Seattle Schools Levy: Follow-up

[DorothyNeville]

“Actually, no, it was the BTA levy that just passed. And no, it’s not hundreds of millions because we have to spend money (at least $50M) on the reopened buildings. So all the other buildings in use will not have as many of their needs addressed because of the money now going out the door to addressed the needs of the reopened buildings.”

And because they had to hurry up and reopen those buildings, they immediately issued bonds for that money instead of getting it over time. So really, it became a bond measure instead of a levy measure. That means the district has less money overall from the fund since they have to pay debt service for the bonds.

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[Dan Dempsey]

Dear DP,

I take exception to your comment about critics not being focused enough on one issue to get results. You seem to imply that more focus on important issues would bring better outcomes. I have not experienced this.

#1. Meg Diaz has been very focused on finance and largely been ignored. I see no victory there … yet.

#2 Marty McLaren and I have been very focused on math for 4 years.

On March 8, there is an Appeals Court hearing. The District, which should be providing an adequate opportunity for the education of all students will attempt to defend their “arbitrary and capricious” decision to adopt “KCP’s Discovering Series”. Note OSPI math pass rates for Black students at grade 10 dropped to 12.5% for the District, 5.7% at Cleveland, and 3.9% at RBHS.

This legal action and appeal will have cost about $20,000 by its conclusion. Marty and I see this as focused enough on one important issue and yet the District chooses to do nothing to correct the situation except hire more lawyers.

You can find more at the Seattle Math Group..

Here are my most recent comments at the last school board meeting.

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[north of west seattle]

I applaud DP for doing his/her own followup. But I urge extremely critical thinking and additional followup as replies come in. This is an election year, some board members are visibly more pro-superintendent than others, and no reply is without nuance.

Let’s focus on Sundquist for a moment, who is clearly happy to be board president and wants to stay that way post-election.

Sundquist has been a dependable vote for the superintendent for the past 4 years. She recommends, he approves. He acts on the board as he would on a philanthropic oversight board. He is a Civic Leader. He is all smooth presentation and let’s-not-air-any-dirty-laundry. Like that style? Great. He is NOT a Nimble Policy Impact/Operations Thinker. He doesn’t react to numbers…numbers around enrollment stats, budget, student performance, superintendent benchmarks, with any sort of investigative or critical thinking skills. Don’t like it? You need a replacement in the fall. In any case, his responses to you mirror his attitude. Just because he can address a room with ease and professionalism doesn’t mean he is informed. Because in documentable case after documentable case he has been flat out wrong about some of the less-than-stellar performances out of District HQ.

In addition, Steve has voted for every piece of the Strategic Plan and when funding there has collided with the need to not cut classroom services, he’s prioritized the Strategic Plan.

Go to the next audit/finance committee meeting yourself and see how those board members who are diving into budgeting realities and District operations are reacting. I’ve witnessed it. They are not happy. They are really not happy. It’s late in the game, but they get it. DeBell, Carr, Smith-Blum, Patu…and even a tiny glimpse from Maier. They see a $37 million shortfall headed our way and a staff they cannot depend upon to shepherd us through it. They see obfuscation of numbers, hiding Central Office positions and funding. They see an unwillingness to put classroom staffing ahead of central planning. Despite an upgrade, on our superintendent’s watch, of some central district staff and level of professionalism, they still see gaping holes. There is a huge crisis barreling down on us. Those 4 board members get it, as do members of the community that spend dozens of hours every week on this stuff. For example, http://www.saveseattleschools.blogspot.com may sound perpetually cranky, possibly even cynical, to you, but they have their budget facts and questions in order far more than Sundquist does. Martin-Morris is equally dependable on his pro-superintendent, anti-factual-detail votes, but that’s a different post.

Again, there is an audit/finance committee meeting tomorrow and yet another — new–state audit (on capital expenditures) meeting next Monday. Attend either of them, watch the Board players and the staff. Talk to the community members attending. Then judge for yourself the veracity of Board Members’ responses to your previous and future questions.

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[DorothyNeville]

Technical correction to the above post. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is a budget workshop from 4 to 8 PM. All the board attends and the staff is supposed to provide information in their presentations. This is perhaps the 4th or 5th budget workshop this year. I have attended them all and the staff is still extremely reluctant to provide the board with the requested financial data they need and have asked for. There are some key numbers that are supposed to be provided tomorrow, including a breakdown of the costs of each part of the strategic plan. We will see how much the staff follows through. These are very interesting, especially to see how the board acts and reacts to the staff’s presentations and answers (and lack thereof).

Thursday is the Audit and Finance committee meeting. That will be attended by only the A&F committee board members (currently Carr, DeBell and Patu) and staff. A state auditor (head of the Seattle office of the SAO) usually comes as well, lately he has been bringing a second auditor with him. That is the second A&F meeting of the month and therefore is supposed to hone in on the 2008 Operating financial and Accountability audit followup. I haven’t seen an agenda yet though.

Next Monday is the SAO’s exit interview on the Capital Audit (the other audits deal with operating budget). This is a long awaited event for an audit that has been taking years to finish. Usually these exit interviews are quiet affairs with only the Auditors and the board (and perhaps some staff) present. However, it is a public meeting and the public is invited to attend. I expect press and I expect it will be moved from the currently planned location (conference room) to the auditorium.

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[DorothyNeville]

“Thursday is the Audit and Finance committee meeting. That will be attended by only the A&F committee board members (currently Carr, DeBell and Patu) and staff.”

And public. You are invited to attend this one as well. It just won’t be as informative of the budget and each board member’s position as the budget workshop. But it has its own charms.

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[westello]

But call ahead on that A&F meeting; it is a tentative at this point (or that’s what Sherry Carr said).

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[madashell]

Doing my best imitation of SC congressman…

“Harium, You Lie!”

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[charliemas]

DP, I don’t know how much more focus you think levy opponents should have had:

We oppose the levy because the District’s budget priorities have put Strategic Plan initiatives ahead of basic services to students in the classroom.

Is that focused enough for you?

As for questioning the contention that the 85 jobs were not cut, it makes no more sense to blindly believe Director Sundquist than it makes to blindly dis-believe someone who is telling you otherwise. Director Sundquist has actually done LESS work to research the truth of the statement than the activists have done.

If you knew more about Seattle Public Schools then you would know that the Board Directors are actually fairly poorly informed about the inner workings of the District and the activists are much better informed.

The most of the Board Directors have served for three years or less and none of them were active at the District level prior to their election. The activists have been closely following the District – at the District level – for ten years or more. There’s a learning curve, and most Board directors don’t start to get a handle on things until they have been in the role for three or four years.

As for discerning the truth, a number of Board Directors are on the record saying that they refuse to question the truth of statements made by staff – even when those statements have been proven false. So go ahead and rely on them if you like, but do it knowing that they refuse to verify statements by staff and refuse to acknowlege the clear fact that some of the statements are false.

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[DorothyNeville]

David, do you realize that the three directors with the most knowledge of budget, budget crisis and the limitations of the supplemental levy are the three who haven’t replied yet? Two of them are up for re-election (although we don’t know if they will run). Carr is chair of Audit and Finance. DeBell and Maier have been on that committee. Maier is no longer on the committee, but he was until the end of 2010.

Also, the maintenance backlog and the lack of textbook adoption cycle are two big issues, but not really aspects of the supplemental levy (that’s why Charlie redirected the discussion to the strategic plan). They are examples of how the district — even in relatively rich times — has maintained a large central administration while ignoring basic facilities and student needs. The large central administration has not shown effectiveness in managing facilities, in increasing student achievement or even in handling the day to day financial responsibilities of a large organization. Witness the fact that problems with payroll has been on each of the last four (or more) annual audits. The same culture that “lost” 32 million dollars back in 2001 is still prevalent. Read the Moss Adams report. While the Moss Adams auditors were able to account for about 23 million dollars in accounting errors (not that they recovered the money, they found the places where money was double entered and other such issues), they never figured out what happened to 9 million dollars. Unfortunately nothing much has changed since then.

Now we are in for some very lean times and there are still some directors who want to protect the centrally based initiatives even though it will mean further cuts to basic classroom dollars.

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[Dan Dempsey]

Charlie Mas said:

“a number of Board Directors are on the record saying that they refuse to question the truth of statements made by staff – even when those statements have been proven false.”

Directors take an oath of office to uphold the WA Constitution and laws of the State but often fail to do so. In that regard Director Sundquist is particularly negligent.

Currently Director Sundquist is Board President. He is well aware that it is the Board’s responsibility to (RCW 28A 645.020)

submit a certified correct record when a decision is appealed and to do so within 20 days of an appeal. In the New Tech Network appeal, the record was never certified to be correct and the Superintendent forged a document that was in the record and used as a basis for the Action Report.

If you wish to believe what any board member says without examining the research cited and researching the record, then do not expect to be using the truth as a basis for your thoughts.

In May of 2007, Brita Butler-Wall said: “We choose to trust our hired Professionals” …. The only thing different today is the Board (as a group) will deceive and fail to enforce laws in its protection of the Central Administration, while following most every Central Administrative request.

“To improve a system requires the intelligent application of relevant data.” This Board simply refuses to do that on a regular basis.

Anyone choosing to believe the Board or Sundquist in particular (without research) over Mas and Westbrook shows no grasp of the past or the ongoing situation.

=======

Fact: the District in 2008-2009 spent $1122 on central administration per child which was 9.29% of total budget.

(1122/12,078 = 9.29%)

This absurd “top down” model is a complete disaster. To expect improvement from an organization structured this way I find unfathomable.

[even the percentages used in the $48 million levy request were inaccurate and intentionally misleading]

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[Noam]

Charlie is correct about the phantom 85. In some cases, they have hired 2 new employees to replace 1 that was a mid-year “cut” but actually happened in August.

One guy (A. McWashington) was listed as a “cut” but actually just retired and was replaced by a Broad foundation guy (Cordell Carter) that no one ever sees or knows of any accomplishments.

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[DP]

After eight days, I’m still waiting to hear back from Board Directors Carr, DeBell, and Maier.

Below is the follow-up e-mail I just fired off to them:

January 27, 2011

Dear Directors Carr, Maier, and DeBell:

Eight days ago, on January 19th, I sent you and the rest of the Board a brief, one-page e-mail outlining some criticisms of the Seattle Public School District that I had heard from other folks during a discussion of last year’s Levy vote. In that e-mail, I asked you to address those criticisms in your own words.

To date, I’ve heard back from Directors Martin-Morris, Smith-Blum, Patu, and Sundquist, but I have not heard back from you. Nor have you e-mailed or called to tell me you’re working on answering my concerns.

A week is more than enough time for you to have gotten back to me with something. I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but as a Seattle taxpayer and the parent of a child who went to Chief Sealth High School, I am entitled to a timely response to any District-related inquiry I make of you.

Please contact me as soon as possible with a response to my questions regarding the District. As you can see from the following discussion on the West Seattle Blog (link below), there’s quite a bit of public interest in the issues I’ve raised in my e-mail.

Levy discussion on the West Seattle Blog:

https://westseattleblog.com/forum/topic/seattle-schools-levy-follow-up

Although the Blog serves a mainly West Seattle audience on issues of local interest, it is read widely across Seattle on issues of general concern, such as education. Obviously, if you simply disregard my e-mail or otherwise fail to respond to these issues directly on the Blog, it will play into the hands of your critics and will not reflect well on you or the District in the eyes of the public.

So please . . . help me help you. Answer my e-mail.

Thank you.

Regards,

David Preston

[Phone Number]

Cc: Directors Sundquist, Patu, Martin-Morris, Smith-Blum

      Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson

 

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[charliemas]

“I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but as a Seattle taxpayer and the parent of a child who went to Chief Sealth High School, I am entitled to a timely response to any District-related inquiry I make of you.”

Entitled? Really? Are we all entitled to timely responses?

You’re clearly very new to any sort of contact with the District, because it is extraordinary that you got answers back from three of them. Typically an email to the Board doesn’t get any answer at all. Sometimes one Board Director, usually Director Smith-Blum, will reply with one line thanking you for your interest.

That’s the reality, Mr. Preston.

But let’s get back to your sense of entitlement, because that is WAY more interesting to me than responses from the school board.

Are you entitled to prompt and thoughtful responses from all elected officials? Are you entitled to prompt and thoughtful responses from all government employees? Would you expect a prompt and thoughtful response from your Senators?, your Congressional Representative? your President?

Do you know that the School Board Directors are essentially volunteers? They get a small per diem (works out to a maximum of about $5,000 a year) but no salary for serving on the School Board. Do you know how many emails they get every day? Do you know that their only staff are two new employees to support the whole Board?

Your entitlement makes me curious about what we, your readers, are entitled to. Should we expect you to be informed about your chosen topic? Is that an entitlement? Should we expect you to critically consider the merit of what you’re told – regardless of the source? Is that an entitlement? Should we expect you to respond to us civilly – if not courteously? Is that an entitlement? Where is your responsibility in all of this entitlement?

Here’s a news flash for you: you aren’t entitled to anything from the school board. You can complain and fuss and stamp your little feet, but they are under no obligation – legal, moral, or otherwise – to respond to your meandering and misinformed email. Get over yourself.

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[DP]

Oh charliemas!

If only you knew just how hard I am trying.

—To get over myself, that is.

Would you care to join me in this initiative? Perhaps we could even start a support group . . .

(Oh, who am I kidding? We both know it will never happen!)

In due time, I’m going to be doing some structural work on a few little red wagons. But for the nonce, I would like to at least hear what the Directors have to say in the School District’s defense.

After all, we’ve already heard from the critics.

And how!

–David

Don’t forget now . . .

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[charliemas]

Ah. So now I see that your readers are not entitled to a thoughtful response from you.

Good to know.

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[JanS]

I can’t speak for DP..he speaks for himself. Perhaps he’s just waiting to hear from the other people on the board, and simply isn’t going to get into a verbal sparring match with you.

As an aside, you say we are not entitled to anything from the school board members…maybe that should change. Change should be a good thing. Being ignored and spoken down to is not. Maybe that’s where some of the problem lies…lack of communication. DP should just be patient, and maybe never hear anything? What good is that? We elect them, we should get answers from them. Period. (Volunteer? they ARE elected)

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[Dan Dempsey]

DP, JanS, and Charlie,

Here is what everyone is entitled to from school directors, the fulfillment of their oath of office. They do not do it but you are entitled to it. Good Luck on making it happen without spending at least $10,000. (as there is no enforcement of anything)

I hope to give a more detailed outline on my blog, The Math Underground. If and when I finish it I will post a link here.

Each director has sworn to:

<i>

“support the Constitution and Laws of the United States and the Constitution and <b>Laws of the State of Washington, </b>and will to the best of my judgment, skill and ability, truly, faithfully, diligently and impartially perform the duties of the office of Seattle School Director.” </i>

Having been involved in four years of watching and being involved in a few Appeals of School Board decisions and involved with two recall attempts, I can assure you that these Directors violate their oath of office and state laws quite often. That is obvious from evidence and directors’ declarations.

The Superintendent is the secretary of the school board. That makes an interesting collection of responsibilities for 8 individuals. To say it is not going well is an understatement.

From documents submitted in appeals of school board decisions by the Board and declarations given by school board members, it is very apparent how far outside the law this group operates.

Here is one example.

The district failed to file a certified correct transcript of evidence in the appeal of the New Tech Network contract (as required by law). The 20,000+ pages submitted contained a forged document on which the School Board Action report was based. Either the Superintendent or the Chief Academic Officer or both are guilty of a Class C felony. The board was notified of this and did absolutely nothing.

I should think a response would be in order … but received absolutely nothing.

I can write a fairly extensive list of legal violations committed by this crew but there is no enforcement.

Check the Math Scores for Black students in this district and read article IX section I of the WA Constitution ….. if you think this crew that is headed into Appeals court on March 8, 2011 to appeal their arbitrary and capricious choice of high school math materials has any regard for the Constitution … well think again.

Hey how is that plan for making every school a quality school going with the New Student Assignment Plan going?

NSAP increases separation and increases inequality in a district that as far as math goes is a total disaster.

High School OSPI grade 10 math pass rate for Black students Spring 2010

District = 12.5%

Cleveland = 5.7%

Rainier Beach = 3.9%

So why would anyone be spending money on a legal appeal of a superior court decision to keep those “Discovering” materials in place? Well, the Superintendent is doing so and was supported by Martin-Morris, Sundquist, Maier, and Carr.

I think there are a lot of families that are entitled to responses but there are no responses coming from these supposed leaders.

Even volunteers who ran for office and were elected should fulfill their oath of office but these Board members do not do so.

The legal system is a complete joke in this regard. Constitutional rights cost about $20,000 each when dealing with the Seattle School District. Tune in on March 8th to see if even that is enough.

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[DP]

Reply received today from Director Carr (See below).

Director Maier assures me he’s working on a thoughtful response.

To date, only Director DeBell has failed to respond.

From Director Carr:

January 29, 2011

Mr. Preston,

Thank you for your email and for your support to our levy. I apologize for not responding sooner – my laptop has been in service all week and was picked up only last evening (still not completely fixed but enough I can respond to email).

Regarding the maintenance backlog, yes, SPS has had a sizable backlog for decades. This is not unique to SPS. Chronic maintenance backlogs are a challenge for many public institutions as well as private. During resource constrained times, decisions were made to prioritize operations over maintenance and the backlog grew. Staff has developed a plan to provide focused and more efficient support through better planning and allocation of maintenance resources which will allow for completion of more work. The backlog does include work for buildings that are being rebuilt or substantially renovated so as construction completes on those specific schools, the values for their deferred maintenance will be removed.

Regarding textbooks, we inherited a similar backlog. Many years ago under site based management, commitment to a District textbook adoption cycle was abandoned and dollars apportioned to schools along with the authority to purchase materials. In the past 4 years, that cycle has been re-instituted and there has been very steady progress made to ensuring equitable access to materials. The supplemental levy will enable us to continue making progress in this area.

The Audit & Finance Committee has been working to implement some additional measures that we expect to help us better govern SPS including the addition of a volunteer public member to our committee. The intent is to provide experience and technical expertise in the area of accounting and internal controls. Additionally, we will be increasing the use of internal auditing to test and report to the Board how well management is doing to ensure that staff is complying with policies and ensuring robust procedures exist. This includes closure of corrective action plans to findings of non-compliance. We have also been working with our Ethics Officer to implement an Ethics program which will include training to ensure all employees understand what behaviors are expected and a hotline to report any concerns of non-compliance to the Ethics policy. We discussed potential revisions to our Ethics policy, including lower limits on acceptance of gifts and language that prescribes disciplinary measures. As it relates to budget, I have continued to offer staff formats I believe are more transparent, easier to understand and aligned to OSPI reporting.

In addition to this work, our Board is building a governance system that will include:

– Annual calendar of regular reporting of all required and expected materials (everything here from annual reports required by law to regular reporting on routine matters such as budget performance)

– Oversight reviews of all key functional areas (Finance, IT, HR, etc.) to ensure qualified staff are in place, major IT systems work, and evidence that procedures to support applicable policies are in place and being followed

– Implementation of key performance indicators

– Reconstituted Board Office support with new job roles to provide enhanced support

It is our belief, based on benchmarking other school districts, the Port and other private organizations, that these measures will enable us to better govern SPS.

Again, thank you for the inquiry and for your support of the levy.

Best,

SC

Sherry Carr

School Board Director, District 2

[Phone number redacted by D.P.]

“Every student achieving, everyone accountable.”

 

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[westello]

“Chronic maintenance backlogs are a challenge for many public institutions as well as private. During resource constrained times, decisions were made to prioritize operations over maintenance and the backlog grew. Staff has developed a plan to provide focused and more efficient support through better planning and allocation of maintenance resources which will allow for completion of more work. The backlog does include work for buildings that are being rebuilt or substantially renovated so as construction completes on those specific schools, the values for their deferred maintenance will be removed.”

Again, all these people allowed this to continue even Peter Maier who knows the capital issues better than the other directors. Sherry is right that it is a “chronic” issue for many districts. But our district goes beyond chronic to the irresponsible. You’ll note she says, “staff has developed a plan…” Yes, it has. But is that plan in motion? Barely. Money backing it? Well, yes to buy a software system that, according to maintenance people, isn’t all that great. Ask your own principal if he/she thinks getting maintenance issues addressed has gotten better.

Lastly, we can’t build our way out of this. Every building has on-going needs even new ones. That we brought 5 very poor condition buildings back online only added to the problems. That’s $50M right there for buildings we thought we weren’t going to use and $50M that other buildings that ARE in use now have to wait for.

Tomorrow, Monday the 31st, the State Auditor releases a second audit. This one is on capital issues. I predict a very sorry state of affairs.

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[Art]

“One guy (A. McWashington) was listed as a “cut” but actually just retired and was replaced by a Broad foundation guy (Cordell Carter) that no one ever sees or knows of any accomplishments.”

We see him all the time – in his office doing who-knows-what.

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[DP]

From Director Maier:

January 30, 2011

David-

Responding to the issues you have raised:

– The District has roughly 90 buildings across the city, a number of which are 50 or more years old. Many of these buildings need to be rebuilt or replaced. The capital levies that voters have approved in recent years have helped provide funds to replace or rebuild some of these schools, for example the Nathan Hale and Denny/Sealth projects that will be completed this spring. But available capital funds have not been sufficient to keep up with the needs. As for maintenance, funding for maintenance competes with funding for providing basic academic services such as teachers. Over the last decade or so maintenance funding has been insufficient, hence the backlog of maintenance projects. In the past two years the Board and District have tried to increase funding for maintenance and have adopted a “zone crew” strategy that is more efficient. The challenge remains, however, of addressing maintenance and long-term capital needs in a budget climate of severe cuts from the State. This is a focus area for me, on which I will continue to work and seek solutions..

– Textbooks wear out and become outdated over time. To address the fact that the District historically has not had an annual text replacement cycle, the Supplemental Levy in November 2010 included $5.9 million for textbook replacements in subject areas like high school sciences and social studies, middle school social studies, and elementary music (materials such as sheet music, not necessarily textbooks for music). I worked hard to help pass the Supplemental levy, including many talks at PTSA meetings, and thank the voters for passing the Supplemental levy by a wide margin.

– As for efficiencies in the Central office, I agree that we want to have the Central office be as lean and efficient as possible. while still meeting basic operational needs and meeting legal compliance requirements. To that end last year the District cut many positions downtown (roughly 85 positions), saving about $6 million, and the Board has asked the staff to propose a budget that again seeks ways that the Central office could be significantly reduced. The work is still in progress, including a 6 hour Board work session last week and planned work sessions for Feb. 2 and 9 (which are open to the public).

– Overall, the Board has established a set of “guiding principles” for the budget work that are posted on the District website. Those principles state that the first priority should be providing the funds that students and educators need for the successful education of our 47,000 students. The grim reality, however, is that due to State budget cuts to K-12 education both this year and over the past two years the District faces a $36 million budget gap for the coming 2011/12 budget year. By law, the Board must adopt a balanced budget. Opportunities for increasing revenue are very limited, though I and Board members are actively advocating in Olympia to try to protect funding for our schools. The $36 million gap will be tough to close, and will require very difficult and painful choices among worthy and needed programs and services.

I hope these comments are useful to you and Blog readers.

Best wishes,

Peter Maier

Board Member, Seattle Public Schools

 

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[DP]

From Director DeBell:

January 30, 2011

Mr. Preston,

It being Sunday, I am attempting to catch up on e-mail correspondence. I applaud my colleagues who can keep up better than I am able.

I appreciate your support of the Supplemental Levy and acknowledge your democratic right to hold public officials accountable for expenditures of taxes and accomplishment of their mission.

1. Unquestionably, Seattle Public schools has not addressed an accumulating backlog of deferred maintenance on our schools. It is over $500 million and only health and safety or emergency issues are sure to be addressed. Work is progressing through the BTA levy on roof replacements and other major maintenance but there is a gap that can only be addressed with general fund resources. Competing needs in the general fund are extremely difficult to address with existing budgets. Laying off academic staff to address deferred maintenance weakens our core mission.

2. We are in the process of reviving regular adoption cycles for instructional materials, primarily textbooks. It is less a shortage issue than out of date, worn out, damaged or incomplete materials which are often ten or fifteen years old. We have committed Supplemental Levy funds to this work and I am aware of no plans to change that commitment. IM adoptions are part of the alignment of curricula across the District so that professional development, learning communities and consistent standards of rigor can be established at all schools. This work is controversial and remains a challenge to balance site and teacher autonomy with District based standards and consistency.

3. The State Auditor’s findings, exit items and management letters are all being addressed seriously by the Board of Directors. Retirement party expenses may rankle and credit card procedures have been tightened but sound financial management consistently overseen by Board governance is the real goal. We are working on a comprehensive response which can be followed on the District website and will include the rewriting of governance and oversight policies.

4. The change in overall employee numbers in central based departments is something of a moving target. Approximately 45% of our budget is centrally based and management documented cuts of approximately 80 employees or positions. There were also positions hired in other parts of central based budgets including special education and bilingual ed. It is clearer to talk about discrete OSPI based categories and that has been the ask of the Audit and Finance Comm in this budget cycle. Ultimately, I am more interested in efficacy than FTE (full time equivalent). Many of the central based initiatives have not demonstrated gains in academic achievement.

5. I am not aware of a travel freeze, we have had a hiring freeze in many job categories. We will be examining travel expenses, personal service contracts and other spending mechanisms that apply across departments as part of our difficult budget balancing process this year.

I appreciate your desire for a quick response. I will readily admit that it is difficult to find enough time to meet all the expectation the community has for its school board directors. I have had serious family concerns that take precedence at times.

Sincerely,

Michael

Michael DeBell

Director District #4

Seattle School Board

 

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[DP]

So that’s it. Now every one of the Seattle School Board Directors has responded to my e-mail. Accordingly, I have thanked each of them separately for taking the time to respond to my questions in this Public Forum.

In a week or so, when I emerge from the Sweat Lodge with my brand new Spirit Animal* in tow, I will start a thread devoted to the relative merits of the various possible modes of engagement with Officialdom.

Until then, happy kvetching!

 

Regards,

David 

 

*My old Spirit Animal was a ‘possum. Guess what happened.

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[MegD]

David – thank you for running a thread on this.

I followed up on central office cuts by reviewing personnel reports and public records requests. It turns out that the district did not, in fact, cut 85 (or even approximately) from the books. Savings were maybe half of what SPS is claiming.

I’m actually not mad about that. The results of planned staffing changes are often different than proposed staffing changes. What’s not okay is that the district continues to claim that what was proposed happened when it quite clearly didn’t. A summary of my research can be found here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5541381/2011%20personnel%20review.pps

with the central cuts reviewed on pages 6 and 7.

Again, thanks for running the thread.

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[Author]

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