Our Bellevue Discovery kids can perform better. Bottom up or top down it needs to happen. 3 million dollars in experience doesn't seem to be working. Maybe we should explore alternatives...

Compansation over time

Total pay: >3.3 Million

While this only represents a fraction of Thomas Duenwald BSD compensation, the total exceeds 3 million dollars and constant growth. It would be wonderful if our kids outcomes would improve with a such a consistent yearly growth.

How ARE our kids doing?

Welp… not so great.

This does not seem to reflect Adequate Yearly Progress. This makes sense, as Adequate Yearly Progress is no longer a metric of success for our schools.

• Advising parents to check in on academics once a week feels like terrible advice, even for schools that aren’t failing their students.

• Taking a look at state guidelines for ALE programs: there are numerous deficiencies with respect to written student lesson plans and monthly progress reports. See: OSPI: Guide to Offering Alternative Learning Experiences

• Currently, we drop synchronous learning of core subjects at middle school. Does this make sense for our kids?

• Check out Carol Dweck’s definition of organizations with a “Growth Mindset” vs those without them? How would you describe the mindset of our leadership? Link

• On two separate occasions, at Discovery school presentations, I have heard that one of our kids is going great at golf. Do we have a golf team? It would be great to hear more about academic outcomes rather than non-academic anecdotes.

Please “hug your kids” or provide support to them in your preferred manner.

Until next time,
Will