Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update: here's the explanation of all this from the Audit&Finance agenda for tomorrow, starting on page 57. From the BAR: Under Board Policy 6220, Procurement, agreements and financial commitments over $250,000 require Board approval. While this agreement should not have been executed by a District staff member and implemented without prior Board approval, it is being brought to the Board for ratification at this time out of recognition of the legal difficulties in rescinding the agreement and recouping payment, as well as the importance of maintaining our positive relationships with Seattle Education Association (SEA) and our substitutes. My translation is that a single staff member took it upon his or herself to approve this spending and that, while that part was not legal, it was done as part of an agreed-to portion of the CBA and most of the money has already been distributed. I think we can all understand that undoing it would not b...

There are not further details/information on the Hamilton substitute incident that occurred last week as the investigation is on-going.   SPS replied to these basic questions about substitute hiring. 1) Why did the reporter say the sub wasn't employed by the district? Is that right? We did not tell the reporter that the substitute wasn’t a district employee. We did say that because he isn’t a permanent teacher, he couldn’t be placed on leave. Instead, we would not give him any more assignments until the investigation was completed.

It would seem something is amiss. From Q-13 News : The 12-year-old special education student at Hamilton International Middle School reported the alleged incident Wednesday to school officials, who called police. The substitute teacher isn’t employed by the school district, but a spokesperson said he won’t get any other assignments in the district until the police investigation is complete. The boy, who is not being identified since he is underage, said the alleged incident happened between classes while he was alone in a bathroom with the substitute teacher. The details are troubling and thank goodness this student said "stop" to the teacher and went and told other adults.  Those adults rightly called the police but it is unclear from this report if the teacher was arrested.  Oddly, the district says the sub wasn't employed by the district.  I'm not sure what to make of that. But an HIMS parent reports that this same teacher was in her child...

I was wondering where local TFA was all this time. We'll find out out tonight's School Board meeting as it looks like at least five people who signed up to speak are TFA.  One, Lindsay Hill, is the executive director of TFA in the Puget Sound area, and another is one of the teachers hired for SPS, Kenneth Maldonado.  I note that there are still four places left on the speakers list. I also note that the action item for the conditional certifications has changed under Alternatives: Do not authorize application for conditional certificates for these candidates.  This is not recommended as these candidates have been through the school-based hiring process and were recommended by the school-based team to be hired.  Failure to authorize a conditional certificate would result in a school-based decision to hire a particular person being overturned.  Furthermore, failure to authorize will require a new hiring process, which could result in disruption to the...