Category — Transparency

I see PPS is continuing their tradition of transparency.  From the November 29, 2011 Administrators Connection:

Changed Procedure Regarding OSHA 300 Log Reports in January

Our schools are used to receiving OSHA 300 log reports from Risk Management in January and posting this information. PPS is not required to do this in our school buildings. Therefore, Risk Management will not be sending schools this information. If an OSHA inspector should ask to see this information in your school please remind her/him that public schools are exempt from this rule per OSHA SIC Code 82. Should this prompt a disagreement at your school please ask the inspector to contact me directly.

For PPS facilities that are not schools, i.e., BESC, Rice, etc. Risk Management will send the OSHA 300 log information in January and ask you to post it at that time.

Please contact me if you have a question about this changed procedure.

Benson Meyers, Risk Manager, 503.916.3204, bmeyers@pps.net

Is there something to hide?

I don’t think I’m alone in my perception that PPS has a lot of bullshit administrator jobs.  Thank you Betsy Hammond for providing some proof of that:

Compared with other local school districts, Portland Public Schools pays an oversize share of employees $75,000 to $95,000 a year for mostly low-visibility jobs.

I don’t have a problem with teachers getting extra pay for extra work but I have a huge problem with PPS administrators creating jobs for their friends or for staff who were failures in their other PPS positions.

One thing missing from this story is PPS temporary employee data.  I’m not talking about temps from temp agencies (which PPS regularly uses) but employees who are hired into Limited Term or Long Term Temporary positions.  I know quite a bit about those positions because those hirings were one of my main responsibilities when I worked in PPS HR department.

Temporary employment with PPS is HOW PPS administrators are able to create midlevel positions for their friends.  They hire them into 60 day (Limited Term Employment) positions which do not require posting then create the regular positions.  Once they’ve already performed the responsibilities in a temporary role, they’re a shoe-in for the regular position.

You should see payroll cutoff days at PPS.  People submit timecards for jobs that nobody knew they were hired into.  The entire HR department needs a thorough audit!

Today’s Business Registry search through the Oregon Secretary of State’s Corporation Division shows that former PPS HR Director Hank Harris still has not registered a private consulting business with the state of Oregon.

After Harris’ sudden departure from PPS, the district reported that he left his $100K + position to start his own consulting company.  Rumor is that he was forced out.  Did PPS buy him out?

I haven’t heard anything about it in the media yet but Stacey Sibley, a well-liked and respected former PPS administrator is suing the district for defamation, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and battery.  (I may have missed a claim)

Why was Stacey treated so badly?  Because she reported safety concerns within the Special Education Department and a friend of the SPED Director (Joanne Mabbott) was the person responsible for creating those safety concerns.  To be clear…there were serious concerns about student and staff safety.

That’s right.  When Stacey reported the concerns, Joanne Mabbott told her if she continued to talk about the problems, she would be written up for insubordination.  Stacey refused to back down and she was gradually stripped of her responsibilities and demoted.

I expect PPS to lose this lawsuit.  The trial begins November 14th.

This story was updated on 10/30/11 to add clarification to the total amount allocated per student.

Imagine a school that receives $10,036 per student in general funds (includes direct, classroom, building and central supports) and spends $12,500 for non-instructional services provided by an outside contractor.  For the most part, general fund expenses are fixed so the school would be receiving the $12,500 on top of the general funds ($22,536 – total for the students served by the nonprofit).

To be clear, these students are not SPED or ESL necessarily.  If so, the dollar figures would go up significantly.  The students being served are general education students.

Imagine that the contracted services at one school include: case management of 40 students, family engagement for 23 students, after school services for 40 students, and mentoring of 40 students.

What would you expect student outcomes to look like for those students?  Would you expect the school’s performance to be 12% lower in reading, 17% lower in math, and 25% lower in science than comparable low-income schools?

What if I told you that the contracted services were being provided by a nonprofit organization that also runs a charter school and the charter school’s performance looks like this:

Reading – Grades 6, 7 and 8

48% meeting benchmark

Math – Grades 6, 7 and 8

29% meeting benchmark

Science – Grade 8

25% meeting benchmark

Imagine that the same nonprofit organization contracted with PPS ($2700 per student) to provide “support and advocacy” for 40 freshman and sophomores at a troubled high school.  Would you expect the graduation rate to improve?  If it didn’t improve, would you expand those services to the entire student population?

Those scenarios are all real.  The nonprofit organization is Self Enhancement Inc.

Last year PPS contracted $1,168,000 in services (not including charter school funding) with Self Enhancement Inc.  SEIs contracts with PPS have increased over the last few years with very little evaluation of if or how their services are improving outcomes.  Why isn’t anyone questioning whether or not Self Enhancement’s services are making a difference?

Anyone interested in copies of SEI’s 2010/2011 contracts can email me and I’ll send them to you.

Seattle Schools - Dean Rutz.Seattle Times

The Seattle Times is reporting that Seattle Schools failed to predict an increase in enrollment and now the district is holding class in hallways,purchasing portables and reopening schools that had been closed.

The district is now reopening some of the same schools it had closed in 2006 and 2009 amid fierce opposition from parents and community activists.

By next year, about half of the 12 shuttered schools will be back in operation — after millions of dollars were spent in closing and reopening costs. But the reopened school can’t accommodate all the extra students, and a tight budget prevents any new building construction until at least 2016.

Seattle officials say they didn’t see the increase in enrollment coming:

Asked why officials didn’t predict the enrollment increase, School Board member Peter Maier’s answer is simple: “Conditions changed.”

He pointed to the new assignment plan and the recession. But several parents dismissed those factors, complaining district officials ignored warnings about the possibility of rising enrollment.

The assignment plan, adopted in 2009, guarantees students a seat in the school closest to their home. That’s important because under the old choice system, some parents — especially those arriving in the middle of the school year — decided to avoid the risk of having their children assigned to a faraway or low-performing school by not enrolling them in the public system. Those families are now coming back, officials said.

At the same time, the recession has rendered some families unable to afford private school, officials said.

That may be only part of the story, though. Admissions officers at several Seattle private schools said their enrollments have suffered only slightly since the recession.

PPS has always been a step behind the Seattle School District.  How much of this sounds familiar to you?  How many of the same players have the districts shared?  Will Portland be next?

The PPS Board is set to discuss possible boundary and program changes at tomorrow night’s board meeting.

From the Portland Tribune, 9/29/11:

Portland Public Schools – which has built only two new schools in the past 40 years – uses 129 portables, many of them with two classrooms each, says district spokesman Matt Shelby.

Those portables could easily provide classroom space for 5,000 or more students, or one out of every nine students in the district.

Let’s do the math: 5,000 students=10 elementary/middle schools, or 4 high schools.  PPS has closed more schools than that in the last 10 years (see Where are they Now?, the most recent being Marshall High School.

Now we are hearing on Oregonlive about overcrowded schools and the need for “boundary changes”:

Could “boundary changes” be code for more closures?  Given the fact that PPS last year allocated up to $11.2 million (see board document,  bottom of p. 13) for EVEN MORE portable  classrooms, it’s difficult to ignore the possibility.

Why isn’t the $11.2 million being spent on building maintenance and upgrades?  Given PPS’ history of selling shuttered buildings, it’s hard not to think that that’s where this is going. In the meantime, high schools are putting kids in 90-minute study halls with security guards instead of teachers to “save money.”  Well, we know what the money is being saved for.  Shame on a school district that puts over 10% of its students into trailers when building space is available!

On September 23rd PPS announced that the district’s Human Resources Director was leaving:

PPS Human Resources Executive Director Hank Harris announced that he will be leaving Portland Public Schools to open a private pre-K-12 HR consulting practice. Harris has led PPS’ Human Resources department for over two years.

Under his tenure, Harris guided the department through two difficult  budget and staffing cycles, during which he led the department in  significant initiatives related to diversity. Harris was also deeply  involved in principal and assistant principal hiring, executive level  hiring and working to ensure that strong candidates are coming into PPS  to meet the needs of all students. On the state level, Harris serves as  President of the Oregon School Personnel Association, where he  represents the schools of Oregon admirably.

Superintendent Smith will be announcing interim HR leadership shortly  and will immediately commence a national search for a permanent  department leader.

According to GovDocs, Hank Harris made $125,000 a year.  Wouldn’t it be a little risky to leave a job paying that much to start a consulting buiness?

I checked the state’s business filings and I can’t find any record of his company.  Does anyone know the real story behind Hank Harris’ departure?

The Portland Tribune reported that “Judy Peppler, a longtime figure in Oregon education, business and politics, is leaving for greener pastures. The Qwest Oregon president will leave for a superintendent’s post in North Carolina, after completing a training program with the The Broad Foundation.

She’ll resign her duties on the many boards she serves on here, including co-chairwoman of the Cradle to Career Council.”

What is the Broad Foundation’s role in Cradle to Career?

A few months ago a Harrison Park student who wasn’t quite meeting benchmark in reading told me that she was sure she “passed” her reading test because the teacher READ the reading test to her.  Last week she received the test results and sure enough, she’s meeting benchmark now.

I’ve heard other stories of test administrators (sometimes teachers, sometimes not) coaching kids to pass the tests in Portland.

While I agree that there’s too much testing and the stakes are too high, I don’t buy the argument that teachers are forced to cheat.  Using that argument, poor people can steal or  sell drugs to make money.  After all, they have no choice but to break the law.

Cheating on the tests fails the students.  Kids aren’t being identified as needing help and they certainly aren’t getting any.