School reports for Seattle Public Schools are released every year in December for the prior year. People focus on kids meeting standards, but that’s really just a reflection of demographics plus how much the school is focused on drilling kids just below standard on their test taking skills.
A good school works to meet every student where they’re at and puts them on learning tracks to succeed in life, it doesn’t treat every student as a widget to be stamped out as “meeting standard”. Worse still, schools with a high level of need can get stuck with a sub par number that scares away parents with options, forcing the school to focus on test scores to the point that they become miserable places to work and learn.
What is useful is teachers reporting on the professional climate in a school. Unfortunately, the district reports school data in December, 6 months after it collects the data, but the number gives you some visibility into how well schools were functioning last year. This is what we have for Elementary Schools in the Wallingford area, compiled from here:
| Teacher Survey 2014 | Teacher Survey 2015 | |
| Licton Springs | 90% | 94% |
| West Woodland | 94% | 88% |
| John Stanford | 92% | 87% |
| Hazel Wolf | 82% | 84% |
| Green Lake | 89% | 84% |
| McDonald | 97% | 77% |
| Salmon Bay | 55% | 71% |
| District Average | 66% | 69% |
| BF Day | 63% | 42% |
Regarding the low numbers for BF Day, we believe the issues there have been addressed this school year, although please comment if you see otherwise. The problems that were reported at BF Day seem to track back to troubles in their special education department last year, a department whose staff was almost entirely replaced this year and now seems to be functioning well.
Inadequate special education supports can mean general education classrooms being disrupted, which is what a drill down of the BF Day numbers points towards. We expect good numbers next year from BF Day as the school heals itself over the course of this year.
As you do school tours, it’s good to ask about these numbers. This would show that parents care about teachers being supported in school. Why did McDonald drop 20 points? What’s going right at Salmon Bay and will the numbers keep getting better?
For those just getting oriented, here’s a map of our local schools:
Middle and High School numbers tomorrow…
Anyone know why the per student funding at Licton is more than double that of B.F. Day?
JoJo – Where did you get that info? I am curious too.
OK – I found the info. I will make conjectures – Licton Springs is a K-8 and also has a pretty high percentage of special ed students, both of which would drive up per-student spending. However, I think the real issue is the exceedingly small number of students at Licton Springs. There are only 109 students there, but they still need a principal, secretary, etc. I think if you were to add 200 more kids to the mix (like BF Day has) and average the cost of the administrative team across the large student population, the numbers would be a lot closer.
Licton Springs is more than 109 students – they had 118 in 2014-5 and currently 139 in 2015-16. The numbers are predicted to grow with further post-move stabilization, particularly as the middle-school fills out. but the final space allocation in the Robert Eagle Staff building is for 150.
Hi Ragweed – I was using the numbers off the SPS website http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=6369011
They are for 2014-2015, according to SPS. Those are the numbers that SPS used to calculate the cost per student, which came in well above any other school in our neighborhood. I think because a small school still requires a complete admin team, it’s the cost of the admin team divided by the small number of students that makes the per student spending seem so high.
I’m not trying to make any kind of value judgment about big school/small school, just trying to figure out why (on paper) it looks like the Licton Springs students are receiving so much more money than everyone else.
Where did you find that information? (For those Wallyhood fans who live outside the Wallingford school zones.) I searched but could only find staff surveys as recent as 2008.
Glad to have you reading Michelle! Source:
http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=6369011
Kimberly – the enrollment numbers for 2015-2016 in the school reports is a “2015-2016 projected enrollment” that was generated by the budget office in April or May of 2015. It is based on some sort of formula and often does not reflect actual enrollment. An accurate count of the October 1 enrollment can be found in the P223 Report at the district website – https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/Migration/General/P223_oct15.pdf
That report shows Licton Springs at 138, and we just got 3 new students in November. Also, if you look up the 2015-2016 budget book (taking into account that all of their enrollment numbers are the projected numbers, not actual) you can see the breakdown of gen ed, special ed, etc.
For the most part you are correct, that smaller schools still need a certain level of fixed overhead costs, and the Gen-ed cost-per-student tends to drop as schools get larger. On the other hand there are often ways those costs can be shared that are not factored into the published numbers. The Licton Springs principal is also responsible for the employees in some of the extended high-school transition programs that are officed on the 1st floor (the students are mostly over 18 and actually participate in out-of-school workplace transition programs), but the Principal cost-center is not shared in the budget books. Also SPED Pre-k programs add to Principal workload but are not factored into per-pupil costs. So there are a lot of factors involved.
Great post, but unfortunately I feel it will only further cause parents to abscond B.F. Day. I went on the B.F. Day tour last year and there were loads of prospective parents worried about the school because of the numbers. They didn’t move to the neighborhood expecting B.F. Day and every data point scares them. When a parent chooses St. Benedicts or the Meridian school the numbers at B.F. Day become self-fulfilling. Parents don’t send their kids because they are low and consequently the numbers never rise.
I went on 4 tours: McDonald, John Stanford, Greenlake and B.F. Day, and what I found is that each school has its own positives and negatives. I didn’t find JSIS, Greenlake or McDonald to be so superior that it would be worth the hassle of getting on wait lists and increasing my commute.
We bought our house because we wanted a walkable neighborhood and so I want a school that is closer to my neighborhood and walkable. JSIS is a little closer, but McDonald and Greenlake certainly are not for me.
And then I thought about what leaving my assigned public school really was: 21st Century White Flight. Except maybe switch the word privilege for white. We parents have the best intentions. It’s our children we are talking about after all. But I personally am not going to shun B.F. Day without at least giving it my best shot. We’re starting there fall 2016 and I’m looking forward to it. We all think we are so much more progressive than our predecessors but the truth is history repeats itself over and over.
Thanks impliedobserver- we almost didn’t publish the data because of that issue. Our understanding is that BF Day is doing well this year and should be in good shape for 2016. We do think there were real problems there last year, and that’s what the numbers reflect.
We published these numbers because they’re important for parents to know and ask about. While the “meeting standard” numbers simply correlate to the percentage of free and reduced lunch kids in the school, teacher review numbers point to how functional a school is. For instance, Green Lake ranks ahead of McDonald, even though McDonald is the language immersion option school.
We’re in our first year at B.F. Day in the Kindergarten class and have had nothing but good experiences! There are more school tours scheduled – that’s a great way to get a feel of things.
Thanks for posting this!
Do you happen to have absolute numbers as well?
I ask because if there’s 20 teachers at a school and 1 person changes their mind that would be a 5% drop. If there’s 100 teachers that person would cause a 1% drop.
Having looked over these reports the past couple of years, one consistency I’ve noticed is that kids’ perception (and if you look at the specific survey questions and answers, perception often translates to generally happiness) is relatively high at Green Lake, but lower at JS (which is often below or near the district average). So JS shows better overall test scores, but less student satisfaction. Anyone have any insights into these results?
What about numbers for Cascadia (formally Lincoln Elementary)?
B.F. Day parent here. We are both high functioning, high income folks. We expect a lot and B.F. Day is meeting our needs just fine. Don’t be scared off by old test scores on Great Schools, rumors, latent classism/racism….your kids will be fine here.