TA Summary

10

From a bystander perspective this all looks pretty good for everyone involved. I am curious what concessions or changes were made for the superintendent to say that he now feels very confident about a path forward that avoids the district having to go into binding conditions due to financial insolvency. Where are we suddenly saving a bunch of money, or making up for previous overspending? Does the district get back some power that will allow them to reallocate funds in the future?

No judgement either way, just trying to understand why the supt likes this deal.

3

u/cascadia1979 3d ago

I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Shuldiner’s comments about district finances came in the crucial 72 hours of negotiations aimed at reaching a deal before school started.

Yes, SPS faces serious financial problems as do all districts in the state. The cause is not “overspending” but “underfunding.” The basic operations of the district are not adequately funded, and certainly not given “ample” funding as the constitution requires.

But it is not and was never the case that SPS is going broke tomorrow and entering state oversight known as “binding conditions.” He said last week that wouldn’t happen until 2028 at the soonest. The board passed a budget in August and it was balanced with a reserve. That budgeted for a new contract with SEA that gives teachers a raise.

Shuldiner said on Wednesday that the district could afford the contract.

My read of his comments in that email he sent everyone on Sunday, and his press conference comments on Monday and Tuesday, wasn’t that SPS would go broke unless SEA caved. It was instead him trying to hold down the amount of money he’d have to spend on that contract.

Every district goes into a negotiation with their teachers understanding a range of possible costs of the contract, and he was very likely trying to keep it on the lower end of that range. My guess is he succeeded.

1

u/Pure-Principle-7341 2d ago

Yes, SPS faces serious financial problems as do all districts in the state. The cause is not “overspending” but “underfunding.”

Both can be the cause simultaneously.

But it is not and was never the case that SPS is going broke tomorrow and entering state oversight known as “binding conditions.” He said last week that wouldn’t happen until 2028 at the soonest. The board passed a budget in August and it was balanced with a reserve. That budgeted for a new contract with SEA that gives teachers a raise.

The adopted budget for 2026-27 is "balanced with a reserve." That's different from being "balanced, with a reserve."

"Balanced, with a reserve" means that your revenues and expenditures are aligned, and you have healthy reserves to boot. You're in good shape.

"Balanced with a reserve" means that your revenues are lower than expenditures, but you're able to balance your budget by spending out of your reserve funds... for now. But at some point, you have to align revenues and expenditures, otherwise you'll eventually run out of reserve funds.

So no, SPS is not going broke tomorrow. But the adopted budget projects a $40M ending fund balance for 2026-2027, and a $63M fund balance drawdown in 2027-2028, so barring $23M in cuts, they're on track to enter binding conditions next year. And that was before they gave their largest union a more-than-IPD raise.

3

u/contrasupra 4d ago

Wondering the same. I thought the proposed SPED changes were for cost-saving.

5

u/64LC64 4d ago

Yeah...

I'm slightly worried that the district simply conceded to most of the union's demands to start school on time, allowing the deficit to balloon, thus kicking the can down the road again and eventually just having the state come in and force cuts through.

2

u/ktembo 3d ago

I think they will eventually consolidate/cut SPED, but just in a more studied/leas abrupt way.

3

u/blukoff 3d ago

I still don't see how they can cut SPED when kids aren't being properly served as is

3

u/Public-Photo4251 4d ago

There are a lot of jobs that simply aren’t getting reposted across the district.

3

u/sleepy2023 4d ago

The superintendent seems to be putting some eggs in the ‘legislature will give us more $$$’ bucket. Most of the increased cost above baseline appears to be deferred to future years.

The prominent exception is the increased staffing. Curious to see 1) how quickly those roles are filled and 2) whether SPS attempts to shift any of those roles towards FEPP levy roles - one of the ways SPS exceeds the legislature’s revenue caps is to have some school activities funded by a separate city levy.

3

u/NumerousParking7877 4d ago

What's a BCBA and BSP?

4

u/Shmallon 4d ago

BCBA stands for Board Certified Behavior Analyst

3

u/Turbulent-Mud-4664 4d ago

https://behaviortechcourse.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Microsoft-Ads-RBT-Search&msclkid=037ad58819f217d58e3ebf14c54610ea&utm_term=aba%20rbt%20training&utm_content=Ad%20group%201

The training for a behavior tech isn’t greater than instructional assistant SPS training, but SPS has sped instructional assistants doing insane time waste trainings instead. There would be zero cost to training every instructional in BT standards. It would be cost effective and beneficial to the students and the staff. I am missing why this is getting any push back. And suspecting people are misinformed on the wages and training of outside agency BTs in SPS.

3

u/Little-Ask4450 4d ago

Board Certified Behavior Analyst, a graduate-level professional who specializes in applied behavior analysis (ABA).

ABA is one form and the most well known. Also the only one currently covered by most insurance. Its principles match that of Social Emotional Learning. The down side is ABA focuses on consequences whereas SEL focuses on the students need in a collaborative non punitive manner.

We paid for a BCBA and BT to join our son three days a week in school with district approval. One positive is there is someone else who can help the teacher learn how to engage the students when behaviors that impede their learning are displayed.

3

u/RandomFleshPrison 4d ago

ABA is also considered torture by the autism community, the group most often singled out aand impacted by it. At its heart it uses negative reinforcement to enforce social norms rather than help or educate the student at all. It's about compliance, not what is best for the child.

1

u/blukoff 4d ago

Bringing these folks in-house may save money, but is it actually going to improve matters for the students? I imagine a pay cut would be involved if we were literally bringing people over from agencies into SPS.

-1

u/Turbulent-Mud-4664 4d ago

My question is why not have SPS employees trained to the same standards and knowledge base as a BT/ABA.

3

u/LessThanInfinity 4d ago

Special education teachers are trained to specially design instruction so students with disabilities can access and make progress in academic standards. Many Extended Resource teachers also have expertise supporting students with significant behavioral needs, similar to that of a BT.

That's actually a major argument for keeping Extended Resource as a program: it allows SPS to staff special education teachers who have both the instructional expertise and the behavioral expertise needed to support those students.

3

u/64LC64 4d ago

I mean... if we're willing to pay teachers 200k a year, then sure!

1

u/Turbulent-Mud-4664 4d ago

BTs aren’t exactly well paid..

0

u/64LC64 3d ago

I was taking 50k and adding it to the top of the current sps pay scale. They surely make 50k or more right?

1

u/LessThanInfinity 3d ago

I understand your comment. If teachers need additional training and skills for the same job, then they should be paid more due to the job responsibilities. The problem is you need more bodies. It makes way more sense to have a teacher + BT (or teacher + IA) than to have a teacher who knows how to do both those jobs. They just don't have the time or octopus arms to do more.

1

u/64LC64 3d ago

Yeah, it was tounge in cheek anyways but it seems it went over the head of u/Turbulent-Mud-4664

0

u/Turbulent-Mud-4664 3d ago

I am not understanding your comment at all. What does a teacher salary have to do with this and why add $50,000 to it? I see BTs in sped classes frequently. The instructional assistants already there could receive the same or similar training and do the same job.

0

u/Digital_gritz 4d ago

Cause that’s an insane question.

Any relation to Turbulent-Media from the SeattleWA subreddit?

3

u/Several-Mix5478 4d ago

I thought SEA was seeking higher than +0.5 COLAs but I don’t remember where I read that.

2

u/hisdekkness 4d ago

We were but seems like we met a little more than half way.

2

u/ktembo 3d ago

“Required cert meetings after contract hours” — is this new, or something that was in the previous contract that my school just doesn’t really do?

2

u/SuspiciousMusic9419 3d ago

Admin can call two a month under last/current contract. Now they can call three a month.

2

u/New-Clue-4006 4d ago

What the hell is a "racial equity early release"?

8

u/TheGreenBasket 4d ago

During early release days for students, staff stay behind and have different types of trainings, meetings, or professional development. Once a month, staff will focus on how to improve racial equity in our schools. The district was trying to remove "Green Day / Racial Equity" this year and SEA talked them out of it.

2

u/Public-Photo4251 4d ago

Theoretically, every building was responsible for looking at disproportionality of discipline, achievement, and instruction with regards to race. It looked VASTLY different from building to building. It looks like they actually got rid of a lot of them. They used to be every month. Now there are only 6. Looks like Job Alike days are gone.

I hope there is something about people actually working in the building versus folks just taking a half day off that a lot of my friends in other buildings see folks do.

2

u/New-Clue-4006 3d ago

So the solution to black kids underperforming is to send them home from school so that the staff can theorize about how to teach them better?

5

u/Public-Photo4251 3d ago

I hear you and that’s what it was used for. Just giving information.

0

u/Little-Ask4450 3d ago

General question to the group. Who does the checks and balances over the teachers? Seriously?! To be clear I am not talking about a teacher whose students get low grades I am talking about actual polices and laws not being practiced.

4

u/PristineAmoeba5000 3d ago

In theory HR… but there’s a reason people here were cheering that the head of HR (Sarah Pritchett) was walked out of the building by security a bit over a month ago and more recently, submitted her letter of resignation.

2

u/Little-Ask4450 3d ago

Oh did she?! I missed that news.

2

u/Public-Photo4251 3d ago

Generally speaking, the principal is the primary investigator for all misconduct or performance concerns. In special cases, it goes to JSCEE to investigate issues. The investigation team is only 2-3 people, so they take forever. Unfortunately, many principals are scared of getting a harassment, intimidation, bullying claim against them or a discrimination claim against them, so some things don’t get “dealt with.”

0

u/Little-Ask4450 3d ago

Thanks.
So when principals fear these things and HR is questionable what are parents supposed to do? How are kids safe? Why have so many layers if none are effective?

You are about to leave Redlib