All is not rosy on the new teachers’ contract front. Sure, the teachers’ union, the Seattle Education Association, approved it, but SEA President Olga Addae lashed out at the school board after a press conference (.pdf) yesterday for ignoring the union’s vote of no confidence on district superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson. (The union had voted no confidence just minutes after approving the new contract on Sept 2).
“At today’s press conference, while you lauded collaboration,” you ignored the no confidence vote, Addae told the school board at their regular meeting after the conference (the board voted to approve (.pdf) the teachers’ contract at the meeting). Not one of you have reached out to the Seattle Education Association to voice your thoughts on this.”
The union’s lack of trust in Goodloe Johnson has been getting more pronounced lately, and Addae insists that the board recognize it in some way. “If 1,500 of the superintendent’s employees have serious concern about her financial priorities, then that deserves some acknowledgement,” she told the Stranger. “We have seen a consistent erosion and attack on the integrity of education of our children. She [Goodloe-Johnson] does not trust us to educate students. She’d rather trust the Gates Foundation and the Alliance for Education.The district doesn’t listen to us, they dismiss us completely.”
More after the jump.
Addae also opposed a recommendation from district administration to cut funding from a city levy that would get rid of family support service workers at Seattle public schools. The district’s family support service program has helped members of low income families get basic support for almost 20 years. “If you so believe in collaboration,” then how can you think of possibly eliminating these people?” Addae asked. A small group of people showed up at the meeting to express support for the service workers, urging the board to save the program.
Nobody from the school board addressed the no-confidence issue at the meeting, although they lauded the contract as a “historic one.” The district initially wanted to use student test scores for final teacher evaluations, but the union’s counter proposal of using student growth as a trigger for evaluations finally won. Still, the district refused to call the agreement middle ground, arguing that no compromises had been made. “It certainly represents common ground,” Goodloe-Johnson said. It reflects “a real cultural change at Seattle Public Schools … There will be ample opportunity for us to restore faith in our teachers.”
Employees don’t get to fire their boss. Sorry.
She’s not particularly popular with parents, either – and we’re the customers. The School Board is ignoring everyone.
Could be worse.
Could be the County Sheriff – nobody likes her.
She’s popular with this parent. She finally ended busing and brought back local schools. Basically told the social experimenters to fuck off. For that, I am grateful; our kids won’t be sacrificed for political correctness and stupid ‘white privilege’ theorists.
@4 Goodloe Supporter! – It wasn’t Dr. Goodloe-Johnson who ended busing. That was ended long ago. Nor did she bring back local schools. That had also been done long ago. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson didn’t say anything to anybody. If you are grateful for the new Student Assignment Plan, then you should direct your gratitude to the previous Board. They are the ones who designed it – not Dr. Goodloe-Johnson.
Lest they forget, the school board members are elected by the citizens of Seattle. Given that their principle employee lacks strong support from teachers and many parents, they ignore this sentiment at their peril. They need to deal with the no-confidence vote as well as the many issues raised in the audit of the district (see an overview of the findings at http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2…).
If the board isn’t effectively overseeing the actions of the Superintendent and the district, they’re not doing their jobs and not spending *our* resources wisely. Parents, make a few calls…
If you want to know if the Superintendent is popular with student families, then ask the Our Schools Coalition. They ask about her in their poll, but they didn’t publish the results.
Since they got the names and phone numbers for those parents – illegally – from the District, perhaps the District can demand a full report of the outcome of their polling. By the way, the failure to safeguard confidential information was yet another failure by the District leadership. At first they denied it, but then the truth came out.
@4
“..our kids won’t be sacrificed…”
Oh god, they’re killing children!?!?!?
“…for political correctness and stupid ‘white privilege’ theorists.”
Oh, you were just being hyperbolic AND blithely dismissive of major racial attitudes in society. Bravo. Yeah, I had no opinion before, but if you like her, I’m definitely not supporting her. Busing provided access to the most elite programs for highly gifted students that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise, as well as top rated music programs, or vocational radio opportunities for those who were interested in that. Granted, the program was economically very untenable and the resources should have been redirected in these dire fiscal times, but you went for the gullet with class and aplomb.
@1
I don’t see where the union is asking for teachers to have the power to fire the superintendent.
“ample opportunity to restore faith in our teachers” Wow- that quote is telling about how the superintendent views teachers. Obviously non of us are doing our jobs, no one has faith in us, and we are clearly not professionals. Is it any wonder that teachers are angry.
Can you please elaborate on the District wanting to tell the City what to fund in their Families and Education Levy? Why on earth would the District want to tell the city to stop funding Family Support Workers? That’s mind-boggling. And cruel. And ironic, given that the school district treats levies (and all public funds) as blank checks to squander, spend illegally and increase spending in a time of budget cuts to schools.
If it was just a few teachers complaining about Goodloe Johnson, I’d ignore it. There’s always a few whiners, no matter how good the management is.
But when a huge majority of teachers vote no-confidence, that should be a wakeup. This should not be ignored.
The Seattle School Board should be responsible for the satisfaction of the parents with the education provided to the children. I do not believe even one of them sees it that way. I think they are quite satisfied with themselves, and I suspect that their cynical and disingenous ways are intended to dissuade parents from being involved. I’d be happy to have more information on how we replace Sherry Carr and her friends.
Thanks for the great coverage. We barely see any objective reporting in the Times. Chairman Mao Goodloe Johnson doesn’t seem to care about parents, kids, SPS or our community, and the board is not much better.
The Seattle School Board has drunk the Goodloe-Johnson kool-aid. They ignore or dismiss clear conflicts of interest, they do not hold her accountable for failing to meet her own benchmarks. How many millions of dollars were wasted on the ineffective and unpopular SE Initiative? How many Broad interns have been hired downtown while classroom teachers are losing their jobs? Someone please take notice. The only thing she cares about is her own resume and her own press. We need the press to take notice. The school board is nothing more than a punch drunk bunch of rubber stamping cheerleaders.
I gotta agree with 15, but I also have to point out that “A Punch Drunk Bunch of Rubber Stamping Cheerleaders” would be a band I’d go see.