(WSB photos by Patrick Sand)
6:11 PM: We’re at Neighborhood House’s High Point Center, where Seattle Public Schools‘ interim superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland is about to start a “coffee hour” chat with community members. The district has just announced a one-week delay in the board’s vote on whether to offer him the permanent job – a sudden move that turned up in the agenda for Wednesday night’s board meeting. Under the new plan, the proposal will be introduced on Wednesday, then voted on during a separate special meeting one week later, 4:30 pm December 10th; details are on the district’s home page. (Comments? e-mail schoolboard@seattleschools.org )
Meantime, we’re covering tonight’s meeting (which will be followed at 7 pm by a community-conversation meeting with local school-board rep Marty McLaren, who is in the audience right now), and will add toplines as it goes.
6:31 PM: About 15 minutes into the Q/A, nothing about the superintendent’s job, but the first bit of news emerges:
A parent with a student in the APP advanced-learning program at Fairmount Park Elementary asks what the district plans for those students as they advance to middle school. District official Flip Herndon says, “the thought is that APP will be offered at Madison Middle School.”
He is told, though, that other district officials have said there are no such plans. Seems like this will be straightened out outside the meeting.
Earlier, another parent asked about plans to deal with possible overcrowding in West Seattle middle schools a few years down the road; it was pointed out that K-5 STEM is expanding to K-8 STEM, and that’s expected to help, as are the impending boundary changes that will move some students (including all of Sanislo Elementary) from the Denny feeder zone to the Madison feeder zone. The issue comes up again a few minutes later, and Herndon mentions the BTA 4 ballot measure in 2016, BEX 5 in 2019, and says the district “hasn’t decided quite what to do with (current) Schmitz Park Elementary or EC Hughes,” which Westside School (WSB sponsor) is vacating after this school year. (This is the first time we’ve heard the district back off the previously voiced plan to turn Schmitz Park into an “early learning center.”) The concerned parent meantime says the new boundary changes aren’t going to make anything better. “We’re trying a lot of things,” offers Dr. Nyland.
7:11 PM: The superintendent’s portion of the meeting is over and now McLaren’s community conversation is getting organized, once all the side conversations with district officials get wrapped up. We’ll add toplines here too, depending on what emerges.
7:22 PM: Assistant superintendent Herndon, whose accountabilities include facilities, is staying with McLaren’s group to answer capacity questions. For one, he says Madison is going to max out at some point, so they’ll have to answer future capacity questions. “The Madison-WSHS area, we’re going to be taking a look at,” he said.
7:30 PM: In this circle, two people have asked about the superintendent. So McLaren is addressing that now. She is talking about time constraints – saying that if they wanted to do a search, they’d have to start it now, to have a hire by next year. But “early on,” she said, some of the board members were impressed enough by Nyland to say “(he) knows what he’s doing” but decided to watch him a while longer. Then, she said, they did his evaluation – after 3 months – last week, went into executive session, and “there was a lot of agreement that … it would be the best thing for the district not to have a search; this leader has such unusual capacity and the district is in such a fragile position because of so much turnover … every time there’s a search you introduce so much uncertainty … Director Carr has a list of 15 or 20 people who have left in the past six years that she’s been here. … I could go around in circles saying ‘this is a great guy, this is a great guy’ (but) what I’ve seen … (him) walk into the district with so many difficult things happen, and have them erupt … (he) took responsibility as the leader even though he was brand new, ‘I’m in charge, I’m going to find out what happened, work with staff very aggressively, make sure from now on that we go in a direction that does not allow tose lapses.’
“So the decision’s been made?” asks one participant.
“No, the decision hasn’t been made, we still have to vote,” replied McLaren.
Then the observation from another attendee, who said he thought Nyland had come out of retirement just to be a temp and had no idea he’d be a permanent candidate.
“You guys are trying to bamboozle us,” accused another attendee, “with a major decision” (at a time when people are distracted), observing the extra week for discussion was only added “because of backlash.” She is concerned about the Gates Foundation grant that Nyland signed months before the board approved it. McLaren’s explanation was that grants were handled differently in Marysville, where Nyland last served as superintendent.
Another concern: Nyland might be a great guy, but the issue here is, will community input really be considered? “There are processes in place that need to be honored; people need to be heard,” said one participant who is a district teacher as well as parent.
“It’s not a slam dunk,” said McLaren, but “if we approve him, I think it’s going to be a very good thing for the district.”
Another teacher says there is much frustration among her peers and if Nyland becomes superintendent, will he “be willing” to “take on the culture of dysfunction that is happening at the district?” More classroom resources are needed, not more middle managers at district HQ. McLaren defends some of that, saying “sometimes you need someone centrally” to organize a particular area.
Next – a woman with concerns about the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. There is no one dedicated to overseeing those services, she explains, except as part of another job. She says while her family has had some good experiences, so many others have not – equipment that’s not available, etc. “Kids who use ASL as their primary means of communication don’t have a classroom to go to,” she says.
Speaking of communication – another woman who works at West Seattle Elementary says they work with families who are illiterate and don’t read flyers that are coming home, don’t read the media – and written communication “isn’t culturally relevant,” someone else chimes in. What about using other community-based organizations as resources, like those available here at Neighborhood House? asks the second attendee. “How are we going to use community-based organizations?” she asked, saying she brought it up to Dr. Nyland after his meeting. McLaren interrupts to say that the board is using “Smart Goals” to plan community engagement goals for next year. That could be applied to the services for deaf/hearing-impaired, it’s suggested.
8:05 PM: This is wrapping up, but one more question asks about the changes in the advance-learning (highly capable) programs. They’re on the board agenda for tomorrow night, notes McLaren. An attendee is concerned about the second-tier gifted program, Spectrum, which has often seemed to be in jeopardy. Of the “APP at Madison” mention earlier, McLaren agrees, “that was interesting!”
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