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Title : Washington Middle School Meeting
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Washington Middle School Meeting
At last night's Board meeting, there were several parents there from Washington Middle School. All were not happy with what is happening at their school. Here were their complaints:- The school has lost a lot of population due to the reopening of Meany.
- Courses are not being offered as they were promised previously.
- It's not unusual in Seattle Schools for middle schools to offer foreign languages to 6th graders.
- Didn't the school need approval from the district to offer online courses? Kids are not ready for this kind of learning especially for math.
- The upending of schedules was not communicated to parents.
- Wish that the south-end schools were consider as much as north-end schools.
- WMS hired an additional ELA teacher while saying their budget couldn't afford a Spanish teacher.
- Meany has a French teacher and last year there was collaboration to share that teacher.
- Students aren't even sure now if they are in the right classes.
- Principal has changed so much beyond the schedules with policies on backpacks, phones, and bathroom use.
DeWolf said that he had received many, many emails from parents. He apologized "for the negative impact to students and families." He said he knew that "trust was hurt" but that the principal issues were being addressed.
Geary said that "I want people to be clear that there is a consequence to this that the administration may not understand" and went on to talk about if foreign language doesn't have a clear path in middle school, it impacts what happens in high school. She stated her own son had this problem.
Mack said one issue she sees is "clarity around scope and sequence for programs." If you are in HCC program, what is that for each middle school? And, is an "honors" course the same as an HCC course?
Burke said the principal was inheriting "what came before" but there's a dialog started. (After attending the WMS meeting, I can say it's not much of a dialog.)
Pinkham thanked the parents and encouraged them to continue to share their voices.
Harris reminded parents that the Board only has two employees - the Superintendent and the Internal Auditor. She said she was listening but the Board could only make the Superintendent aware of the WMS issues and the deep unhappiness from them.
Washington Middle School Meeting
I attended the Monday meeting at Washington Middle School. The principal, Emily Ginolfi, had stated in a letter to the parents that the meeting was from 7-8 pm. By the time she finished talking, it was 8:10 pm so I left. If anyone stayed longer, please let us know what was said.
There were probably 150 people there, mostly white parents but at least 15 parents of color. It was confusing because it was unclear why there were index cards on the sign-in table. One staffer said they didn't know what they were for. As it turns out, parents were supposed to write their questions down but there was no announcement about that nor anyone picking up cards.
I did not see the principal until the meeting actually started. Also in attendance but strangely silent were Sarah Pritchett, the region's ED, Stephen Martin, head of Advanced Learning and Kari Nelson of Student Support Services. I saw Keisha Scarlett of Race and Equity come in later.
The opening slide on the screen said, "Q&A with School and District Leadership." It's unclear why it said that because during the time I was there, there was no input from district staff and just two clarifying questions allowed from the audience.
Ms. Ginolfi talked straight for about an hour. Non-stop, ramrodding thru topic after topic. The only handout looked thrown together and was just stat after stat about the population of the school by different demographics/services and test scores which were also broken out in several categories. She did say that in the coming weeks, she would be handing out more detailed budget information.
One stat that was left out - students who had tested and qualified for AL services but were not in either Spectrum or HCC. That's a category of students that often gets called out.
The PTA co-president, Cliff Meyer, was cheerful as he told the crowd that it was the PTA leadership that had urged this meeting but it was not technically a PTA meeting. I was surprised to hear - after all the turmoil - that it was the PTA leaders who asked for the meeting. To me, that shows either a tone-deaf attitude or a "my way or the highway" attitude on the part of WMS administration because of the huge outcry over the schedules, etc.
When Ms. Ginolfi was introduced, there was tepid applause. She ran thru who was there; I believe I was the only media present.
She then proceeded to talk. About herself (although oddly, didn't admit the TFA link). Turns out she was a gifted student from second grade on.
She "enjoys" diversity. She came to the district excited about SPS' "explicit commitment" to equity. She said she was there to improve grade level proficiency for the non-HCC population and make WMS a great school for all children.
She put up a slide about her expertise in scheduling and budgeting during her career. It was quite lengthy. It appeared to be a bit of a tear to say she was qualified. She called herself "a bean-counter."
She also noted that she had received "a lot of emails about her commitment to equity along with others." The "others" being the emails about the upheaval at the school? Those emails?
She announced that three teachers were going on maternity leave second semester. One is a PE teacher so they will schedule PE this semester and health next semester.
My main takeaways from her presentation:
- She says she is for 100% of the students but she gave some conflicting statements. On the one hand, all those stats in the handout seemed to be - in one way or the other - about HCC/Spectrum. Or as she called it, "gifted services." But she then said, "The goal is not to bring gifted achievement down, but rather to bring 100% of students to grade-level proficiency."
She also said, "This is an urgent matter and things need to change quickly and things need to change now." She said there was frustration among staff with "doing nothing."
But the overall vibe I got from her many statements was something of blaming/shaming parents(?) into understanding how many students were very, very far behind. I think that parents should be aware of the demographics and stats at their child's school. But what I think she was saying - without saying it explicitly - was that parents needed to understand that resources had been rearranged, in great part, to serve those low-performing students and that, well, it was kind of selfish for other parents to want anything else done.
She said she did not want people with students in AL to think she wanted to bring "their students down." I certainly didn't think that but I do think she believes that it's okay for those students, if at grade level, to tread water instead of swim.
She later said that it was not fair to fund foreign language teachers if the school had less money and more need for low-performing students.
She said that she had been surprised to hear from staff and families about "the concept of 'my student is on a college track.' I've yet to work in a school where kids are on a college track in middle school." But earlier, she had stated that "We assume all students at ages 11-14 can and should have the option of college."
She also expressed surprise at the "sheer volume of students in AL."
- She also seemed to want to blame many people for the current situation. For one, she said the last principal had created a budget that could not work. If so, I have to wonder who - like an ED or someone in Budget - could have signed off on a school budget that was not viable.
She mentioned having to have someone resign so she could hire a new teacher.
She seemed quite surprised - in her experience of 11 years in the Baltimore School District - that a district could have so many offerings of music and foreign language in a middle school. Almost like SPS was doing something wrong. She said it should be "exposure over choice."
She seemed unhappy that some teachers taught just General Ed students and some just HCC students. And apparently, WMS was using the term "scholar" for Gen Ed students and it offended her.
She mentioned the district being under corrective action from the State over Special Education but seemed to not know that was years old and had been corrected. I was surprised that Ms. Nelson from Student Services didn't say something.
She said that if this were a "normal" middle school, the scheduling problems might have taken a week but with HCC, it would take a month.
She also thinks math placement is done too late and it should be done further in advance.
- She seemed to want to emphasis that not much had changed for classes - same self-contained HCC for Social Studies and LA. She said that she just removed "student labels" but everything else is the same. She also said she will continue the practice of moving some students into HCC classes.
She said that students testing at Level 1 or 2 "earned" a double block of LA.
She said that all these changes were "based on data" and got scattered applause and a few whoops that seemed to confuse much of the audience.
- She did finally acknowledge Board policy on HCC classes being self-contained.
- As for foreign language, she again seemed unhappy at so many offerings. She said it was an advantage in middle school to take a language in 7th grade and is "such an advantage that all kids should have it." Well, if you force some kids into two hours of LA, they don't have that opportunity, no?
- She pointed out that WMS had four music levels and Garfield only has three. I cannot say if that's a fair comparison.
- She said there would be PE waivers "for medical or religious reasons" and that middle schools kids needed to move.
- Her portion of her talk about cell phones was slightly incoherent to me. She said that it was hard to enforce rules and that there would be signage - red, yellow or green - in each teacher's classroom on tech use.
- She said that students couldn't leave their backpacks in the lockers because some lockers didn't work so they will be allowed in the classroom.
- She said they needed lunchroom monitors.
- When she finally finished, she said that they would take the questions and create an FAQ.
Frankly, it felt like she was explaining and bullying all in one. It did not feel like an opening for dialog. She could have created a handout with the many topics she covered and taken parents' questions.
I told the Board and the Superintendent at last night's Board meeting that I did think they would continue to hear from WMS parents. If that meeting was to allay concerns, I don't think it did.
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