Dr. Enfield is currently in an unenviable year long job interview process as she seeks to be the permanent replacement for Maria Goodloe-Johnson. While she must be very busy keeping a cap on the scandals that emanate from the highly political and mathematically challenged district HQ, she took a bit of time to chat with me about her plans for Wallingford and the Seattle School District. The answers are based on notes taken during a phone interview we had on July 21, 2011.
Q: The Lincoln building will house McDonald school for one more year and is now the site for the full Lowell APP program next year. The interior of the building has recently been renovated and is in good shape for students, but the exterior remains in poor condition. How will the facility improve given that it suffers from not having a built in community or a long term plan?
A: The District and the Lowell PTSA will work jointly to improve the playground, with any play structure added to the site moving with the program to its permanent location. For more on Lowell APP at Lincoln, see the district Lowell / Lincoln FAQ. The long term plan for Lincoln is to be determined as part of Facilities Master Plan (FMP) that the District will develop and adopt in the 2012 year (not be confused with the “2020 facilities master plan” published in 2008).
- Purgatory needs a playground
Q: A common perception is that when district employees have had problems, the employees have often been shuffled around instead of being removed, sometimes repeatedly over many years. Do you see this as a problem, and if so how will you be able to break the cycle?
A: This problem is common in large organizations and existed in SPS previously, but that it has been dealt with. Recent staff reductions in central offices have been an opportunity to remove troubled district employees and a strengthened evaluation system is a vehicle to deal with troubled school employees.
Q: John Stanford was seen as a strong proponent of schools having autonomy, led by strong principals. Your predecessor was seen as a strong proponent for centralization of standards and curriculum. Moving forward, where do you think you will be advocating for more centralization, and where do you think there should be more local school control?
A: A good question- centralization is needed for curriculum so that there is a smooth experience for students transitioning schools and grades. Teachers will supplement curriculum as they always have. MAP testing is needed to provide value add information for teacher assessments, the sort of data missing from the more periodic MSP testing (Measures of Student Progress, given once a year to students from 3rd to 10th grade). A strong evaluation system is needed to ensure that everyone is taking a leading role in classroom instruction. All these items are in place already, and there are no current plans to further change the balance between school control and central control.
Q: School reform has come to mean bringing in efficiency experts that roll out productivity metrics and then stack rank employees. This approach has been failing nationally and in Seattle, with Goodloe-Johnson attempting to move in this direction with the new teacher contract and then suffering through a near unanimous no confidence vote by teachers. There are complaints that standardized tests produce a high noise level, miss specialists, focus on the lowest common denominator students, and miss most of what a good teacher does. Beyond just their accuracy, there is also a concern that these top down methods break the community that successful schools are built upon. Can a different reform dynamic work in Seattle?
A: I want to avoid the reform/anti-reform polarization by focusing on what works, whether it is a new idea or one that has been around for a hundred years. The MAP (Measurements of “Academic Progress) is useful for looking at growth and teacher value-add. For instance, if students come into 5th grade with a 2nd grade reading level, then getting them to a 4th grade level would be a strong growth year. To address some concerns with the MAP there will be clearer reports and the MAP will just be given twice a year, in December and May (currently it is 3 times a year). Teacher evaluations will be based on 2 years of average student growth, and that number will be combined with classroom observations to form teacher evaluations.
Q: The relationship between the district and schools seems to break down when those in district management are unable to build a good working relationship with the schools they oversee. Most recently, this appears to be what happened at Ingraham, where an inexperienced executive director, Bree Dusseault, clashed with Martin Floe, an experienced principal. Do you think executive directors should have experience and success as school principals first?
A: Executive directors are required to have experience as a teacher and a principal. They do not have to have many years of experience – they can be excellent right away. The executive directors are doing the most important work of the district. The core work of executive directors is in schools and with principals and getting principals in classrooms. Executive directors are working with the Center for Educational Leadership at UW to get ongoing support and professional development. Instructional leadership is job one, and I have complete confidence in all of our executive directors.
In Conclusion: Dr Enfield is clearly a lot more “kumbaya” than Goodloe-Johnson. She repeatedly said my name in the interview, avoided any hint of an exasperated sigh, asked about my kids, and is so far doing a good job so far of meeting with everyone and hearing their concerns. In terms of actions she will take, she is currently approaching a critical decision for Wallingford- the selection of a new NW executive director to replace Bree Dusseault (who will now be the second executive director in the Southeast region, after one year as the Northwest executive director). Will it be another school reformer like Bree Dusseault or a successful principal from our system, like the executive director Phil Brockman? We will see…
Wow – if she considers Bree Dusseault “excellent” with only a year or so as a teacher and as a principal of a charter school, then SPS is in real trouble. To provide instructional leadrship, one needs to know instruction, and a year or two here and there isn’t going to cut it. Funny how she gets moved to the SE region where parents are less likely to speak up….
In Dr Enfield’s defense regarding Bree, she has to defend her employees to the public. I think it’s unfortunate that Bree was hired and remains an education director while lacking the necessary qualifications, but I should have been more clever with my question instead of just going straight at that point 🙂
This is the first time I’ve heard the term “Executive Director” in regard to schools. Is that position sort of like an Assistant Superintendent? I think the 90 person layoff is the best thing they’ve done so far. It’s interesting that it is the only way they could get rid of unperforming, inadequate employees. However, in the school board’s defense, a lot of big businesses have the same problem and also work it by transferring people around. Heard of the Peter Principle?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Executive Directors are just another layer of administrative bureaucracy in-between the superintendent and the principals. Presumably they are supposed to provide support and leadership to the principals and act as a conduit for information to and from the superintendent. However, given the number of inept principals still employed as well as the equally inept directors (i.e. Bree Dusseault) who are more interested in getting rid of successful principals (Floe) who pose a threat to their inadequate knowledge and abilities, my opinion is that this is where the cuts should come from – not from maintenance and food service and classified staff whose salaries are a mere pittance compared to the central administration staff.