi Joanne Hill from Alki to Leave Clover Codd from Leave to Alki Jo Lute-Ervin from...

The Seattle Times ran a story today on an amendment to a bill in the State Legislature that would change the rules on demoting public school principals in Seattle. Currently, the District is required to show "probable cause" to demote a principal. The amendment to the Race To The Top bill, if passed, would reduce that requirement to "valid reason". The principals, of course, are opposed. The District is apparently also opposed. Here is one of the more ironic exerpts from the article: In Seattle, Jennifer Wiley, Franklin High principal and president of Seattle's principals association, says Carlyle's proposal isn't needed because the district already has the tools it needs to demote principals. "If the tools aren't being used, then the responsibility lies with the leadership," she said. While principals don't shy away from increased accountability, she said, they also need to have appropriate resources, supports and authority, which the...

A reader asked for a thread on new principals but heck, let's just open it up. What are your thoughts on principals? What, to you as a parent, makes a good principal? Is your principal responsive to parents? To staff? How is staff morale at your school? I have said many times that I used to think that a successful school was a three-legged stool with one leg being staff, one leg being parents, and one leg being the principal (and the seat is, of course, the students being supported by the legs). However, as I've moved through the system I see that a principal is (can be) the most important part of a good school. Or rather, you can't be a successful school without a good principal A good principal can inspire both staff and parents. A good principal can make parents believe (and therefore invest time and resources) in a school. A good principal can make students feel welcome every day. My experience is that I've had good and not-so-good principals. There was ...

Our friends over at the West Seattle blog report yet another principal change. Alki Elementary principal, Joanne Hill, is on leave and former Loyal Heights principal, Clover Codd, is coming on-board after her year of leave from Loyal Heights. No word from the district on how long Ms. Hill will be gone. The current principal at Loyal Heights was Cashel Toner but she has now moved on to Leshi and Wayne Floyd will be Loyal Heights' new principal. In 2007-2008, this was what Mr. Floyd was doing (from the School Beat newsletter): "Wayne Floyd, interim Principal at Cleveland High School, has been appointed to lead the District's implementation of the College Board EXCELerator schools as part of the Southeast Education Initiative, a program to ensure that schools in South and Southeast Seattle provide high-quality choices for students and families." It's not clear where Mr. Floyd was from 2008-2009. You can follow the trail with Jo Lute-Ervin who was principal at Le...