Loading...
Title : SPS New Updates
link : SPS New Updates
SPS New Updates
Rather than do full reports, this reporting will be highlights from recent Board committee meetings.Audit&Finance 6/10/19
- There was discussion that the minutes of the last A&F meeting may be incomplete as the recorder died. Some details of the discussion may be lost.
- Richard Staudt talked about the district's Risk Management Pool which is done jointly with other districts He stated that other districts seem to have more sexual misconduct claims than SPS. He also told directors that when he got the quote for SPS' share, he pushed back. Turns out he was right and saved the district about $150,000.
- I learned something new about the Families& Education levy dollars. I had thought the City was paying for all summer school costs but those dollars only pay for middle schools and a few elementary schools. Most of the elementaries receive those dollars from Title One funds plus some district funding.
- Head of Budget JoLynn Berge said that the Superintendent has an internal team about "sourcing and supports for schools" in an effort to identify gaps in funding. It's called Resource Mapping. It might a good item for someone to track after my work on SPS ends.
- The budget for 2019-2020 (partial)
$1,044,890,979 for the General Fund budget.
That is broken into resources of $930,934,317 in non-grant resources and $113,956,662 in grant funds. Also included is capacity reserves of $18,078,023 in non-grant capacity and $11,500,000 in grant capacity.
The capacity reserves are placeholders for potential spending in the event that new revenues are received or unspent funds from 2018-2019 are transferred to 2019-2020.
Capital Fund - $348,349,820.
Berge noted that any changes to enrollment would change the budget. Director Eden Mack said she did not believe the enrollment numbers. Berge said they were going on the district's numbers and Mack again said she didn't believe the numbers and was waiting on analysis of the numbers. Budget's Linda Sebring said that revenue is up per student but that they believed there would be fewer students.
Mack pointed out that the district has a $40M shortfall and yet is spending $90M more than last year. Sebring said that there are still some labor costs that could change and 85% of the budget is labor. As well, there is an increase of $5M in Transportation.
It was an interesting interchange with Director Mack and Berge as Mack seemed to want to nail down budget details and Berge seemed to be wanting to leave wiggle room. As well, Director Jill Geary and Director Mack then got into a slightly heated discussion over whether SPS is a "big district." From my own research, I believe that SPS would be considered a mid-level urban district. It certainly isn't LA or NYC or Chicago.
The vote on the budget is to be July 10th with a legally required public hearing before the regular Board meeting. Director Patu will be gone so there will only be six votes. Director Mack indicated that she would be phoning into the meeting to vote.
- As regards the payment of the bonds (still) for JSCEE, here is the latest. The district has quietly started to take funds out of BEX and BTA funds to pay them off. BEX V is going to pay out $10M over the life of the levy and so is BTA V (which hasn't even been passed yet). The last payment on this albatross of a building will be 2026-2027.
- There was a long discussion around a new WSSDA policy and Board Policy 6100. When the Legislature created new McCleary spending they added in requirements around it in order to make sure that districts were only spending the money for "basic education." If there is an audit finding that a district spent those funds in another manner, then there has to be a public hearing within 30 days.
There was then back and forth about levies being "enrichment" versus money given via private grants or by foundations. Berge said the district would follow the law and anything beyond what the state funds is what enrichment is. Geary had brought up PTA funding and asked Mack if she wanted to stop that funding. Mack said she wasn't ready to do that. All the directors, including the third member of the committee, Scott Pinkham, seemed in flux about the issue and not willing to commit to the discussion.
Curriculum&Instruction - 6/11/19
- The first discussion was around the City's funding of Creative Advantage Arts program. (I note that at last night's Board meeting the Meany Middle School drumline performed - they were great - and their leader stated that some of their funding comes from the CAA.) The program is active in 56 schools and there are other partners like the Jack Straw Cultural group.
- Then in category of "I told you so", staff told the committee members that they needed to make changes to Board policy 3232, Parent/Guardian & Student Rights in Administration of Surveys, Analysis or Evaluations. This also "cross-references Policy 4280, Research Activity."
Interestingly, there was no mention that this stemmed from the Check Yourself mental health screener being used in several middle schools via King County was NOT in compliance with the federal policy PPRA (Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment) but yes, that's why they were at the table. I'm not sure why they wouldn't explain the issue out loud but perhaps they didn't want that on the record.
Staff noted that "we are out of compliance with federal law right now." They said Legal had prompted them to take specific action and that "they had gone ahead and got guidance from the DOE."
I'll just state here that I told them - repeatedly - that they were violating federal policy. The claim was made to me that Legal had checked with DOE and were told they were fine with the screener. My read is that the district may not have fully explained to the DOE person what they were doing and that - when another DOE person up the food chain prompted by a national student data privacy expert, Leonie Haimson, looked into it - whoops! they were out of compliance. And, in the meantime, hundreds of students took this screener without their parents being adequately notified.
The district wants to "incorporate language from a model policy from the Washington State School Director's Association" as well as PPRA. The district says they need to safeguard the rights of parents in collecting sensitive data. "The key to the policy is to clearly articulate active consent and passive consent."
It was noted that parents can't opt their child out of a survey if they don't know the survey exists. No kidding. What is troubling to me is that despite me asking the question out loud at the meeting, they don't have an answer for if the district is going to contact parents from last year when this screener was first used and tell THEM about it. I do wish I had a parent who would file a complaint with the DOE.
Staff seemed eager to push a new version of the policies forward without the attending Superintendent Procedure being ready.
Director Leslie Harris said there were lessons to be learned and she had received a lot of email about the screener. She said it took too long to have it reach the level where there was "analysis and pullback." She also (rightly) stated that she was leery of being by staff that something needed to be done "right away" and have "a lesser work product."
One other fascinating bit of info - the district told me, over and over, "this isn't research" so it doesn't fall under the restrictions of that category. Well, head of Research & Data, Dr. Eric Anderson repeatedly called it...."research."
Director Rick Burke said he was "torn on this one." He said that he would move it forward but he had one concern. He said the policy is about "rights" and yet it doesn't state that parents should be "notified."
Staff wants to put yet another sheet into the ever-expanding first-day packet to cover the notification to parents.
Anderson said there might need to be a "data governance group" to which I say, "Yes, please."
It seemed like staff knew they needed to do something but all the moving parts were not in place. Harris pushed back if there was not a fully completed Superintendent procedure. They said it may not be ready for the start of school in the fall.
- Another big item is the new dress code under Policy 3224. The Board is looking for input from parents so I urge you to read this and give it. Write to spsdirectors@seattleschools.org. Please don't just write to complain. Read the policy and give input.
According to the BAR, students were involved in the shaping of the revised policy.
On the issue of schools that do use uniforms, staff says both school staff and parents were consulted about the issue and that the majority want to keep it. Burke seemed to feel that health and safety would trump any uniform issue (he didn't expand on that). There was also the issue of equity because of the cost issues of uniforms. There is one K-8 where the middle school portion of students are unhappy with the policy.
Harris said that Boren K-8 founders who put this into place were aging out of the system and that perhaps it should be revisited. She said she felt the uniforms were "misogynistic" and it should change.
Burke also said he really didn't care for uniforms.
I have seen pushback on the claim that all parents felt consulted on this issue. And, I stand by the notes I took at the committee meeting that show that while staff said the majority of parents wanted to continue the policy, there were also directors who did push back on this policy.
One issue I see right off the bat is this wording:
Must not wear clothing that: (then a lengthy list that includes) "sexually suggestive"
I would say that falls into the late Justice Potter's reasoning about pornography, "I know it when I see it." What would most parents call "sexually suggestive?" A tight shirt on a girl whose bustline is large? Is that her fault? Is it a low neckline?
As well, there is this: "intentionally shows private parts (nipples, genitals, buttocks)". I don't know about "intentional" but when I go by Roosevelt High at lunchtime, there are some girls who have very short shorts where you can see the crease of their butt cheek.
I note that on one Facebook page, parents were ballistic on this issue, saying there were no longer shorts to be had. Again, I always say that kids don't have to dress like they are going to church but they should not dress like they are going to the club or the beach.
- There was also an Ethnic Studies update. It's challenging work as the head of Ethnic Studies said that she had to go to conferences on her own time because of the travel freeze. She said that PD has been a priority and that the summer institute is sold out with a waitlist. It was noted that about one-third of principals contacted about the curriculum have not answered. Diane DeBacker, CAO, said that she needs to get on that.
Interestingly, Director Geary asked, "Do principals not like being told to do something?"
Kyle Kinoshita said that principals have many priorities and that perhaps this wasn't communicated to them as a priority. He said "we need to provide availability and need a unified voice from the top."
Director Burke said if it wasn't in CSIPs maybe then it didn't seem like a priority. The head of Ethnic Studies said that principals seemed focused on testing and Common Core. She suggested the principals might let "strong teacher leaders take over."
- There was some discussion about the 24-Credits issue. Director Harris expressed concern over IEPs. Cal Perkins said that they would add more explicit language but an IEP "trumps 24 credits."
The Board meeting last night was fairly lively; I'll have a separate post on that.
thus Article SPS New Updates
that is all articles SPS New Updates This time, hopefully can provide benefits to all of you. Okay, see you in another article posting.
You now read the article SPS New Updates with the link address https://onechildsmart.blogspot.com/2019/06/sps-new-updates.html
0 Response to "SPS New Updates"
Post a Comment