To: Board President Dr.

Jeff Bierman, Vice President Susan Chapin, Directors Deana Brower,

Robert Douthitt, and Rocco Treppiedi, and superintendent Dr. Shelley Redinger
From: Lori Johnson, superintendent intern
Date: May 1, 2014
Subject: Governance for equity
At the board meeting last night you heard from Heidi Maynard of WSSDA and Holly Ferguson,
a policy consultant. Since they are working with Spokane as part of a pilot to review and update
policies for our district their suggestions to you included a timeline, a plan to address policies
within the timeline, and ways to look at renewing your governance. Maynard and Ferguson
recommended that you focus on evaluating, revising, and creating policies, rather than
procedures, for the best use of your time. I understand the districts governance model to be a
traditional one and with the presentation by Maynard and Ferguson to encourage movement
toward Policy Governance (Carver Model) or Reform Governance (McAdams, 2006). Maynard
and Ferguson reinforced the school boards resolution as providing the vision, goals, and intent
to involve you in the creation of policy. The purpose of this memo is to share some thoughts
about how you can use those suggestions as you review all of the districts policies, with a focus
on how to increase governance for equity.
The suggestion by Maynard, Ferguson, and Assistant Superintendent Anderson was to begin
reviewing policies within a series and start with the 4,000 or 6,000 series. As you initiate the
work to update policies for Spokane Public Schools and renew the governance system, I
encourage you to intentionally include equity in the conversation and decisions that you make. It
will show that you, our school board, are committed to supporting an equity agenda.
There have been multiple conversations about expanding options for families since our district
recently became a portfolio district. The board, administrators, teachers, and families want to
know how costs and equity factor into these options. The school board members have been good
stewards of our resources. As we look ahead to designing equitable policies, I wonder how you
would rate equity in governance for our district. We can start by asking at the district level if
Learning-related resources are allocated equitably; one question that Appleseed asks in How
School Boards Can Erase the Opportunity Gap Between Poor and Middle-class Children.
(Appleseed, 2011)
Ronald Ferguson, Harvard University economist and education researcher, said that school
leaders, educators, and advocates need to think of closing the achievement gap as a social
movement. Inside a social movement, not everyone agrees, but they have the same sense that
they need to move in the same direction. As you consider your role in setting that policy and
vision first you must consider what you believe about the achievement gap. Do you believe all
children can achieve?
Former President William J. Clinton said, "The first step to closing that gap is to believe, as I do,
that high expectations are for all students. I believe intelligence is equally distributed throughout
the world, but opportunity is not. And the same is true within our own country."
If you believe all children can succeed, as I do, then we have a responsibility to all of the
children in Spokane to ensure an equitable education system. Our school board has an obligation
to the citizens and students of Spokane to create policies on allocating personnel, curriculum,
facilities improvements and other resources in an equitable manner. We need to know where
Spokane Public Schools currently is in regards to equity, so before implementing policies and
having the superintendent work to create procedures to implement policies, I recommend:
- Assess the current vision, implementation, and practices for equity*
- Assess how our resources are allocated, including teacher and administrator distribution
in high poverty schools
- Examine policies and admission practices for advanced courses and gifted programs*
- Assess the rate of absences of teachers, staff, and administrators
- Pursue creative ways to achieve equity in distribution of personnel and other learning-
related resources
Where do we start?
- Assessing what is currently done in Spokane Public Schools. There are several tools to do
this. Appleseeds Basic Resource Equity Assessment Document (READ) is one tool. This
assessment will produce a report on current practices that can be shared, along with
recommendations to the board. Consider the National School Boards Association, Council of
Urban Board of Education as another resource. Seattle and Tacoma are both members.
Members receive information, tools, and resources for effective school governance; working
to educate many of the nations high-needs and historically underserved children.
What are next steps?
- After assessing the districts current policies and procedures around equity, a report
would be shared with the school board at a future board work session.
- An advisory Committee, in conjunction with the policy revisions, would be formed to
investigate equity policy components and to make recommendations to the board. I
commit to membership in this committee to influence and support a governance for
equity agenda.
- The committee or designee will develop a data dashboard that addresses absences by
school, position (including administrator, teachers, and staff), years of experience,
evaluation results, and student growth on summative and interim assessments.
- Utilize data dashboard results to inform next steps in regard to recommendations
The time to commit to an equity agenda is now, as budgets, curriculum, and collective
bargaining contracts are being discussed and created. Donald R. McAdams tells us that School
districts are the units that can most powerfully and quickly create good schools for all children in a
community. (2006) I look forward to working with you and learning alongside the board and
superintendent so that all students in Spokane Public Schools receive a high quality education.

Sincerely,
Lori L. Johnson
Lori L. Johnson, Superintendent Intern













*The READ tool by Appleseed can be used to assess




Resources
Appleseed. (2011). The same starting line: How school boards can erase the opportunity gap
between poor and middle-class children. Washington, DC: Author.
McAdams, D.R., 2006, What school boards can do: Reform governance for urban schools.
NY, NY: Teachers College Press

Nation School Boards Association retrieve May 2, 2014 http://www.nsba.org/services/council-
urban- boards-education-cube