The day before Seattle Public School board voted to terminate Superintendent Maria Goodloe Johnson, Mayor Mike McGinn told Seattlepi.com that he was "prepared to be a 'partner' to the district"âan independent local governmentâand provide "provide management and fiscal support" in the coming months.
Missing from McGinn's announcement, however, were details of what a city-school district partnership would exactly look like. Since the city already partners with the school district on such things as athletic programs and the Families and Education Levy, did he mean more of the same, or something else? McGinn's office hasn't responded to repeated requests to comment.
SPS spokeswoman Teresa Wippel said McGinn hasn't met with anyone from the district to discuss any kind of "partnership" yet. "We appreciate the mayor offering us support," she says.
In the past, when he ran for mayor, McGinn talked about the city taking over the schools two years into his term, if they don't show any improvement from the time he was campaigning in March 2009.
As mayor I will refocus our efforts and create working partnerships to improve our school system. And if, after two years, there has been no improvement I will move to have the mayorâs office take direct responsibility for the school district.
That would be around about now, right? But Washington State law doesn't allow cities to take over control of school districts because legislators and the framers of our constitution were very specific about who should be allowed to be in charge of our public schools, and mayors didn't make the cut.
McGinn would have to change the state constitution. In some other states, mayors can take over school districts (think Bloomberg and New York), but not here.
And the school boardâreeling from one of the biggest financial-management scandals in its historyâseems reluctant to share any financial management with the mayor. "I think the mayor is more interested in issues around financial management and oversight," says School Board Vice President Michael DeBell. He's met with the mayor several times to talk about the subject generally. However, he adds, "My expectation is not that the city will do our financial managing, but will give advice. It's not as if we will turn over our books to the city. We have our own system and will protect the privacy of our employees."
Board Director Kay Smith Blum said that she couldn't imagine a scenario where the school district wouldn't have its own finance department. "Our revenue stream is a lot more complicated than revenue coming into the City of Seattle from the state or federal government," she said. "The city has its own fiscal controls and we have ours."
And what if the board doesn't like the mayor's ideas? Well, then the board could always vote them down, DeBell said.
That said, the school board may be interested in borrowing from the city's ethics policy, which is more comprehensive and prescribes more penalties than SPS. The school district's current rules don't clearly describe conflicts of interest, which DeBell said allowed the manager of the district's small business program to write contracts to close friends and hire roommates, resulting in the $1.8 million financial fraud.
"I believe what the mayor was referring to was sharing expertise on management and demography," says DeBell. "For example, rapid growth in enrollment in some parts of the city and contraction in others has to do with land use decisionsâwhen there are areas which see a lot of development, you will see their schools' enrollment go up after a few years."
Board President Steve Sundquist said that based on his conversations with McGinn, also he doesn't think the mayor has any intentions of taking over the school district. "He might lend us a person from time to time, and if we can find the right way to structure our partnership, then I welcome it," he said.
