Seattle Schools Community Forum

Good wrap-up of the current teacher contract negotiations by Josh Feit over at Publicola.   I got a little more clarity on the issue of elementary school teachers and the added unpaid half-hour of work. Calling one sticking point "a longer day for less pay," Knapp said teachers objected to a district proposal to contractually increase the length of the school day for elementary school teachers from seven hours to seven-and-a-half hours without increasing pay, while simultaneously eliminating the weekly hour that's set aside for teacher planning and collaboration. The weekly planning hour is paid time, and eliminating it works out to an average 2.6 percent pay cut. Adding the daily half hour in its place is supposed to supplement teacher planning time, but in essence, it's mandating extra time without extra pay, replacing a paid hour per week with an unpaid two-and-a-half hours per week. Knapp says the micro-managey proposal "is disrespect...

 To note, it appears there will be no other district/Board meetings after the July 3rd Board meeting until early August. Wednesday, July 3rd   School Board meeting at 4:15 p.m. - Agenda Even during the sleepy summer months, a lot is happening.  At this meeting, the Strategic Plan will be voted on.  The Board will heard a report about FERPA re: Common Core and the student data "cloud." (I will be putting out a white paper on this topic so look for that.)  The Board will vote to extend the Superintendent's contract by one year to June 2016.   (They are not considering a raise until after bargaining agreements are done and the district's budget is set.  I personally would not be for a raise at this point in time.  Apparently, according to the item, there is no public input sought on the issue of a raise or extension of his contract.) Hey and look what is delayed (again)?  It's the Highly Capable Student Program State Grant .  No...

State Superintendent Randy Dorn throws down on half-days/waivers for school districts, according to a report from KING-5 tv. Washington State’s school superintendent says he opposes the expansion of half-days on school calendars and wants lawmakers to act next year to give his office the authority to curb them. “Just because the adults have the problem of not having enough money does not mean we should take away kids' instructional time,” Randy Dorn told KING 5. “So they moved to this partial-day thing,” said Dorn. “I think it’s a burden on parents, working parents that have to do all the arrangements.” “I don’t like the idea of waivers. I don’t like the idea of half-days for professional development,” said Dorn. “Especially the kids that struggle the most, it hurts them the most if we’re not in the classroom teaching.” “The lack of adequate time for professional development, collaboration and planning is just one of the problems caused by underfunding,” WEA sp...

Update:  Yesterday, I said this about the "study"  Despite my suspicions about how this study came about, there is some solid information here and is worth a read.  As you can see, I changed my mind.   Why don't I believe this is a serious study? I am unsure who Ms. Liu  talked to and when and what data she looked at to conduct and then write the report on the study.  There is a lot of vagueness in the report on this point.  She mentions talking to staff in Teaching and Learning, HR, and Business and Finance.  She says she spoke to:  Senior-level professionals in Central Office at SPS and assistance from many more. So who did she talk to and when and for how long?  Who authorized her to talk to all these people and why?   But the real question for me is why the district decided to open the door to an non-educational outside entity line OSC who used just one researcher.  Because I can think of many other grou...

I attended the Budget Work Session on Wednesday.  It was pretty sobering.  Key facts: There is a projected deficit of $18.4M .  I would love to explain it all to you (and I will try to at least get the PowerPoint up by tomorrow) but frankly, I look down at the paper version and I don't know what half of it is.  Imagine my happiness (and surprise) to hear Board Directors say, "Now, what is this?" because they don't know either.  I don't know if it is the Budget office trying to use smoke and mirrors or just too much jargon but if the people who will make the final decisions don't know what you are talking about, you're doing something wrong. By April 10th, we will have the Governor's budget, the House budget and the Senate budget.  We were told that is when "the rubber meets the road."  The Governor released his budget today and it seems quite favorable to K-12 ed (if not quite the amount everyone would want).  He seems to be finding the m...

Tuesday, March 19th Audit&Finance Committee Mtg (Quarterly Audit) from 4-6 p.m. at JSEE.  Agenda.   Items include: internal audits of transportation, maintenance and Ingraham High School (note: these may be regularly scheduled audits or something else.  I'll check.) Performance audit status risk management ERM (which I believe is Enterprise Risk Management, managing risks and capitalizing on opportunities) Wednesday, March 20th School Board meeting starting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda.   Note: the student performance is the Salmon Bay Marimba Group.   I love a good marimba band so I may have to go just for that. Items include: approval of a grant from OSPI to boost science teaching for elementary and middle school teachers. Per OSPI, Seattle Public Schools will partner with Renton School District, University of Washington College of Engineering, and the Institute for Systems Biology. The project will focus on professional developmen...

It's a fairly quiet week around SPS this week.  Tuesday, January 22nd Call into the Board office (or e-mail) if you want to sign up for the Speakers list for the Board meeting on Wednesday.  Frankly, you will not be changing anyone's mind if you choose to speak BUT if you want to make a point, out loud and in public, now's the time to go on record. 252-0040 or boardagenda@seattleschools.org Wednesday, January 23rd   Rally to support teachers against MAP at 4:00 p.m.  This one is organized by the SEA and I sure hope there is a lot of teacher, parent and student presence.  School Board meeting at 4:15 pm .  Agenda

Here is the presentation from today's Work Session on the Strategic Plan with survey results.

I started this in Charlie's thread's comment section but it got too long. So, to add to the discussion, here are my notes (I left as Charlie arrived). From my notes: -the Board office has two new hires so both Joan Dingfield and Pam Oakes are gone. I'll miss them; they are nice people. One new thing; the addition of the first 5+ people on the waitlist to the agenda so you can get an idea of where you might be on the waitlist -Lots of energy from TOPS parents who very calmly and clearly explained their issue about transportation. Over 50% of their students will lose their transportation, mostly from the southend. They are asking for a community stop model for buses so their students can continue on. Their hope is for the district to fulfill this request for 3 years. (This time request has something to do with a promise the district made, I believe.) - it was pointed out that a member of the BEX Oversight Committee is doing business with the district and this has not...

On the School Board meeting agenda are two action items for state waivers from the 180-day school requirement - one is for parent-teacher conferences and one professional development. Each waiver is for 3 days. The one for parent-teacher conferences has staff stating research and data sources as being that they asked the principals. (I could quibble about that but I won't.) However, they then state that the district had a survey of parents in late December/early January and 93% (0ff over 1600 responses) preferred closing schools (instead of half-days). Great, so the district asked both principals and parents and found most in agreement. Contrast that to the item for the 3-day waiver for professional development. The research and data is the Strategic Plan and the SEA contract. That's data but I would not call it research. Here's what they say under "Community Engagement: The District’s strategic Plan “Excellence for All,” which has professional development ...

The Huffington Post has a whole education section and,as well, many guest bloggers. One of these is "freelance writer, humorist and educator, Brock Cohen, who wrote a funny, biting assessment of ed reform called " The Fairy Tale of School Reform ." He has a section called " Once Upon a time... " that starts like this: There lived a group of altruists known as the public school reformists . These munificent spirits selflessly set aside their unfathomably important lives in addressing such a dire issue. What this rarefied collection of heaven-sent do-gooders lacked in basic knowledge of classroom pedagogy and actual firsthand contact with nanny-less human schoolchildren, they more than compensated for in name recognition; soaring rhetoric; and the blind, unwavering conviction that nothing less than a systemic upheaval of the current school system could salvage public education. Yup, that's pretty much the story. Here's his second part , "...

There's an op-ed in the Seattle Times in support of professional development for teachers by Patricia Wasley, dean and professor of Education at UW and Stephanie Hirsh, executive director of the National Staff Development Council. From the op-ed: Unfortunately, under the recently adopted Washington state budget, the Legislature appears to have ignored this fact by eliminating all state funding for professional learning. Local districts will have to scale back or eliminate entirely their professional-learning budgets, actions that will harm the quality of teaching and learning. They contrast the old professional development of in-service days/workshops to the "new" approach of the following: Seattle - specially prepared teacher leaders help their peers implement the new district math curriculum. To improve student performance in science, the district uses up-to-date performance data to identify specific learning needs at every school and provides corresponding tea...