@1 Because the city will be handling the funding, there is a proven track record of how/where the money has been used in the past and the successes, and because the kids shouldn’t suffer because Seattle School District administrators are idiots.

Before I even read the linked story, I knew Susan Kelleher was the reporter involved.

She is contemptible.

Not sure if this has been reported on SLOG, but within a week of the purchase of the property, the First AME (FAME) sold the property for a ten-dollar quitclaim to the "MLK Family Arts Mentoring Enrichment Community Center" -- so FAME sold it to MLK FAME CC.

I'm guessing this has something to do with tax burdens and doesn't have any sinister component to it, but geez, you'd think the Times story (and the defenders from SPS) would have pointed this out at some point, right?

I ask in earnest: What's wrong with Susan Kelleher?

Yes, the Save Seattle Schools blog first reported the sale (really a quit claim for $10) by First AME to a new (and somewhat mysterious) non-profit also with the initials FAME.

There's nothing inherently wrong with what First AME has done but that so little has happened in the 7 months since the sale in terms of youth programs at MLK (including cutting off use of the playground to the community because of liability issues), you have to wonder.

What is also interesting is that Mr. English said in the Times' article that the district doesn't do enforcement of the contract. The district has a covenant with First AME about what they need to do and Board members DeBell and Maier say it will be enforced.

The question is - by who?

One of the fundamental dysfunctions of Seattle Public Schools is that nothing is ever enforced.

The District Policies are never enforced.
The State laws are never enforced.
Federal laws are not enforced.
Collective bargaining agreements are not enforced.

Nothing is enforced.

Enforcement is the Board's job. The current Board doesn't do its job and the four Board Directors up for re-election this fall should all be voted out of office - for just not doing the work (aside from any other reason).

I was until very recently a teacher at FAME. We were told at the time of the bidding process ( A time in which we were, as now, deeply in debt) that the building would become a new school for FAME, and several sites would move their classrooms and children to the site when it was ready. This was a time in which FAME was firing special-needs specialists and canceling field trips due to lack of funds, so teachers needed to be convinced that this was needed. We were told the new school would be larger, have a playground (which several FAME sites do not have) and that the Feds would feel more comfortable when the FAME site that was in the basement of the FAME church itself was locating outside the church. We were very surprised when the new executive director (who arrived after the bidding process) told us,while delivering info about the new school, in response to a question about when classes would start moving to the site, that "Children will never be at the new building. It is for management". When we told him that we were informed it would be a school, he very firmly repeated several times that "It was never going to be a school. It was never going to have children." He repeated this several times, as though it was very important for us to remember this. As teachers, we all felt something fishy had happened. He described the building as only being used by FAME, and only one wing. The rest would be kept empty and "might be used by the community, in exchange for rent". When a teacher asked if she could being her class over to use the playground, he told her no, as it was an insurance liability.
I am in no way surprised that individuals on both sides of the bidding process were members of FAME church. You could not get into many positions in management if there was another person in the company who went to FAME church who wanted it. They would privately be given the position, then the position would be posted. If you asked about applying for the position, you would find out it had already been filled by a church member. Over time they stopped even informing people positions were open. Middle-management at FAME is filled with old-school teachers who are FAME Church members, who, when they become incompetent as teachers and unable to manage a class of pre-schoolers, are promoted to management and tasked with managing teachers. It has created an atmosphere of stress and tension between the older, less-educated African-American managers who are FAME Church members, and the better educated, largely East-Asian and Hispanic teachers who are not. I quit after a teacher who had been there for years (seriously, almost 30) was repeatedly reported to CPS for emotionally and physically abusing special needs children was simply removed from the school where she was reported and moved to another school. FAME protected an abusive teacher because she was part of the old-school Fame Church network. The incompetent and abusive protect each other, at the expense of the children, teachers, and now, apparently, tax-payer money.