Opinion: Last Night's Disastrous Northshore School District Meeting

(Editor's Note: Berta Phillips posted this on the Woodinville Patch Facebook page. You can also post your comments, concerns and other opinions directly to Patch by clicking here.) To find out the details on what the school board decided click here.

Dawn McCravey's speech from last night's disasterous Northshore School District school board meeting (thank you Dawn for having the courage to stand up for the kids!). Sadly, the other board members ignored Dawn's well reasoned and intelligent suggestions, and voted to move forward without ever having studied the issue...

NSD Calendar for 2013-2014 School Year 
(Collaboration time Early release)

1) Cost – What is the funding impact of an early release schedule? What is that cost per school, per student? The transportation cost impact? Is there any way of knowing what the potential cost impact for families will be?
2) Research – Has the district studied any collaboration time models that have shown an improved impact to student achievement and is that reflected in the MOU?
3) How will Northshore be tracking the effects of the collaboration time on student achievement?

I think the questions I’ve asked are pivotal to our decision tonight. I think our board’s mission, simply put, is to do what’s best for students by finding ways to help teachers do what’s best for students.

Let’s just assume that collaboration time is good. Let’s assume we have agreement to that idea by the majority of our teachers. I’ve had input to the contrary on that as well, but let’s just roll with it. In researching collaboration time I was struck by the many different delivery models employed across the US that did not affect the consistent, dependable school day as an uninterrupted or oddly adjusted block of time. I haven’t heard anything about those options. The only option that has been suggested is early release. In the studies I’ve seen, there was a cost associated to the different options. I’ve asked for a cost of this option. There’s no cost analysis for this option versus any other option. Would it be just as cost effective to keep the school day intact and pay for additional collaboration time that the teachers have interest in? I would venture to say it would be better for kids and families.

In the research I was able to find on collaboration it’s repeated that collaboration time CAN be successful in raising student achievement IF a number of factors are involved. One study actually referred to the success as a rarity, so I think it is imperative that we have a plan for providing the “successful” version. The key factor was a “purpose driven” collaboration, or professional “goal oriented” collaboration. One example of this would be a school based curriculum reform. Well, here in Northshore, we have followed a centralized model for curriculum change. I haven’t heard from board members wanting to change that, or go to a Lake Washington version of individual schools providing different educational offerings.

The collaboration time is being touted as necessary to “deal with” Common Core standards and the new teacher evaluation. This is contrary to the successful models for collaboration time. The successful models are from the ground up implementation of change, not top down. While the common core and teacher evaluations require time, it isn’t logical to provide for that time with a model basically designed to do something different. The whole point of collaboration that is SUCCESSFUL is to improve instruction from the point of origin, which will then impact learning systemically. This is simple for special ed teachers to understand. Every problem we face cannot be answered by top down directives. Common Core and the new evaluation are top down. The application of collaboration time to this need is not the best use of our most valuable resource, our teachers.

There are so many ways this decision has gone sideways:
1) I’ve heard that teacher survey results were not shared with teachers who were not happy with the WHAT you want instead of IF you want style of the survey which was the same style of the NSD community survey.
2) There was no use of existing collaboration time to allow teachers to study successful collaboration models to propose to the board or administration.
3) Teachers receiving a reminder for the meeting where they voted on this calendar 1 hour and 17 minutes after the beginning of the meeting.
4) Absolutely no community engagement on this subject before an agreement was formed in negotiations with the teacher’s union. So many teachers were “surprised this was something that was even being discussed” right along with our parents.
5) When we accepted that this is something that should be decided in behind closed doors negotiation instead of open discussion in a task force or committee appointed to research this subject and provide informed options to the board, we followed a decision making model that doesn’t follow the advice one community member cautioned us 4 years ago to make our decisions based on studies and data.
6) The use of time is unclear. I have heard from teachers state wide that say the use of this time to watch a webinar from the district in real time vs time compatible with their schedules is a “wasted Wednesday” to our children, taxpayers and their time. If a teacher is not a grade level/subject level instructor with fellow instructors on campus this time is not effective. 
7) Basing a decision on fear that teachers will leave campus on a Friday, or students won’t attend says that this decision isn’t about the value of collaboration time. The message is more one of mistrust. 
8) Including Friday as an option on a survey, then dismissing the results has been spoken to in multiple emails and personally to all of us I’m sure. I actually had one parent tell me we shouldn’t have released the survey results. I differ in opinion on this point and applaud our one small attempt at transparency.
9) The State Superintendent of Public Instruction has come out saying this is NOT a good direction to go for our schools. To make the decision anyway in light of his professed intent to pursue requiring 6 hours per day as a minimum to receive state funding is fiscally imprudent at best. Simply countering with a flippant, “well we are all for that as soon as the state funds it” shows a lack of intelligence about the history of legislative funding.
10) This entire process has been rushed when you consider the magnitude of the direction and impact to the system. I am very interested in the idea of implementing successful collaboration time based on a model of teacher involvement in the process. We have not pursued that in a thoughtful transparent fashion.

I would suggest that we stop at this point and redirect our staff to start over with this process. I believe a process that comes through a board appointed task force of educators and community is a starting point for this decision. I believe empirical studies should be considered in the decisions made for recommendations from this task force. I believe we have shortcut a decision based model that is in place in many other areas of our operations. We need to involve all stakeholders in this process. I believe we may find that collaboration on the topic of collaboration may show us that what teachers need to do the important job of education does not come in a one size fits all model any more than education itself comes in that model. One teacher’s union leader I spoke with said, “this is an incredible loss of instructional time”. This teacher is working under the exact same conditions our board required. The district did not lose instructional “time”. It was rearranged to arrive at a model similar to the one we have with this calendar. 

How do we:
1) Do what’s best for students?
2) Find out how to help our teachers do this?

I believe we have had a valuable exercise in how we should not go about systemic change. Let’s reset and do it right for the sake of our children.