Is it time for the Seattle public school district to be split ?

• When a district closes ALL its schools due to snow in only one portion of the city does it make sense? 

•  When school buses are continually late due to long routes, is that efficient? 

•  When the districts priorities don't align with all communities, is that fair? 

• When schools aren't equally funded, is that equity?

• When a parents concerns get buried in a large bureaucracy, is that listening? 

•  When it takes 4 out of 7 school board members to effect change, is that expedient?

•  When one area has multiple new schools and another has 60 year old buildings that have poor heat, leaking roofs and peeling paint, is that equity? 

•  When a fairly new building needs a $5.5 million roof repair, is that stewardship? 

Whether a parent has one or more students attending public schools you will experience a lot of frustration attempting to understand why the same type of issues seem to become circular problems that remain unsolved. At some point you might think the district is just too large to be effectively managed.

One of my frustrations is how the district seems to shuttle its problematic employees from a distant school to another school hoping the parents at the new school are in the dark about the past issues with their new principle, AP or teacher. Special education is particularity problematic perhaps because of a long and frustrating interaction for over a decade with the department.

So do you think the district is too large?
If it were to be split what would the new district look like.
What should happen to JSCEE ?     Should it be sold to pay off the debt?

I found an interesting site you should look at to see some of the issues with splitting districts.


Fracturing school districts

reorganizing-school-district-boundaries.pdf

New-report-blasts-colorado-for-allowing-tiny-districts-to-net-more-school-funding-by-breaking-away-from-larger-districts/

John Saxon - Math

Congratulations Seattle Public Schools class of 2019

Take pride in your accomplishments - you did it!

Are you interested in finding out what's really going in the district ?

The district keeps a document called the PRR or Public Records Request log. It's an excel spreadsheet listing the FOIA request received by the district.

Here is a recent 2022-2023 copy : Seattle school district PRR log

If you would like to obtain your own PRR just email : publicrecords@seattleschools.org
and ask for a copy of the PRR log.   

How can Seattle schools move forward when the school board is stuck in the past?

As most school board observers know, the critical work of the board is performed in the work committees outside of the view of only the most die hard parents, those who can skip work to attend. Board decisions are usually made before the public board meetings are held. The public board meetings are not very useful but for the illusion that public testimony might cause change. Does that method really work?

I found a site that has a new approach for school boards that you might find interesting;

"New Roles for Board Members

Assuming such a role is taken on by the superintendent, what, then, becomes the role of the school board?
Traditionally, few boards ever have meetings without the superintendent physically present; they are much like children relying on a parent—or students relying on a teacher. Just as we see with kids in a classroom, when excellence is not demanded, when thoughtfulness is not valued, and when self-directed meaningful work is not required, then apathy and mediocrity result. Is it any wonder trustees have abdicated their responsibilities over the years? Or that they spend board meetings debating the merits of selling candy bars at fund raisers? They've come to believe that they can't do much, don't know much, and shouldn't do much—and act accordingly."

more

The district has an operating budget of nearly $1.5 billion

Most voters have no idea of the yearly cost to run the Seattle school district and to be honest it's very difficult to find the real cost buried in budget reports when there are many non budgetary expenditures that the school board never sees because the cost falls under the required $249,000 amount that triggers needed board approval. In most school districts the threshold is $10,000 not a quarter of a MILLION dollars. 

WA state recently approved a two-year budget funding Washington’s 2,400 K-12 public schools $27.2 billion,  a increase of $4.4 billion. Most school districts are now receiving $16,000 per student. $16,000 per school year is above the average yearly tuition of most private schools in Seattle.

 Below is the recent email from SPS disclosing a staggering $1.5 BILLION budget,

"The Seattle School Board will be appointing a new Board Director on August 28 for District VII (see map here) representing schools and students in Southeast Seattle.
Seattle Public Schools is the largest district in the state, home to 53,000 diverse students that attend 102 schools. The district has an operating budget of nearly $1.5 billion. The seven-person Seattle Public Schools Board of Directors governs the district and plays a critical role in the education of our students and stewardship of public investment. Each director, while responsible for oversight of the entire district, also represent seven distinct “districts” across the city.
The District VII board seat has been vacated by Director Betty Patu, a two and half-term board director and community leader of Southeast Seattle.  Washington state law (RCW 28.A343.370) guides the transition process. When a board seat vacancy occurs outside the regular election cycle, the current board appoints a candidate to finish that term. In this case the appointed term will last for two years and reopen for public election during the 2021 campaign cycle.   
It is the intent of the School Board to engage in a transparent process, with community assistance to solicit candidates and gather feedback from families, students, partners, and staff.
More information about the appointee process, criteria, timeline and engagement opportunities can be found on the School Board webpage.
If you have questions about the School Board appointment process please email schoolboard@seattleschools.org.
School Board Office"

Parents Prevail in D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Decision Reversing Use of New USAO Matrix for Calculating Prevailing Attorney's Fees

On May 21, 2019, parents prevailed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in D.L., et al. v. District of Columbia, A Municipal Corp., et al., which reversed the district court’s decision to apply a new matrix from the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) instead of the historically used LSI Laffey matrix as urged by parents’ counsel for calculating prevailing attorney’s fees following a successful fifteen-year complex IDEA class action.  The district court’s use of the USAO’s new matrix reduced parents’ counsels’ fee award by over three million dollars. 
In reversing the use of the USAO’s matrix, the Court of Appeals found that the USAO’s matrix did not incorporate rates for the applicable type of practitioner—in this case, those who practice complex federal class action litigation.  Instead, the USAO’s matrix incorporated rates from all types of lawyers, such as real estate, family, and insurance lawyers, all of whom do not provide the same kind and quality of services as parents’ counsel provided in this complex class action litigation.   In addition, the Court of Appeals found that the USAO’s matrix compiled data from practitioners in a wide radius—covering three states and including rural counties.  Obviously, rates from lawyers in more rural areas outside the District of Columbia are not applicable in determining the reasonable hourly rate for experienced complex federal litigators within the District of Colombia, where this litigation took place.   

Accordingly, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the USAO’s new matrix did not accurately reflect that of similarly experienced attorneys practicing within the relevant population, and therefore, it reversed and remanded the issue back to the district court for appropriate fee calculation. 
This litigation began in 2005 The named plaintiffs in this lawsuit—former preschool-age children in the District with various disabilities—allege that defendants have systemically failed to provide, or failed to timely provide, special education and related services to them and other children, in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794(a), and District of Columbia law. Margaret Kohn, long time COPAA member has represented the plaintiffs along with Todd Gluckman, Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP. COPAA filed an amicus group with other amici including: CITIZEN, INC., HOWARD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW CIVIL RIGHTS CLINIC, NATIONAL HEALTH LAW PROGRAM, WASHINGTON LAWYERS’ COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND URBAN AFFAIRS, COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES, INC., ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, THE JUDGE DAVID L. BAZELON CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH LAW, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE, LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, NATIONAL WOMENS LAW CENTER, AND AARP. Michael Kirkpatrick of Public Citizen wrote the brief for amici.
Read the decision in D.L., et al. v. District of Columbia, a Municipal Corporation, et al.

---

Seattle school board Director Jill Geary opens up about IEP violations.

I have to say I just about fell out of my chair when watching the February 27th Seattle school board public meeting. First off, during the public testimony portion a parent Anne Sheeran gave powerful testimony outlining the ongoing discrimination against 2E students and the invisibility of Special Education student's, their realities and the effects the proposed Policy 2024 regarding online learning.

I expected little to no response from any of the board members since for the last 3 years they have said little about the subject but then towards the end at of the meeting Director Jill Geary made the following statement,

"It is really important to me that we as a district offer specially designed instruction as part of our special education.  And I fear that too much of what we offer is an accommodation and that accommodation is more time which puts students who are in special ed farther and farther and farther behind in any type of challenging curriculum and so it’s really important that if we are going to offer challenging curriculum we make sure that our special education teachers have the time to modify the curriculum to the point that it serves the students and I heard today that we are not doing that, so from my perspective I don’t want to make any legal conclusions but it seems to be a problem. So I would hope that we have someone who is working diligently on that. It’s not like the curriculum is a surprise, it’s not like the accommodations around getting to core concepts and reducing volume is something we would have to do for every single student individually necessarily that is something that should just be done and here’s the point that I think I’d like to make, before we buy that curriculum from somebody we should be asking the question about whether or not they offer it done. Because if we’re doing it for one student it has been done for thousands of students across this country. So why is that not part of what we are talking about when we buy into, these people get a lot of money for the test that we have our kids do. So please lets be more savvy in terms of negotiating on behave of our students. Perhaps we don’t have the resources, but they’re taking our money , they can use that money to do that".     

Jill Geary,  (2019, February 27). Seattle school board public meeting.

https://youtu.be/oif7By_Srsw?list=PL4qDca8XEC4NIaRJ27inlNvSeUaS33Aso 

 

DRA filed a class action lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”)

"
On July 27, 2017, DRA filed a class action lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”), the City of New York, and DOE Chancellor Carmen Fariña, in her official capacity, alleging violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other anti-discrimination laws on behalf of a class of students with disabilities who attend school in the Bronx and are being denied legally-mandated special education services.
If the New York City Department of Education cannot find providers for related services that a student with a disability needs like occupational therapy or speech therapy, it issues a “voucher” to parents instead called Related Service Authorizations or RSAs. While typically these services would be provided during the school day, the families of children receiving these vouchers are left to fend for themselves, often facing insurmountable obstacles related to limited transportation options, inflexible work schedules, and language barriers. These vouchers go unused at very high rates. In the Bronx, over 63% of the vouchers are not used. The rates of usage are not much better across the City generally as almost half of the over 9,000 vouchers issued in the 2015-2016 school year went unused.
DRA’s goal in this case is to ensure that the DOE develops and implements a remedial plan that includes new practices, policies, and procedures to ensure that all students in the Plaintiff Class receive their related services."


http://dralegal.org/case/m-g-et-al-v-new-york-city-department-education-et-al/

Report: Washington’s dropout rate is high for students with learning disabilities

 "According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 35 percent of Washington’s 147,000 Special Education students drop out of high school, a rate among the highest of the 40 states studied."

“It could be that teachers are not well trained to recognize or support kids with learning issues, or that they maintain lower expectations for those students,” said Sheldon Horowitz, an author of the report.



http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/report-washingtons-dropout-rate-is-high-for-students-with-learning-disabilities/