OSPI Candidates Forum – ESD 112 – Tuesday April 12, 2016

OSPI Candidates  Forum – ESD 112 – Tuesday April 12, 2016

From 10am to 12 noon four (4) candidates for the Washington State Superintendent of Schools position came together at the offices of ESD 112 in Vancouver, Washington, to answer questions from Superintendents and others. [https://web3.esd112.org/#]

ESD 112 supports the following counties (the # of school districts in each are in the parenthesis): Clark(9); Cowlitz(6); Klickitat(8); Pacific(2); Skamania(4) and Wahkiakum(1). All told there are thirty (30) districts.

Assuming one (1) Superintendent per district there are a total of 30. Assuming five (5) school board members per district there are 150 directors in ESD 112. This means that the total audience (assuming no lower level or other people attended the April 12^th session) could have been 180 people in attendance. In reality about 35 showed up and that included a representative from SWWEducation.org. We consider this a POOR turnout given the importance of education, the McCleary decision, funding issues and the critical role a new State Superintendent will play.

There were pre-planned questions. [We emailed our 9 questions to the ESD on April 11th – the date we learned about the program but none of ours were used] Following is the list of topics the candidates were told to come prepared to address:

Each candidate was given 2 ½ minutes to answer each question. The planned question session lasted about 90 minutes at which point they opened the floor to questions. They wrapped the session on time and adjourned to lunch for networking.

We audio taped the session but the file is huge (over 160mb) which makes it nearly impossible to share with our readers. TVW was there to film and they have posted the 2 hour session at: http://www.tvw.org/watch/?eventID=2016041016

We took some notes from comments by each of the candidates. We offer those below in no particular order of their comments. A heading for each candidate:

Larry Seaquist (http://www.larryseaquist.com/)

• No specific plan for dealing with McCleary funding – referred to his brochure
• Only one to stand up to speak
• Get kids to want to be teachers
• Overall level of people becoming teachers is declining as more and more leave
• Leaving low income kids behind but no clear explanation of what he would do to change
• Superintendent should be educators partner and not tell them what to do
• Address laws that impact education.
• ESSA needs to be flexible
• Likes “compact schools” model. Believes in local choice.
• Opt-Out of high stakes testing now! Sue the feds to get out.
• Change budget year between state and districts to offset times and give districts more time to plan
• Must assure that the real/true cost of McCleary is understood and explained so people understand
• Need an ESSA 2.0 and clean it up
• Overhaul data collection; analysis; reporting and use of data
• Don’t accept federal laws without screening and push back as needed
• Get out of high stakes testing and put the money into skill centers
• Push businesses to participate in skills education
• Support community skills model to get local people involved in class rooms
• Summary: Next legislature isn’t going to solve McCleary; Professionals need to engage, energize and catalyze the public

Erin Jones   (http://www.erinjones2016.org/)

• No plan for McCleary funding
• Equality is key. Data, recruiting educators, authentic community engagement, student support.
• Need better transitions between grades
• Eliminate barriers for educators to do their job. Help identify local gaps. Academic and soft skills needed
• High stakes testing is dangerous. Look at other measures. Focus on personal growth.
• Public doesn’t understand levies. Make sure the public is aware of the financial issues.
• OSPI should talk about family engagement
• Need a conversation about who pays taxes
• OSPI needs to provide data that can be used
• Accountability has gone overboard – eliminate barriers
• She is a Director for AVID
• Match student passion with opportunities and careers
• Summary: As an educator she eliminated barriers; running because she loves teaching

Chris Reykdal   (http://www.chrisreykdal.com/)

• Capital gains tax is needed to raise more money
• Local levy’s should go down or be eliminated and state property taxes increased
• Need flexible pathways to get 24 HS grad credits
• Testing is ok but needs work
• Carer vs. college ready: Functional vs. academic
• Single snapshot on testing with something that helps and matters. Not linked to grad
• Thinks ESSA is better than NCLB
• Doesn’t support charter schools
• Said Senate blocked action on the levy cliff. OSPI should be an advocate on levy issues.
• ESSA: Supports; wants it to evolve
• Local control of school decisions
• Big data has +/-. Controls are needed. How to manage release? Data systems are poor.
• Define customers and their needs
• Steps vs. Outcomes
• 24 HS credits look like college prep and career prep

Robin Flemming   (http://robinfleming.org/)

• Didn’t say her name in the intro
• Least amount of education experience of candidates
• School nurse with health as her focus
• No plan for dealing with McCleary funding
• Wants to level the playing ground
• Invest in early learning and use a prevention mindset
• Would create a new department to help districts get access to the system
• Need a Core education. Talked about the need for trade training but nothing else
• Role of testing and other methods but not for SBAC.
• Immigrant and bilingual students have a harder time
• Schools don’t fail. Poverty is the issue.
• Excited about ESSA. Sees it as great opportunity for WA State
• Levy transfers from richer districts to lower-income districts to create a balance
• OSPI needs to help ESD’s/Districts access data and use it. Need better use/applications
• Health and poverty must be solved to improve education

The candidates are scheduled at ESD’s as follows (note: they will NOT show on the ESD web sites since these are classified as for “educators only”):