Seattle Schools Community Forum

On June 1st, at the Board Retreat, there was a lot of talk about trust. Here's one statement from that event that I recall clearly: "You cannot talk yourself out of a trust issue that you acted yourself into." Everyone at the retreat - Board directors and senior staff - pledged themselves to building trust. That was just a few weeks ago. Then, yesterday, we get a presentation from the senior staff, Board Work Session - Equitable Access, Growth Boundaries & Capacity Management , which is rife with dishonesty and deception.

From David Garrick, President of the Lowell PTA, in a message to Superintendent Banda, board directors, and others:

As last year, this year the superintendent refused to follow the program placement policy and the board refused to enforce it. I've gotten the message that the Board will not make any effort to encourage the superintendent to reveal her procedure for making program placement decisions. In short, the superintendent doesn't care about policy and neither does the board. I guess there's always next year.

I have been active in Seattle Public Schools at the district level for ten years now. When I look at the current District leadership, I see a lot of newbies. Director DeBell has been on the board for five years, but most of the board directors have only been there for three years. Two of them have only one year of experience. The interim superintendent is not only new in the job, but still pretty new to Seattle Public Schools. She's been with the District for about two years. The Assistant Superintendents are also either new to the District (interim CFO, Mr. Treat) or new to district-level positions (Ms. McEvoy, Dr. Thompson). Of the Executive Directors of Schools, only Mr. Brockman has been with the District for long. Mr. Tolley has been here for only two years and the other three are brand new to the District. The Communications Director is also brand new to the District. I'm not questioning any of these people's qualifications or experience in general, but the fact...

Remember that long list of unfulfilled commitments by the District that Director Martin-Morris collected a couple years ago? Remember how he didn't do anything with the list? Remember how he shut off access to his blog where the list can be found? Well, we need to rebuild the list. Please use the comments to add any unfulfilled commitments from the District that you can remember to this post. Thanks!

Dr. Enfield has told us two things 1) Mr. Floe was fired from his job as principal of Ingraham High School because student test scores had stagnated. This was offered as the primary rationale for his dismissal. and 2) Students at Ingraham have been making gains on state tests at a higher rate than the district average. Ingraham's School Report shows 70% of Ingraham students making gains on the state reading test and 63% of them making gains on the state math test compared to 65% and 66% on the tests for the district as a whole. These statements cannot both be true.

We now have a document from Dr. Enfield, Earning Public Confidence in Seattle Public Schools: Every Student Known, Challenged, Cared For , that lays out her priorities for the rest of the school year and her plan for restoring trust. In this document she writes: " I know public confidence is earned through strong leadership ". In that case she knows something I don't. I know that public confidence is earned through telling the truth and fulfilling commitments. She does go on - quite a bit - about transparency, openness, and collaboration. I appreciate the words, but I won't believe them until I see it happen. I won't dis-believe them - I'll just remain neutral. One thing I really, really like about this document is right up front, her top priority: 1. Focusing on our core mission: providing every student with an excellent education • Continuing our commitment to Excellence for All, our five-year strategic plan, with an eye to making adjustments in light ...

On January 11, I wrote this blog post called Don't Hold Your Breath about my doubts that the district staff would follow up on commitments to make corrections to the school reports. The blog post also expressed my dismay at a Board that appears completely unfamiliar with the whole idea of following up. They actually accepted promises of future action from a staff person that they knew was leaving the District. Incredible. It has now been over three months since the changes were promised (and promised promptly), yet we still have not seen any of the promised action. I wrote to a couple of Board members asking about it. One of them forwarded my concern to the superintendent. She wrote back on Thursday the 17th that the changes would be made on Friday, March 18. The changes were not made. I wrote back to the Board member to make her aware of that fact. No response. This sort of stuff does not restore public trust in the District. I recognize that this sort of thing may appe...

So how are we doing on the whole Trust thing? On the positive... 1. The District has out-sourced Ethics Compliance to the City of Seattle. 2. The District says that they will revise their Ethics Policy to make it more effective. 3. The District continues its plan to address Audit findings. 4. The Board is working on Governance and Oversight. 5. The "Graduates Who Qualify for College Entrance" statistic was updated again. 6. The new web site continues to be built out. 7. The Superintendent will hold weekly Open Office Hours on Thursday evenings. On the negative... 1. The District had to admit that they couldn't be relied upon to do Ethics Compliance in-house. 2. The District says that they will revise their Ethics Policy, but the District doesn't have a good record of doing the things that they say they are going to do. 3. The District's plan to address Audit findings is an INaction plan. They are mostly deferring action rather than taking i...

I've written about this before, but it continues to itch. The District leadership says that they are going to be all focused on "restoring the public's trust" in the District. I roll that statement around in my mind but I just can't make any sense of it. I have no idea what they mean by that, and they aren't giving any clues. I'm going to be meeting with Dr. Enfield sometime soon - Melissa and I are going to share a meeting - and I will be sure to ask her about it, but until then I a taunted by all of the various meaning for this vaguely promising statement. Could it possibly mean what it appears to me? Could it possibly mean that the District is going to be open and honest with the public? Could it mean that the District is going to start keeping its commitments to the public? I would absolutely LOVE that, but I know that this could not possibly be what these words mean. Not because they cannot restore trust that they never had. I'm sorry to say...

This whole obsession with public trust had me perplexed. Why would the District suddenly be all concerned about public trust? The District, at least for the ten years that I have been active at the District level, has never shown any interest in public trust. In fact, the District has shown a gleeful contempt for the public trust. Their trust message to the public was the line from Animal House: "You fxxxed messed up. You trusted us." Why, after successfully demonstrating for the past ten years that the District had no regard for the public trust, that the District didn't need the public trust, and that the District didn't particularly want the public trust, is the District suddenly interested in winning the public's trust? Then it occurred to me. The scandal in the RSBDP wasn't a betrayal of the public trust (it was, but that doesn't matter), it was a betrayal of the District leadership's trust. The District leadership has never actually done a...

Trust Trust Trust It's all you hear about these days, but no one will tell you what they mean by it. Dr. Enfield writes: " Our immediate priority is to restore public trust in Seattle Public Schools. " The Times Editorial Board writes " New Seattle Schools Superintendent Susan Enfield must restore trust and order " Crosscut writer Knute Berger is very concerned about trust. I think about trust a lot also. A lot. It's my business. And here's what I know about trust: How do you get people to trust you? --------------------------------By being trustworthy. It's not a joke, it's a simple, powerful answer. There are four simple steps to earning trust: 1. Say what you mean. Speak plainly and reveal your true intent. Don't hide your goals. No guile, no euphemisms, no spin. 2. Mean what you say. Don't make claims you won't back up. Don't weasel. 3. Keep your commitments. Do the things you commit to doing. If yo...