Guest post: We need a shake-up at Seattle Public Schools
The recent storm of controversy created by the announcement of the Seattle Public Schools central office of plans to cut 25-28 teachers across the school district in late October, and well into the semester, required student classroom reshuffling and disruption and necessitated additional grade-split classes. It was another example of irresponsible management by the Seattle Public School district. If Seattle expects to attract and retain a high caliber workforce and citizenry, our public school central management needs drastic improvement and Seattle parents are uniting to demand it.
What emerged in that controversy was a saga of the school district’s dodgy planning and data gathering, opaque process, blaming and excuses which resulted in more bad decisions that impact tens of thousands of students around the city.
WHERE’S THE DATA? While Seattle Public Schools (SPS) hatched and finalized its plans to cut teaching staff, they were unable to provide supporting enrollment data because “they are still working out those numbers” and relied on enrollment numbers that were not the most current.
BLAMING. Superintendent Nyland and his top staff blamed the severity of the cuts on the September teacher strike but could not point to any data to support their claims. They claimed similar cuts were happening around the state in October but when King 5 News reached out to other districts, only Kent reported making cuts in early September.
VERY LOW BAR. Washington State has the dubious distinction of being 47th in the nation in class size, with only three states ranking worse. Planned cuts maintained these large classroom sizes thereby subverting Seattle voter’s mandate to reduce class sizes Guest post: We need a shake-up at Seattle Public Schools | Seattle Education:
