Seeking reasons for a waiver . . .

In an earlier post I asked for some feedback on how our system should respond to the opportunity to file for a waiver for making up the days lost to the recent storm. I received three comments and an e-mail response with the commenters sharing the importance and need for the 180 days of instruction. The one issue that emerged in more than one was the unknown of potentially losing more days during the year requiring us to go further into June and the hardships that this might cause for individuals.


In this Tacoma News Tribune Post we are beginning to see what some surrounding districts have chosen to do.

• Tacoma – Looking into waiver possibilities.
• Sumner – Scheduled two of the lost four days, undecided on whether to apply for a waiver for the remaining two days.
• Federal Way – Will make up all four days, two in May and two at the end of the year.
• Puyallup – Scheduled three make-up days, one in March, one in May, and one at the end of the year.
• Steilacoom – Scheduled four make-up days, one in March, one in May, and two at the end of the year.

At this time, we have scheduled our four make-up days for the end of the year and have left open the potential for a waiver. We will schedule a discussion and decision for a future board meeting. As we prepare for that meeting I would like to know reasons why we should consider the waiver opportunity. I believe that we should make up the four days, but I am open to being influenced.  Other than the hardships identified in comments to my earlier posts, what other reasons should we consider in making this decision?

Comments and expanded visibility . . .

So far I have three comments from my last post on waivers for the weather emergency.  Thanks to Scott for also sharing the post in an e-mail that may result in a few more comments.  I'll give others a chance to respond before sharing again.

Today I received an e-mail notification that an excerpt form one of my posts was chosen by School Administrator Magazine for sharing in the Best of Blog section of the February magazine.  This followed sharing full posts I think for a month earlier this year.  I'm wondering who has the resources to follow education posts and then decide which should be shared.  The excerpt is the one below.  Sharing this will certainly not impress the reformers or others supporting changes to teacher and principal evaluations.  Who knows, I could find my name on some list of those to avoid if this keeps up.  I don't know if  I like this expanded visibility.  I am learning first hand that once online you lose control.  It is like having no control over the volume knob, I like it Minimum not MAX!

“I think it is unfortunate that in our state and in states around the country millions of dollars are

being spent to create evaluation models whose stated purpose is to support teacher growth over

time, but whose intent is to get rid of ‘bad’ teachers.”

From “The Frenzy for Accountability” by Michael Maryanski (superintendent, Maple Valley, Wash.)

in his blog, Seeking Shared Learning

Waiver or no waiver . . .

At Tuesday’s board meeting the calendar was revised to make up for last week’s lost days. As previously agreed to with the bargaining units, tomorrow will be a student day and the remainder of any lost days will be added to the end of the student year. There are some in the community who question why they can’t be made up during the mid-winter break so we share how the calendar is a condition of employment and the board does not have authority to unilaterally change it.


The other issue that is emerging both from community and staff is how the governor’s declaration of an emergency situation will play out. They are asking since it was an emergency why do we need to make up the days. Let’s just ask the state for a waiver. We know that this will be a possibility because OSPI has shared that districts can apply even though the official process required for emergency situations is not complete.  It could take weeks before it is official.

The bigger question for me is the importance to us of the lost instructional days. Recently, a coalition of of our school and community groups was prepared to lobby legislators to not cut the school year from 180 to 175 days to save money, one of the governor’s budget saving options. We believe that it was important to not lose the instructional time given the standards and expectations imposed on our students and staff. Does that change because an emergency was declared? If they were simply snow days we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Does the need for the days change because of the event that requires making up the days? Does being able to waive the days without loss of state revenue and potentially salary influence our choice? These are some of the questions that must be asked and answered before making a decision on a waiver request.

What are your thoughts on this choice that we face?

Textbooks plus = big dollars . . .

I found this follow-up to the Apple announcement last week on textbooks interesting. I knew that publishing textbooks is a lucrative business, but not to the scale I learned in this Alexander Russo post. In it, he shares a chart and an article from Epicenter that followed the announcement giving some insight into the publishing world.


The biggest publishers in the world today are education publishers.


It’s not even close. In 2009, Pearson’s Education division alone brought in more revenue than any other book publisher besides number two, Reed Elsevier, whose biggest businesses are Lexis-Nexis and Elsevier Science.


Education publishers dwarf trade presses. Only the top trade press, Random House (itself owned by Bertelsmann) is bigger than Cengage, the little-known education publishing division that Thomson spun off in 2008 before merging with Reuters.

To bring this closer to home, since 2010 we have purchased new math materials in grades K-12. These purchases totaled about $609,000; huge for us, but in the big picture we are a very small piece of the pie. In other words, there are millions of dollars to be made in each state every year as districts are on different textbook review cycles and this is only for one content area.

So, why would Apple not try to take a bigger cut than the 30% figure they reached with three of the top publishing firms?  The article puts forth the following thinking.

But Apple has literally billions of other reasons to play nice.


Let’s suppose you don’t really care about textbooks. Pearson also owns Penguin, the world’s second largest trade publisher. They also own the Financial Times and a 50% share of The Economist.


That’s the same Penguin that partnered with Apple to help launch iBooks along with the iPad. And that’s the same Financial Times that proved publishers could bypass the App Store’s 30% cut and still grow their subscriber base on iPhone and iPad.

The article goes on to share some further insights into this world.

Their giant size and reach throughout the education and media landscape gives these publishers advantages and disadvantage. One disadvantage: they move slowly. One big advantage: You cannot outflank them.


One after another, Apple, Inkling, Barnes & Noble and other digital publishers have given up trying to outflank academic publishers. Now we will see whether Apple’s spotlight can get them to move.

It would be nice if Apple could have taken a bigger bite out of this behemoth, one that would make it easier for school systems and students to access current content.

Hopefully behind us . . .

I lost power Thursday morning about 8 and got it back Saturday night about 6. I got to join the lines for gas for the generator and put up with the inconveniences of no electricity for two plus days. That was not fun, but ok to deal with. When it went out again this morning I waited about an hour before going out to once again get the generator going. Just as I was about to start it the power came back on and has stayed on since. Hopefully, this is the last gasp for this storm.

We lost many trees over the road and the driveway plus some beautiful bushes and shrubs that have been with us for twenty plus years. The place looks like a tornado hit it. Given all this it still doesn't approach the hardships faced by so many across the world each day. We are so fortunate and have so much that I sometimes lose sight of it and complain when I should be thankful.

This morning we still had three schools without power, but have been told by PSE that we will have it by tomorrow and they rarely make that kind of prediction. Given this, we should be back at school in the morning, but it will take time to get all the systems up and running. I guess we chalk this up to a lost week and move forward.

Apple's new partnership . . .

Like many people I’m out of power at home so I didn’t get a chance to follow-up last night on Apple’s announcement shared in this Education Week piece.  It is not the hit to traditional publishers that some expected and that I was hoping for.  Apple has entered a partnership with three major K-12 textbook publishers—McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt—to offer interactive textbooks through its iBooks store at $14.99 or less. 

With textbooks selling for upwards of $100 that sounds like a pretty good idea until we learn that it is $14.99 each year and you must have an ipad to access the content.  Sound like a good idea for all concerned, Apple will get 30% and the three textbook publishers the rest.  I don't see it resulting in significant savings to districts.  It does, however, allow for content delivery not possible with a textbook and more importantly the capacity to annually update content instead of on the current five year cycle.

The textbooks feature multimedia elements, including video, three-dimensional graphics, and photo galleries. They also allow students to highlight text to create flashcards and search within a glossary.

It leaves us with interesting questions to ponder as we look to the future.

I hope you are keeping warm and safe during this difficult weather period.  I'll share some of my travails at a later time.  For now, lets pray that the thaw doesn't cause significant flooding and that power is restored as soon as possible. We need power to open schools and the latest news is that some customers might not be back on line until Monday.  That usually means places like my home in Ravensdale and our Junior High.

Apple media event . . .

Tomorrow could be a big day in our profession as Apple is holding its first media event of the year with speculation that the focus is on textbooks. If true, it would be aligned with Job’s ideas as described in his biography and shared in this NY Times piece.


Mr. Jobs’s biographer Walter Isaacson says in the book that Mr. Jobs viewed textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. His idea, according to Mr. Isaacson, was to hire textbook writers to create digital versions of their books for the iPad.

Obviously, this could have a significant impact on a multi-billion dollar industry and on future technology purchases in our school system. Textbooks are very expensive.  The cost is also one of the reasons why we must use them over a period of time even as standards change from year-to-year.

Having access to online texts at a competitive price would be a welcome addition to our work. More importantly, it would allow for regular and timely adjustments to the content something that is very critical with shifting targets and a rapidly changing world. This would be especially welcome as we prepare to move to the Common Core.