This is exactly the sorta tone deaf and indecisive mismanagement that frustrates parents and forces many of the more affluent ones out of the Seattle School District:
Parents at a Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday night protested a proposed new assignment plan that — at least during its transition phase — would not guarantee that younger siblings could go to the same school as an older brother or sister.
[…] The School Board voted to move forward with the new student-assignment plan, but postponed a decision on the sibling issue until a detailed transition plan is developed along with new attendance boundaries in the fall.
Accepting the new assignment plan but postponing the sibling issue is the worst of both worlds, a half-assed move that leaves affected families in limbo for many more months. How many more kids are going to come back to school next September not knowing if this is their last year in that building? Does the board know? Do they care?
And in making this half-move, the board also telegraphs an incredible lack of confidence in its own decision making process, and perhaps, a lack of preparation to boot. I mean, shouldn’t the assignment maps be drawn and the sibling issue be settled before springing the new plan on parents, let alone approving it? And if the board doesn’t have enough confidence in the plan to settle the sibling issue up front, how can parents have confidence in the plan as a whole?
One abundantly clear lesson that was learned from our recent rounds of school closures is that despite all the press about failing schools, most families are not only satisfied with their children’s education (at least at the elementary school level), they love their schools so much that they’re willing to ferociously fight to save them.
Yes, our schools are underfunded. Yes, there are a handful of bad teachers and bad principals to whom the system just doesn’t seem capable of giving the boot. And yes, yes, yes, there are some curriculum issues—like slavishly teaching toward the WASL—that have proven a disservice toward teachers and students alike. Seattle schools aren’t perfect. Far from it.
But while we all want to improve the level of education in Seattle schools, it’s the complete and utter lack of stability that drives parental dissatisfaction levels sky high. How do you build a functional school program and community when from year to year you never know how many FTEs you’ll lose due to budget cuts, which principal will be rotated in or out of your school, which school your kids will be assigned to, or even whether your child’s school will remain open at all?
Nobody wants that for their child, and many of those who can afford better choose thusly.
There’s a reason why parents like those opposing the new assignment plan have taken to vociferously protesting school board decisions: we don’t trust ’em! And, we’ve learned that the board has so little trust in itself, our protests have a good chance of being successful.
As the parent of 5,647 school-age children,* if the school board said my kids couldn’t attend the same schools, I’d be gone in a heartbeat! Can you imagine having to drive your kids to over 5,000 different schols before leaving for work?**
* At last count; I haven’t received the Morning Situation Report yet containing figures on how many of them got run over by cars or eaten by falcons during the night.
** How can anyone work under these circumstances? And why should they, when workers pay 3 times the tax rate that stay-at-home stock market speculators pay? I don’t work! It’s only 9:45 AM and I’ve already made $50 in the stock market this morning. That’s about $28.57 an hour. Sure beats the $2.13 an hour that Mike McGavick and his Republican backers want to pay workers!
That should be Parents’ in the title – unless it is only referring to Roger Rabbit and his progeny.
rodent,
Have you applied you financial activities to Excel’s XIRR function to see how you’re doing overall? It’s a money-weighted internal rate of return calculator, and is extremely valuable for measuring overall performance of one’s portfolio of wealth-producing assets. I advise you to have a look at it.
@3 I don’t need Excel to figure out I got my ass kicked over the last 18 months.
@2 Uh, no. Parent’s is singular, parents’ is plural, so parent’s refers to a single parent, i.e. Goldy. There’s only one parent in his household, so parent’s is the proper usage in his case.
@4 Let me restate it this way:
I don’t need Excel to figure out my aggregate total return for the last 18 months is in negative territory.
Roger @5,
No, I meant to refer to “parents” in the plural, so Huh is right, and I’ve fixed the headline.
I’m actually a pretty good proofreader… I just can’t proof my own writing to save my life.
As a recovering Seattle Schools parent [1988-2004] I saw the district spin and sputter about school assignments over and over. Meanwhile our south end schools did not improve and students were bussed about at costs over 20 million dollars a year.
Make the rules, draw the lines and let dissatisfied parents complain or/and leave.
@7 “I can’t proof my own writing to save my life.”
You’ve got lots of company, brother. See, e.g., @1.
The problem begins at the top – with Maria Goodloe – Johnson. She says jump, the school board asks, “how high?” Her mandates are rarely challenged or questioned. She expects complete deference to her demands, and she is openly contemptuous of parents and parent groups. Every board meeting I have attended she has acted in the most disrespectful manner imaginable, openly and blatantly ignoring the proceedings around her as she plays with her blackberry, shuffles paper, etc. She has shown up to meetings with parent groups with her toddler in tow, and then allowed the child to be disruptive. (she is not the only one so rude – I once watched Chow casually read a magazine during a school closure board meeting.) For the past eight years Seattle Public Schools have served my child well, and the teachers and principals I have experienced are talented, driven professionals. My dissatisfaction is solely with the administration in the bubble downtown.I for one can’t wait to MGJ leave Seattle.
In 2008, the the return of my entire portfolio of invested assets was minus 38.5%. The XIRR function is a good tool to determine the true return of a portfolio of securities.
@10 How did these behavioral tendencies survive the vetting process? I mean, why would the school board hire someone like that? And if she’s like that, why didn’t they discover this during the hiring process?
@11 Off the top of my head, I’m somewhere in that ballpark, maybe somewhere around -30%, after factoring in recent stock market gains.
Everyone is pretty much in the same boat, because market prices of all asset classes declined in tandem. No safe harbors anywhere, except for the handful of people who sold everything and put their money in Treasuries. We’ve been in a market that doesn’t look at the quality of individual assets but simply devalued everything across the board.
Which, of course, has created buying opportunities for undervalued assets. I’ve been buying everything from Big Oil and Big Coal to specialty retail and railroads. I’m a fucking tycoon with interests across the breadth of the economy! But mostly I’m just a fucking rabbit making more rabbits.
You want an example of the school board’s incompetence? Take Viewlands. When the board was determined to close Viewlands (and openly disregarding public input) one of the parents did demographic number crunching. The data showed clearly that the student population in the Viewlands area was going to require the use of that building VERY SOON. The board, as usual knew better and ignored that evidence. Viewlands was closed. Now two years later, the community of that very successful school is dispersed, the building is vandalized (copper wiring, etc., stolen, windows broken) and the school is just deteriorating away. The district ignored the building and let it rot. What is the news now? Apparently, according to the newspaper, Viewlands is likely to be reopened in 2010. Much money, yours and mine, will have to be spent to bring the building back to standards.
Why? Because we have a boneheaded school administration that CANNOT hear, even when there is clear data, when their tendentious decision making is contraindicated by the facts.
Get your wallets out. Time to pay for the errors and stupidity of two years ago.
Okay Goldie, calm down. Look, the district is finally getting around to a new assignment plan after say, 20 odd years. Give them a little credit. And, predictability? It’s yours – every address will have an elementary, middle and high school attached to it. BUT, to make this work they cannot grandfather every current student AND all their sibs. Otherwise the neighborhood kids won’t all get in either.
Current kids can stay in their schools until the highest grade level. However when the new plan kicks in if you move, you can stay only thru the year and then reapply if it isn’t your attendance area school. That is the bigger news.
So the Board has put in a placeholder on the issue. I suspect they will have a 2-3 year transition plan and during that period, sibs will be allowed in but there will be a cut-off date.
But yes, you are right. All of you (except you charter and voucher freaks – go back to your corners). The Board can be tentative. The Superintendent is a control-freak who will be gone in 2 years or less (this is not her perfect gig). (Just an aside, there’s a sign to the main meeting room at the headquarters, where the Board meetings are, that says to turn off your Blackberries and don’t use them. I guess Dr. G-J hasn’t seen that sign.)
Goldy is right. Parents need some calm because it’s like being on a rocking, leaking boat in this district with most schools being the oasis of calm if the district would quit changing everything.