Freedom Policy Gets Test Before Board Schools Seek Exceptions To The Rules To Create Change

The Spokane School Board considers a landmark decision today: whether to allow one school to break district policy and another school to violate a union contract for the good of students.

Two years ago, the board created a way to allow greater freedom from rules that stifle worthwhile change. Balboa Elementary and Garry Middle School are the first schools to test the policy.

Parents and teachers from the two North Side schools will bring their requests to the board today at noon, paving the way for others with innovative plans.

“There’s a feeling doors have been opened,” said Joyce Simpson, a long-time Shadle Park High teacher. “It permits people with great ideas to say, ‘Here’s what we’d like to do.”’ Shadle may be next in line, Simpson said, with a plan for changing its schedule that will require a variance from the union contract.

The requests from Balboa and Garry already have been approved by a committee representing the teachers union, district administration and the school board. The full board’s OK is the final step in a long some say too long - process.

The schools aren’t asking for earth-shattering changes.

Garry wants a variance from district policy to start school at 7:45 a.m. this spring, one hour earlier than other district middle schools.

Balboa wants a variance from the union contract to let teachers share the extra help assigned to them when they have large classes.

“This is just the beginning. A lot of us want to do things differently,” said district Area Director Larry Parsons.

The board made some matters off-limits to variances. Schools can’t vary on issues of curriculum, testing, hiring, employee pay, board-directed spending, principal evaluation, union dues or the union grievance process.

Before a school can ask for a variance, it must have a decision-making body, such as a site council, and all staff must agree to abide by its decisions. Parents are represented on most site councils.

“This moves decision-making down to where the students and parents are and gives them greater ability to decide on issues that affect them,” said Spokane Education Association President Jerry Hopkins.

Parents on the councils at Balboa and Garry helped decide on the variance requests.

The Garry staff learned accidentally that an earlier starting time reduced discipline problems. When the school’s ventilation system broke down last spring, hours were moved up to keep the three-story cinderblock building cooler.

“We found we had far fewer discipline referrals and grades improved,” said Principal Don Miller.

The school’s site council surveyed parents and teachers. A majority liked the change.

The staff was ready to start in the fall of 1995, but seeking a variance took longer than expected.

“My only disappointment was, yeah, we have this site council, but it still has to go through downtown and I felt like it took downtown too long to give us an answer,” said Debbie Chaffee, a parent on the site council.

The process is cumbersome and will be streamlined, Parsons said.

Variances affirm what some schools have done for years - going around district and union rules without telling anyone, said union president Hopkins.

In fact, the Balboa staff has shared aide time for two years.

Kindergarten teacher Celeste Aspaas gets one hour a day of an aide’s help donated to her by another teacher who already has three parent volunteers and a college student helping in her room.

Some of Aspaas’ kindergartners can read and others “probably know one letter of the alphabet,” she said.

“With 26 children in my classroom it’s hard for me to get around to every child,” Aspaas said. “This gives more one-on-one instruction with children who need it.”

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