Friday Memo October 28, 2016 This memo includes 13 attachments
Dear Board members,
As Larry is out town, in his stead we share these things. Good news: We were notified on Friday, October 21, for the first time in Seattle Public School’s (SPS) history, SPS has received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the current budget from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). This award is the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting and represents a significant achievement by our organization. Please join me in congratulating Linda Sebring and the rest of our great budget staff! Cascadia Elementary has been nominated in the Best of the Northwest survey by King 5 as “School with the Most Spirit.” Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) School of Distinction awards were presented Thursday at the Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD). The (11) Seattle schools awarded: BF Day Elementary, Broadview‐Thomson K‐8, Cleveland High School, Hawthorne Elementary, Hazel Wolf K‐8 STEM, Madrona K‐8, Olympic Hills Elementary, Rainier Beach High School, Rainier View Elementary, Viewlands Elementary and West Seattle Elementary. Parents, community members, local businesses and community organizations joined together with Kaboom and Target to raise funds for and then build a new playground for Beacon Hill International School. Prep work happened all week, and then TODAY, the kid-designed playground is being put up. This is a perfect example of our work as a community to strengthen partnerships with SPS in service of providing the very best for our students. Top Puget Sound Area Elementary Schools – The Puget Sound Business Journal looked at elementary schools across the region. In addition to test scores, they looked at the school’s racial diversity, economic diversity and teacher experience. Of the top ten elementary schools listed, Seattle had 6 of the 10: Olympic Hills (#1), Kimball (#4), Van Asselt (#5), Maple (#7), Wing Luke (#8) and Rainier View (#9). As I mentioned at the last board meeting Macklemore recently visited the Recovery School and the visit was filmed by MTV. You can view the interview with our students and the impact of the Recovery School at http://www.mtv.com/video- clips/cq4b5t/prescription-for-change-recovery-high-school Symetra Hero in the Classroom Award: Elizabeth Dolan, a teacher at Ingraham High School was recently named a Symetra Hero in the Classroom. Many of her students refer to her as a “bright light in the world.” Elizabeth was honored at a Seattle Seahawks game with a VIP experience, received $1,000 for school supplies, and was presented with a Seahawks jersey and Symetra Heroes in the Classroom certificate.
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Community Engagement and Boundaries Just as we use simple guidelines for our work with students: An adult at school cares about me when I am gone. My teacher takes the time to get to know me. My teacher makes me feel included in class.
Our Boundary adjustment work reminds us of that same need for our students’ families: My district cares about me and my needs. My district takes the time to get to know me. My district makes me feel included.
The numerous boundary meetings have been a clear effort to engage parents and families in a difficult and often seemingly confusing set of issues. The juxtaposition of numerus boundary options has fostered creative and thoughtful work by many, many people. Themes have emerged about what people want, and what people think may work.
Feedback from the community sessions and emails included these consistent themes: what to do with Cedar Park, what north end boundary changes to implement, and grandfathering.
Certainly more topics are part of the conversation and need decisions such as the challenge of the Highly Capable Cohort (HCC) capacity in one current building, yet these three are the most spoken about with a high level of topic traffic. In front of the Board legislative meeting next week, I deeply appreciate the effort you have put into listening to constituents, to working on plausible solutions, all the while knowing that no easy solutions exist nor will everyone get what they want/need. Change is hard. Families plan, they build community and we want their schools to have a large role in their fabric of life. Then more housing is built, more families move, and we all face change.
The question was asked by Director Peters and Harris: What is PSESD? Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD) is one of nine regional educational agencies serving school districts and state-approved private schools in Washington. Educational Service Districts, created by the legislature, are an essential regional delivery system for early learning and K-12 services in the state. PSESD is a quasi-governmental organization authorized by law to serve and support school districts. Educational Service Districts improve the quality, equity, and efficiency of educational programs through partnerships with school districts, early learning, higher education, and public and private organizations.
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PSESD can save schools money through regional efficiencies, centralized services, pooled resources to
Improve the effectiveness of educational programs
Deliver specialized services otherwise unavailable
Provide leadership for innovative and effective educational practices
Build networks and partnerships among districts and other agencies
Link schools with regional, state and national educational resources
PSESD provides a myriad of ready to go services and can build customer requested special supports and services. Services include support and professional development around race and equity and other instructional programs and subjects, program and services reviews, school district fiscal support, legislative support in conjunction with 35 Puget Sound areas school districts, administrative reviews and safety training, just to name a few! An overview of other services and products can be found here: https://www.psesd.org/services/ . Because ESDs receive very little operational funding from the legislature (PSESD gets just over $500K per year), it operates as a not-for-profit business, needing revenues to support operations. PSESD charges for services provided, based upon school district client size and scope of work.
Annual LGBT Family Dinner: The annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Family Dinner will be held Thursday, November 3 from 6-8pm at Washington Middle School. Thank you to School Board members that plan to be there to welcome LGBT families and their friends. All Seattle Public Schools (SPS) students, families and staff are welcome to attend. This donation-funded event is brought to you by the Health Education Office and the Office of School & Family Partnerships. Dinner and entertainment will be provided. To reserve space at this popular event, please RSVP with the number of people in your party to Lisa Love in the Health Education Office at 206-252- 0982 or [email protected].
Partnership/Community Engagement: Daniel Bagley held a RULER kickoff for families last Thursday night and over 300 students, family, and staff attended. Monday, 10/24- Michael Tolley participated in the Oakland Unified School District’s African-American Male Achievement Fall Forum where the group identified lessons learned to inform the City of Seattle’s black male achievement (BMA) initiative and other area BMA efforts, strengthening strategic momentum and collective impact for BMA locally, and relationship- and network-building among local leadership.
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Wednesday, 10/26- Michael Tolley attended the Chancellor’s Advisory Council at Seattle Central College for an update on the state of Seattle Colleges and engage school leaders’ thinking about strategic planning and launching a comprehensive capital campaign. Thursday, 10/27- Michael Tolley addressed a group comprised of 10 high school/middle school teams which are part of the Engaging Families in High School Success grant from the US Department of Education and Johns Hopkins University. These teams are focused on strengthening student transitions from 8th to 9th grade through meaningful, intentional and strategic family engagement ensure that they increase their attendance and course work completion/credit accrual and high school success. Friday, 10/28- Stephen Nielsen and Cashel Toner attended the King County Superintendents “Best Start for Kids” Initiative at PSESD. The county-wide Best Start for Kids levy will generate just over $400M over the next six years. The allocations are invested in prevention and early intervention programs for children under age five and pregnant women, prevention and early intervention programs for children and youth age 5 through 24, for strategies to create safe and healthy communities, such as increasing access to healthy, affordable food and expanding economic opportunities and access to affordable housing, and to support evaluation, data collection and improving delivery of services for programs for children and youth.
School Visits this week: Tuesday, 10/25 Michael Tolley visited with the Principals at both Queen Anne Elementary and John Hay where they discussed the problem of practice within the schools Cycle of Inquiry in regarding to Eliminating Opportunity Gaps. He also did a walk through at each school.
Recognition of our budget information: Yesterday’s budget work session offers beyond sobering perspective of the cuts we must make if the legislature does not address McCleary funding and the “levy cliff” before we have to make drastic and terrible cuts to staff and programs next May. Not since the double levy failure of 1977 has Seattle faced such a huge set of cuts. Cuts that must be made to pass a balanced budget can be eliminated if the legislature does two things: address our loss of over $24Million of already voter approved local levy dollars, and fully fund education, most especially the real cost of staff compensation. I have concerns that our parents and families and the voters who so strongly value and support a high quality education opportunity in our city are not aware of the potential wreck caused by no, partial or late legislative action. To this need, we continue to offer community budget meetings and will share our budget overview and potential mess with our local representatives.
John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE) tour – We invite you (individually or in less than a quorum group) to tour JSCEE. In particular, we want to show part of the operations that in most cases, are strong and silent performers providing every day needed service to our schools. Please contact Pegi McEvoy for scheduling a time to tour.
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Size of Schools – Are we reaching a place where our schools are too large? Our problem is we don’t have the land and competition for land in this hot market is incredibly fierce. Whenever we hear about the option for land, we explore. Given our current processes for garnering funds, we are not the swiftest to bid or get a check out either. We can make offers to homeowners in certain spots when they would like to sell consider us, but that takes time. We could look to eminent domain, but that would not be the optimal nor first route. Compared to other districts, our buildings are on par or not, depending on when the buildings were built in context of land availability and resources available to construction or remodel. Compared to more suburban districts, many have larger middle and high schools than SPS. Compared to small town districts, our sizes are large, not necessarily larger or smaller. School size matters in terms of operational cost and academic opportunities. Very small buildings need similar staffing and operational supports as larger ones, thus raising overhead costs. Larger buildings offer more space for more service and/or programs. Some believe that large schools lose individual student contact and the one-on-one connection is essential for a positive education. We are trying to maximize our existing properties. Thus, it would be foolish to sell any inventory.
What is site based versus district? Answer includes context within the Seattle School District / Seattle Education Association (SEA) Collective Bargaining Agreement, Article II, Building Leadership Teams/Program Leadership Teams. According to the language of the agreement: “The primary function of a Building Leadership Team/Program Leadership Team is to promote and facilitate the collaborative decision-making process which affects academic achievement and to identify how to support the needs of students and staff in buildings. The more specific responsibilities of the Building Leadership Team/Program Leadership Team are to oversee the facilitation and development of: For BLTs, a Continuous School Improvement Plan (CSIP) including the configuration and structure of the school’s classes and/or program offerings, and the school’s efforts to ensure equity in discipline, learning, and opportunity for all students. For PLTs, a plan of moving and improving program delivery including the configuration and structure of the program’s offerings. 2) A school-wide/program-wide professional development plan to support the CSIP/plan. 3) The school’s /program’s budget. 4) Creation/review of the Decision-making Matrix (DMM).
Because one of the shared beliefs is that those impacted by decisions must be given an opportunity to be involved in the decision making, the parties recognize that extra effort may be required to provide opportunity for representatives of the paraprofessional and office professional staff to participate in the work of the Building Leadership Team/Program Leadership Team. Buildings/programs will examine the possibilities of altered work week scheduling, shared office coverage, limited use of voice mail coverage, and other strategies that encourage and enable the participation on behalf of paraprofessional and office staff
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representatives. Schools will also make an effort to provide an opportunity for itinerant staff to participate in decisions impacting them, as appropriate. The scheduling and assignment of teachers, the assignment of students to classes, and the daily schedule of classes and activities shall be made with staff participation and be consistent with the CSIP, while recognizing that the principal has the right to make the final decision.” Other decisions range from traditionally site based to traditionally district wide. For example, transportation standards and therefore, transportation services are developed and directed through a centrally organized process in order to operate a system that is most efficient. Bell times fall into a similar category because of the relationship to transportation requirements. Other operational needs are designed and controlled at the district side level: HR work, budget work, and payroll provide good examples. Worth noting is the long, strong history of school communities building educational offerings to help students succeed, as well as attracting and retaining students. Starting with the invention of the original Student Assignment Plan, specific schools were given opportunity to entice students in some neighborhoods in order to address racial balance and educational opportunity. With the passage of the original student assignment plan to a neighborhood school plan, the tradition of local schools creating and working on their unique offerings has not gone away. We celebrate the creativity of the school staff and communities that do this work. Thus, our culture continues to encourage and reward site based decision making. With over one hundred schools in operation serving over 53,000 students every day, no one department can practically control all aspects of operations and student needed supports. I suppose with a large enough bureaucracy that might be possible. The rewards of obtaining such control point to a hamstrung, non-creative system.
SMART Goals: We are looking forward to continued conversation about accomplishments of the 15-16 SMART goals on November 1. As we continue to align the evaluation process, work we did to better align and streamline the goals into the 16-17 SMART Goals is affirmed to add value to this year’s work. As demonstrated during Wednesdays presentations, both quantitative and qualitative data adds value.
Associate Superintendent for Teaching & Learning Update: Attached please find Associate Superintendent for Teaching & Learning Michael Tolley’s update for this week.
Associate Superintendent for Facilities & Operations Update: Attached please find Associate Superintendent for Facilities & Operations Flip Herndon’s update for this week.
Assistant Superintendent for Operations Update: Attached please find Assistant Superintendent for Operations Pegi McEvoy's update for this week.
Chief Partnerships Officer Update: Attached please find Chief Partnerships Officer Brent Jones’ update for this week.
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Chief Engagement Officer Update: Attached please find Chief Engagement Officer Carri Campbell’s update for this week.
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