The annual school reports have been released for Wallingford. In general, the school reports don’t tell you much. The student and parent survey results are more a reflection of the relative performance of teachers within a school and come out about the same across schools (they are useful within a school, but not for comparing schools). Standardized test results are held up high by reform advocates but mostly just reflect school demographics, with a tweak towards how aggressively the school teaches to the test.
The most important part of the school reports are the staff survey results. Bad results from staff surveys mean that some needed collaboration is not occurring and also that teachers with choices are looking to leave the school. Anyone who has ever worked in a poisoned workplace knows how important these surveys are, and even more so than in other workplaces a school needs to work as a community to be functional.
So what do the staff surveys this year show? Among schools around Wallingford, they show that Hamilton International Middle School is having problems. Here is the list of schools in our area, from worst to best (McDonald is not listed because it is new and does not yet have data):
| Staff % Positive Rating | Staff Rating vs District Avg | Change from 2010 to 2011 | |
| Hamilton International Middle School |
28% |
-29% |
-19% |
| Eckstein High School |
53% |
-4% |
-2% |
| District as a whole |
57% |
0% |
0% |
| Ballard High School |
65% |
9% |
-2% |
| Whitman Middle School |
67% |
10% |
7% |
| Roosevelt High School |
68% |
11% |
13% |
| BFDay Elementary School |
78% |
21% |
-1% |
| JSIS Elementary School |
79% |
22% |
-4% |
| Green Lake Elementary School |
84% |
28% |
29% |
| West Woodland Elementary School |
92% |
35% |
23% |
Hamilton now has APP, language immersion, a new building, and is drawing students from the neighborhood- are those changes causing problems? Why did the rating decline so much from 2010 to 2011? The gruesome details of the survey don’t add much light- I’d list them, but the question responses are universally negative.
Here is the response from Chris Carter, principal at the school:
I would agree that the information that comes from a staff survey is important information. We certainly use student, family, and staff survey data in determining areas for growth. The numbers at first glance are certainly disappointing. But when you dig a little deeper the data reflects a more complex and often positive story. A couple of assertions made in your article state that success in state tests is a reflection of student demographic and/or a reflection of the extent to which schools teach to the test. Certainly, I don’t argue that school demographics and success on standardized tests often go hand and hand. Yet, it should be reflected that the biggest gains in HIMS most recent state test results came from our students who receive free or reduced lunch and our students who receive special education services. These students are often groups of students who do not generally fair well on standardized tests.
I would also disagree with the general comment about the survey being reflective of a lack of staff collaboration, at least for HIMS. Staff collaboration is a critical part of our work together. Our collaboration has resulted in great success despite all of the change we have experienced the past three years. In the midst of facility moves and program changes, HIMS has been named a School of Distinction for the past two years. Our recent state test results show a substantial increase across the board in all tested areas. Furthermore, we are seeing this growth in all of our student groups, not just in our group of advanced learners. The type of academic growth we are seeing from our students does not occur without the collegial and collaborative work of our staff. Additionally, we have had minimal staff turnover the past couple of years. In fact, our staff is growing. HIMS student body now exceeds 900 students. Thus, we have added staff.
In our continued efforts to improve the educational experience for our students and families we are becoming more intentional about how we plan and deliver our instruction. Our school supports many established and vibrant programs, such as world language immersion and APP plus many others; at the same time, we are working to align instructional and assessment practices to more positively affect student achievement across the board. At times this can put additional stress on already full plates for staff. We recognize this change can be difficult for some, but it is also exciting and led us to increased student achievement for all.
Although this data is important the situation is not as “gruesome” as you have described. This particular staff survey reflects the concerns of 27 staff members out of a total staff of nearly 80 HIMS staff. We need to increase the number of staff who take the survey in order to gain more accurate results. Nonetheless, these results will provide meaningful data points for our staff and building leadership teams to discuss and ultimately make HIMS an even more outstanding school. HIMS is an exciting place to work and learn. The diverse programs we offer and the consistent focus we have on students is incredible. I would invite people to come into the school and see the outstanding work of our team in person.
Regarding the free and reduced lunch subset of children, that is a far smaller group at Hamilton than it was before and now comes from the neighborhood instead of being a group shuttled in from the south end. This is a major demographic shift that is clearly responsible for the bulk of performance changes. A similar changed happened at Thurgood Marshall in the south end when they added APP there. The principal at that school, Julie Breidenbach, turned down awards for school improvement because they were so clearly faulty.
In chatting with a couple teachers and parents I’ve heard that the problems in the survey originate from long standing grudges at the school and also how the district pushed APP into the school without planning or support. The district manages to escape blame in staff surveys because they redesigned surveys a couple years back and removed all questions related to district performance (which has proven to be an effective way to mask district dysfunction).
So, what do you think about the environment at Hamilton? Is the main staff survey problem just that it wasn’t filled out by enough people? Are there good teachers that are leaving or shutting down, or is it more that poor teachers are leaving? Are there root problems at the school, and if so are they being dealt with constructively?
I’d dispute Principal Carter’s characterization. Those changes in scores map too neatly onto the arrival of APP and dispersal of south-end kids to be either coincidence or individual improvements in the scores of free/reduced lunch kids. They clearly reflect the strengths of the cohorts that are currently housed at Hamilton. There is also a perception among some parents that a number of mediocre-to-bad teachers have been assigned to APP so that their MAP ratings go up as well.
In addition, some senior teachers have asserted their seniority to take APP teaching positions for reasons that are unclear to me. Maybe they thought it would be fun, maybe they thought it would be easier; regardless, it is pretty clear that they have no idea what they’re doing. For instance, you might have 6th graders who can read at high school/college freshman reading levels, but the content of many college-level intro textbooks is inappropriate. This disconnect between intellectual development and emotional development appears to be lost on some of Hamilton’s APP teachers.
So, no… To date, the problems are not being addressed constructively.
This is so sad. My son went to Hamilton for two years (before the remodel-hiatus) and they turned things around for him academically and brought him successfully into the Seattle Schools fold after a very bad transition at (now defunct) Summit K-12. It’s sad to see such a level of dissatisfaction.
What is APP? A new parent wants to know.
Accelerated Progress Program. The different Advanced Learning programs are described here: http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=214087
Salmon Bay K-8 (Option school) is missing from this list. I think Seattle has got to start recognizing that the alternative schools are having the most success. Why? If we look at that question we might be forced into to accepting that these Option Schools are the best public schools in Seattle. It is time to wake up and smell the flowers. It may be winter, but the flowers are out there and they are sweet.
Check out Salmon Bay, and Thornton Creek while you are at it!
Apologies for being a bit thick here, but as a new parent I find the above very perplexing. In chatting with a couple teachers and parents I’ve heard that the problems in the survey originate from long standing grudges at the school and also how the district pushed APP into the school without planning or support.
Please understand I’m not trying to antagonize. I really don’t understand why adding APP to a school would be contentious. Do explain.
ImpliedObserver: I think the issue is too much change that isn’t well supported. Teachers develop a curriculum and a classroom environment over years in their free time. They get in a successful groove, then the district switches them to APP. This on its own would be fine, but add on to that classroom switching as Hamilton is redeveloped, plus poorly managed capacity changes. You end up with overloaded classes, kids and teachers with mixed up schedules, and change that looks like chaos.
In that environment teachers are putting in lots of unpaid hours and need to believe that management is working very hard to keep it together. Otherwise teachers can feel like they’re putting in their free time cleaning up the messes made by management. Instead, the message from downtown has been that we need to more aggressively critique classrooms with new testing, curriculum standardization, review model changes and the like- the opposite of a supportive message. In that environment it takes an exceptional principal to support the school and buffer it from issues downtown.
@ImpliedObserver: This is a little free-form and rambling, so my apologies in advance…
My understanding is that Hamilton was promised by the district that APP would not be moved there, and that the expansion and remodel was being done to accommodate a planned additional language-immersion grade school. Now Hamilton is faced with major overcrowding in the next couple of years: the switch to neighborhood schooling put more kids into John Stanford; McDonald, the new immersion school, will come online and start feeding 6th graders to Hamilton; and APP enrollment is surging.
The reasons behind the increased APP enrollment are varied. Some of it is that support for other advanced learning opportunities (such as Spectrum) has decreased in the north end. APP-eligible students who otherwise would have remained at their neighborhood elementary school are enrolling in APP with the end of Spectrum. There is a transportation issue as well: the APP schools have, up until recently, been located in the Central District. For the first couple of years that we were at Lowell, our son had an hour-long bus ride to get to and from school, and we’re only a ten-minute drive away! Washington Middle School would have been worse – and then they pulled the plug on most middle-school busing. With the perception that the district was going to offer north end and south end programs, APP became a lot more viable in the eyes of many parents.
There are also racial and class issues: Washington Middle School and Garfield High are, apart from the APP cohort, largely non-white; the APP cohort has traditionally been overwhelmingly white. The cohort that was moved from Lowell to Thurgood Marshall was largely white, and that was a source of incredible tension and outright hostility for the first couple of years (Things like “They’re being brought here to raise our test scores because we’re stupid” were heard more than a few times…). The inverse happened at Lowell, with the TT Minor cohort being largely non-white; there wasn’t as much friction at Lowell as there was at Thurgood Marshall, but it was there. Having separate north and south programs homogenizes the racial makeup in both programs – and, consciously or not, probably makes it more acceptable to parents in both halves of the city.
Having worked for Seattle Schools for 12 years I need to say RIGHT ON ERIC and PROTX!!
But the issue still remains – what % of the staf turned in the satisfaction scores?
Talking to one or 2 staff and getting one opnion does not reflect thoughts of majority but may give insight on ireof a few.
@cata: about a 35% response rate, far below the district average and a significant decrease over the previous year’s response rate – which to my way of thinking says something significant in and of itself.
hmm, well that gives one ideas. Of course, the possibility remains that a secretary go t busy and left a pile not distributed or an office assistant or some other physical handling difficulty occurred. .
However, I know that’s not so likely.
I bet their SEA repiis busy…..
Hamilton International Middle School and Eckstein Middle School are the two most pleasant and collegial schools at which I have taught in my 10-year teaching career that spans 3 states, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and both the middle school and high school levels.
As an HIMS parent I am impressed with HIMS’s music program, which is massively supported by the parents. The advanced Spectrum program is ok, and the APP is pretty good. (My children are in both.) I have heard from many parents that the general ed program is less than stellar.
In my observation, where HIMS is struggling is in three areas: overcrowding, a few teachers who have clearly burnt out, and APP parents who are woefully unaware of the needs of non-APP students and students with learning disabilities.
The school was at capacity the day it opened in the Fall 2010. It’s only getting more so as attendance rises. Some students who qualify for specialized learning (both Spectrum advanced-ed and special needs ed) are not getting the education they need because there is no room in the classes. One student I know has been on a waiting list for his entire three years at HIMS.
In my observation, APP parents, especially those from John Sanford, are very aggressive about their children’s education. Most, if not all of them are from upper-middle class homes and have the time and education required to be heavy advocates for their children’s education process — myself included.
Families who are struggling financially and who are on free and reduced lunch, are often less able to advocate for their students. Principal Carter is aware of this is and is working hard to meet the demands of the APP students while also making sure more at-risk students are getting a successful education. It’s a difficult situation to be in, and one that is not getting much support from the famlies at HIMS, in part because the needs of the at-risk students are not being communicated to the HIMS community. I’ve never recieved a request to volunteer for anything like after school tutoring or the like — only for bake sales at the music programs.
It would be nice if more APP families would turn their time and financial resources towards helping the rest of the HIMS community. It would be helpful if the school would tell us how.
As for the teachers, I do know that some of them were given brand new curriculum two weeks before school started. (GULP!) It’s very difficult to prepare new materials and it’s no wonder the first-batch of kids who go through those materials are not scoring as well as the students who work through the materials in consequitve years. While there are one or two teachers who should clearly be better supervised, most of my 6th and 7th grader teachers are okay-to-very good.
Wallingford families can get quite myopic about thier public schools. Visit a low income school like Aki Rose and your perspecitve will change. Our education is not equally equipped. Parent involvement and PTSA monies make a huge difference. Compared to many schools in the south end, HIMS is doing just fine.