The last thing needed is for the Board to be directly involved in the running of schools. That’s the job of the superintendent and the principals. If the Board is involved at the level then they aren’t doing their job of providing oversight and guidance.

Now, you might say they aren’t doing that now. You’d be right. SPS doesn’t seem focused on making sure that tax dollars are going to fund day to day operations, as well as making capital investments in facilities. It mainly seems like a lot of tax dollars are wasted, rather than going to hire teachers and funding programs like band. For all of the money SPS takes in it feels like not enough of it goes to fund education.

The issue isn’t SOFG. The issue is that the Board doesn’t even do that. And in the absence of actual governance the schools will be either micromanaged by the Board, or overly influenced by a handful of parents whose influence is already creating major issues.

@1 call it SOFG or another name, it doesn’t matter. The Board has made it so the District doesn’t need oversight unless a contract exceeds $5M, has done away with most committee meetings and passes motions via consent agenda instead of discussing them individually. Is this rational behavior for an agency speeding towards insolvency?? All signs point to running out of money after next year, you think staying the course is a great idea because otherwise parents might get involved?? What’s going to happen when it finally implodes?

SPS loves to talk about keeping the budget cuts away from schools and yet they want to close some of them (and beware of the "consolidation" messaging which tries to blunt what is gonna happen by school year 2024-2025). At a recent meeting, the Superintendent said they might close 20 schools. At the Board meeting this Wednesday, they are already closing a site for one alternative high school.

The issue IS SOFG. Make no mistake about that. Let's examine what is happening and/or is coming under SOFG.

1) ONLY the Superintendent and the Board president will determine what is on every single Board meeting agenda. What are the other 6 Board members elected to do then? Apparently rubber-stamp.
2) This Board raised the amount to trigger Board oversight of district spending from $250,000 to $1M. And the Superintendent only has to issue a quarterly report on that spending.
3) Board policies are being slashed and rewritten. For example, the policy on Board working with staff has changed and individual Board members can only ask "clarifying questions" and CANNOT ask for data. How is that oversight going to happen if the Board doesn't have the information they need to make informed decisions?
4) There used to be a procedure for Board meeting agendas whereby items would be "introduced" at one meeting and then "action" at the next (meaning voted on). That gave BOTH the public and the Board time to hear about an issue and the Board can discuss it, with members of the public able to give testimony. The Board is now doing "intro/action" more and more so that an item appears at just ONE meeting.
5) The Board is also rolling more and more items into the Consent Agenda where a SINGLE vote is okay for multiple items. Last year, they tried to put the vote on the Budget on the Consent Agenda - that's a vote for over $1B of spending.
6) The claim is that the Board is carrying out the "values and vision" of "the community." Except that there has been NO public discussion about SOFG and what those values and vision are. The Board is making that up.
7) To be a member of the Council of Great City Schools (the group that Cruickshank references in his piece), districts pay $50,000 a year. SPS has been a member for decades. But that is just a baseline. Six members of the Board (and one staffer) went to a SOFG conference in Miami earlier this year and spent $20,000 to do so, including a $2,000 first class ticket for Board President Brandon Hersey. I can't even guess how much it costs to engage Mr. Crabill for his coaching services. I'm still waiting on public disclosure for those costs.
8) The Board committees that provided oversight in the areas of operations, teaching and learning, audit and finance and executive are now gone. Only those committees legally required remain (which are two). Why keep board directors in the dark about what staff is doing?

SOFG takes power and oversight away from the Board and gives that power to the superintendent. Plain and simple. As someone who has watched this district for 25 years, i can tell you no good will come of it. New Board members are a necessity at this point; the incumbents - Liza Rankin and Lisa Rivera Smith - should go for agreeing to this nonsense.

Melissa Westbrook, Seattle Schools Community Forum blog

I may be wrong about the $5M threshold - I defer to Melissa (@4). My point is that the dollar threshold has gone up and the district has greater authority to spend money, unchecked, during a budget crisis.

Thanks for this article, Robert.

It is absolutely appalling that the board eliminated Committee meetings. Years ago, there was a scandal within Seattle Public Schools that resulted in the loss of many many dollars. The board rectified the situation, in part, by INCREASING committee meetings.

As is, there are NO more Executive Committee meetings which has resulted in decreased transparency because of private exchanges between board president and superintendent. The public no longer has a chance to glean Executive Committee Agendas and minutes.

Operation Committee meetings are gone and the district has a budget of $1.3B per year. A former director of the Operations committee has complained that board directors are no longer getting reports. Some argue that a BEX oversight committee does the work of previous committees. However, the board was recently asked to approve an increase of $20M (!!) on a capital project and it was clear that board members weren't sure the BEX oversight got the information. Board members were unclear about the BEX committee's comments- if any- on the $20M increased costs.

Student Focused Outcome Governance has resulted in less oversight and less transparency.

Future boards will have no idea about previous governance structures.

It is imperative that Liza Rankin does not win re-election.

Totoman,

Absolutely correct. The board increased board approved expenditures for operations from $250k to $1M. They also increased board approved expenditures for capital projects from $1M to $5M.

@2. I watched a handful of parents run a passionate principal out of Ballard High School. Ever since the level of instruction and support for educators at the school plummet. The LAST thing we need are busybody parents running the school. Inevitably it leads to amateur hour.

That said, it’s clear the school board isn’t doing the job of providing oversight of the school. The board has been a thankless job for years.

Rather than having the board hand its power to the superintendent I’d prefer to have management entirely change. Let’s dissolve the school board and let the mayor run the school. Probably makes life hell for the mayor. But at least we get the board, and the type of people who run for school board, out of the picture.

Lastly, SFOG takes voice away from minority board members. Committee meetings used to be a way for directors to hold back half baked initiatives. No more.

@1, that’s a lot of gymnastics to deflect blame from SOFG! The school board is THE democratic lever for oversight by individuals chosen by voters and taxpayers. SOFG neuters them by phasing out transparency and accountability in favor of focusing on student test scores (which are terrible BTW).

I see no upside to the City for taking over this district, it’s a mess.

@10. It is often said that anyone who wants to be President shouldn’t be allowed to run. That’s mostly true for President, but it is 100% true for school board.

I’m a big believer in democracy. But the people who run, and get elected, to be on the school board make me question my beliefs. It’s a technocratic job that we give to people who don’t understand education. Let the voters vote for mayor, and let the mayor appoint a board of directors to oversee a superintendent tasked with managing the system. Then, if the people aren’t happy with the school system, they can’t vote out the mayor.

Another upside of city control of the school system is that the city can borrow money at municipal bond rates. The school system can’t.

Not every Board member voted to eliminate committees, etc. Vivian Song Maritz & Lelsie Harris voted No.

Thanks, Leslie Harris.

To note: Director Leslie Harris and Director Vivian Song Maritz voted against the district's plan to support HC students to OSPI. I believe they understand that the district's plan to provide legally required education to HC students is nothing but fluff.

I would also like to thank Director Harris for trying to create transparency around school closures.

@1 / @10 @Choska
"Let’s dissolve the school board and let the mayor run the school. Probably makes life hell for the mayor."
"Another upside of city control of the school system is that the city can borrow money at municipal bond rates. The school system can’t."

This is not legally possible in Washington. One of the challenges running school districts here is that so few voters actually understand the unusual constitutional and legal status of schools, so we waste a lot of public discourse nursing along ideas or solutions that are untenable, unworkable, or illegal. Progressive voters need to get up to speed so efforts are focused on realistic or effective solutions. Conservative voters need only sit back because we have neoliberals passing as progressives running the state legislature and pushing SOFG through for them.

First, remember "amply" funding public schools is the "paramount duty" of the state of Washington under our constitution. In this state, public school (legally called "common school") systems are organized into regional Education Service Districts or ESDs, which are analogs to counties, and then the school districts, as analogs to cities, are organized within the ESDs. ESDs and school districts are created only by the state legislature--period. There is no mechanism in law for city councils, mayors, county councils, or county executives to exert any control over schools at any point or in any direct way. "Mayoral control" cannot ever occur in Washington unless the legislature were to overhaul the entire system (politically impossible).

Now, if a school district falls into bankruptcy, then the Office of the Superintendent of Public Industruction (OSPI), currently headed by Chris Reykdahl, appoints an administrator with draconian powers to cancel contracts and bypass the board and staff, including suspending teachers' CBA. Reykdahl is directly elected by the people, so even Governor Inslee has minimal say and influence in the operation of the schools. Instead of mayoral control, this is the only possible scenario unless a school district were to dissolve itself.

Only the state legislature has any power to correct many of the structural and fiscal problems that beset Seattle Public Schools and other districts.

You may have noticed the Washington State Democrats, who control all three branches of state government, did essentially nothing to support public schools last session. While they did ever so slightly increase the arbitrary and immoral special education spending cap (i.e., the state only allows a fixed number of special education students to be funded), they did not address the more general education levy cap that limits overall education spending. Even in districts that vote to tax themselves more, such as Seattle, we are limited by state law from raising or spending more than $3100 per student over the state allocation. No way around this either.

So, to summarize for AJ Crabill who seems not to understand Washington state's context very well and anyone else who doesn't realize what wacky constraints we operate under:

Mayoral/city control is impossible in Washington state.
Spending caps (whose existence violate the "ample" funding provision of the state constitution, hence the McCleary case) limit the state legislature's allocation to each district, including limiting the number of special education students that can be funded, even if, as in the case of Seattle, we have more special education students than the funding covers.
Beyond the state allocation per student, Seattle has a special spending limit of $3100 per student raised by levy that cannot be exceeded--even if we voted to tax ourselves more by bonds or any other mechanism.

P.S. It's worth noting that capital budgets and operating budgets have to be kept generally separate, so money allocated by capital levies, say, to build school buildings can't be moved to operations or to salaries. The district cheats and still does this sometimes anyway, but it's not a voter-approved use and likely wouldn't always stand a sniff test in court. But even when it cheats, we're talking mere drops in the overall budget bucket of $1.2 billion.

P.S. SPS has a larger budget than do most cities in Western Washington, including Olympia.

@14. Thanks for your reply. I’m all for structural reform at the state level.

Per your last two points, can you check my math? If the budget is $1.2 billion and enrollment is 50,000, then that $24,000 per student per year. In a classroom of 24 kids that is over $500,000 annually per year for that one classroom. Teachers make up 60% of the overall budget. I don’t believe teachers are making over $250k a year. I wish they did. (But I invite you to check my math.)

At that level of funding why aren’t the students fully served with ALL of the extracurricular programs? With an annual budget of over $1 billion why aren’t the schools better? Per the point of our conversation, why isn’t the school board - regardless of how it is formed - asking these fundamental questions?

"Per your last two points, can you check my math? If the budget is $1.2 billion and enrollment is 50,000, then that $24,000 per student per year. In a classroom of 24 kids that is over $500,000 annually per year for that one classroom. Teachers make up 60% of the overall budget. I don’t believe teachers are making over $250k a year. I wish they did. (But I invite you to check my math."

The focus needs to be on the downtown administrators, the chief this, that, and the others, the assistant deputy junior under whatevers, who have proliferated in all public institutions in recent decades. You need to take a bit off the top of that $1.2 billion to cover admin overheard. The chairwarmers and technocrats who are never seen in the 100+ buildings across Seattle are where the public should looking if it cares about spending. All state salaries are public information: you can see exactly how much a classroom teacher makes vs the IT staff or the various curriculum managers.

I remember reading somewhere that Seattle had 100,000 students in its schools in early 1970s…now it has half that with a much larger population and a much wealthier tax base. Something seems amiss there. A lot of private schools we have now didn't exist then but not 50,000 students worth. Smaller families, younger newcomers are all factors but there's more to this.

@16, you’re right on. There are some 15 + director types making $200k+ / year, whole departments dedicated to Liberatory Studies and African American Male Achievement. If our poorest and most vulnerable students were kicking a** as a result of these initiatives, then these investments would be a good value, but these students are behind grade level and underperforming in every standard. The Board should have cut this waste years ago.

@14 @15 @16

The school district makes a perhaps-overly polished version of its budget available online: https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/finance/Budget/current-budget/

I do not have a brain that can wrap around a billion-dollar budget easily, and mercifully this is not my job. My job, as a voter, is to work to elect school board members who collectively can (and legally must) exercise fiscal oversight over the district and make sure that expenditures make sense, that waste is minimized, and so forth. D1's Liza Rankin does not really see that as her job, incidentally. So I would invite you to ask your school board director, whoever they are, to answer your questions. They should be able to easily.

The problem is: the pro-SOFG board members generally will not interact with the public, and they likely won't respond to your e-mail, and they will not hold meetings where the public can ask questions. So you're probably out of luck.

In fact, the current school board and our current superintendent are probably thrilled at how much time the public is wasting talking about cutting this job or that office to save a few hundred thousand dollars here and there, and how little time the public is spending looking at the big picture. They know that every distraction plays in their favor, and it makes it more likely our pro-SOFG board will make it through the election.

The point to this article is to expose how SOFG (student outcomes focused governance) really works on the macro scale and how it is fundamentally a neoliberal (i.e. conservative/libertarian) approach to governance. It means that elected representatives need not concern themselves with things such as interacting with the public or answering questions. Meanwhile school district staff know that no mortal being can understand the budget as published, and looking it over most people will be hard pressed to identify $100 million in savings, at least not without jamming all the interlocked cogs and wheels of the budget and causing real harm to kids. They also know that our current board won't scrutinize it or hold them accountable for poor management. In fact, they can now just say no if board members ask for information or data they don't wish to give.

The only thing left to do is to elect a better board with real progressive and pro-democracy values. But Seattle can't do that when too many voters are focused on unworkable solutions (such as legislative action--never gonna happen--or mayoral control--not legally possible) or on removing specific jobs or offices within the district they happen not to like (such as executive directors or the Office of African American Male Achievement). Those may or may not be good budgetary ideas, but they're so trivial in scale they can't actually fix what the children of our city are facing. Thing bigger, people.

Too many voters are missing the forest for the trees.

@#18

It is safe to say that no one really knows what is going on with Seattle Public School's budget. The district no longer posts WSS formulas for each school. There is something going on with "Tiered" funding, but the public does not have those numbers. As well, buildings are not spending all of their "equity" dollars.

SPS has invested $26M for a Strategic Plan that targets AA males. A board member asked for data to see whether investments have made an impact. Well, the district doesn't have an answer. It should be noted that there is a south end elementary whereby only 8 percent of the students have the ability to pass a state math exam and the same goes for a south end high school.

Rankin is amongst those leading SFOG and she should not be re-elected.

Get in there and make the change. SOFG is an attempt, probably ineffective, to get an unpaid group of elected volunteers with different philosophies to work together on the criminal inequity between students from wealthy zip codes and students from the rest of the city. The movers and shakers— white voters— have accepted this inequity for decades. No one school board member has caused this. Fighting or loving SOFG, what are you doing to change community acceptance of the separate and unequal system?

@20, you are deflecting from the fact that a school board is not being responsive to families or accountable for driving the district towards bankruptcy. An engaged Board benefits everyone, not just white voters. Not long ago many Directors dismissed test scores as “racist” and now they are using them as a measure of success, a guiding light? Somethings wrong here.

Oh Robert, self proclaimed “activist” - you are just obsessed with Liza Rankin. Run for office if you must - doubt you will ever be elected, we don’t need any more weak-white-male complainers.