So, Randy’s first official day. Whoo hoo. They had extra cleaning crew come in last night to scrub the skeez from Terry’s former office.  

Former Cabinet Member Corrine McGuigan, Terry’s favorite gal, was “let go” at the January Conference….in the hallway….in between presenting her sessions on leadership. Ouch. 

Yvonne Ryans lost her section a few weeks back. Professional development is gone. No Summer Institutes. No January Conference. She is still waiting for word on her future within the agency. I hope she stays.

Terry announced Howard Deleeuw as the new Director of Migrant and Bilingual.  I enjoy Howard. His desk is messier than mine. Apparently, a few in the migrant & bilingual community do not agree with Terry’s decision.

Yes, Mr. Chee was weaseled into the Project Lead the Way position.

Terry’s long-time assistant, Tony Montoya, is staying to work for Randy, even though he is eligible for retirement.  

Sadly enough, John Aultman is staying to oversee governmental relations.

My friend snapped this pic for me while out on the town a few Friday nights ago. Apparently, the shirt was a real conversation catalyst. Does Terry even own a t-shirt? Probably not. I mailed my ballot today. Go Randy!

He’s held on almost 2 months, as TB sent this email in late August-

 ”For those of you who did not meet Bryan Chee, special assistant to the superintendent, at the summer institute in late July, please drop by the executive office to greet him. Bryan will support me in all of my outreach activities, and work with cabinet members, executive staff members and others to provide stronger communication and policy coordination links to all of you and to our many external audiences.

Bryan comes to us from the Technology Alliance in Seattle, where he’s served as director for technology and education for the past seven years. He’s also been a program director in the Office of Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies at the University of Washington, and an associate director of a technology program in the UW’s Office of Undergraduate Education. He holds a master’s degree in education from Seattle University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California-Davis.

I am thrilled to have someone with Bryan’s strong mix of business, technology and education experience joining our team.

Please join me in welcoming Bryan to OSPI!”

I first saw the pea green suit jacket (paired with a knee-length black skirt) last Tuesday, July 29th, at the Summer Institutes general session. Thus, I was quite surprised when I ran into Bergeson at the Tacoma Convention Center -wearing the exact same outfit- two days later. Did I time warp? Was I seeing things? Was Terry adopting this getup as her new uniform? Although I was perplexed, I drove home and tried to let it go, all the while resisting the urge to blog about her crime of fashion. But, lo and behold, while flipping through the channels last night, I saw a flash. It was you know who wearing you know what. There she was, the lean, mean, green machine on TVW, engaged in a (pre-taped, July 19th) candidate forum.  Enough is enough. I love to rewear, but three 100% repeats in less than two weeks!? It may not be the worst fashion faux pas, but there are an assortment of different ways to wear a single garment of clothing. So, Terry, I challenge you to get creative. There is still plenty of time to publicly redeem yourself.

Last year, while driving her silver Toyota Corolla, Terry managed to hit some sort of stationary parking post. When she took her vehicle to the shop for repair, they asked for her current insurance card. She didn’t have one. Apparently, Terry had been driving without insurance for quite some time- if I remember correctly, it was in excess of 6 months. Yes, I am serious. I could not make this stuff up. Terry shared this story at an executive staff meeting (I participated in) last year. I saw her car in her parking spot the other day (gasp! she was in the building) and this story came to mind…..

……Too bad she didn’t accidently back into a reporter. 

In the words of Robert Green Ingersoll, ”It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.     ”

She has a tendency to fly in, make a lot of noise, crap on everything, and then leave. I saw four people break into tears at work on Friday. It truly is a negative, stress-filled work environment. We have recently contracted with Sterling & Associates to perform a review of our administrative functionality. Yet, the Contractor is only interviewing staff at the director level. Terry is only focused on programs and does not acknowledge the work performed by (or the employees of) the administrative units such as information technology, human resources, financial services, etc. While in the assessment office, secretary’s have their own secretary’s, all administrative divisions share one administrative assistant per four managers. Terry continues to take money from the state-administrative fund (which should be be used to support administrative functions) to support program objectives. Our turnover is ridiculous because other state agencies are recruiting our administrative employees. Why continue to work at OSPI when you can have less stress and more job recognition at another agency? The result of Sterling’s review are going to be available within the next few weeks. If Terry chooses not to act on their recommendations, there could be some backlash, especially if the review becomes public fodder. On another note, I just heard that we are entering fiscal year 2009 (which commences July 1) three hundred thousand dollars in the hole.  

We would like to welcome a new staff member to the Division of Assessment and Student Information.  This Monday Christopher Hanczrik joined our team in a newly-created position as the Director of Assessment Operations.  Christopher’s responsibilities will be to direct the operational portion of the assessment system, including supervising the State Test Coordinator, Kimberly DeRousie.  Many of you may already know Christopher, who has resigned from Pearson and moved from Austin for the opportunity to work with us at OSPI.  While at Pearson, he has recently managed the reporting system on a contract with the State of Texas, but before that he was the project manager for the WASL program when the Riverside contract was phasing out and the Pearson contract was just beginning.  All of us who have worked with Christopher know him to be a very capable and extremely customer-oriented person. The new position Christopher is filling will give Robin Munson the opportunity to focus her fulltime efforts on issues related to student information and data analysis.  The scope of her work in this area has been expanding exponentially as we move forward with comprehensive student information systems and longitudinal databases.  The volume of work in this area shows no signs of diminishing, and requires more and more of Robin’s time.  Likewise, assessment operations have become increasingly complex, and will get even more so with the new assessment contracts. We didn’t want to get just anybody for this new position, and (to use a phrase appropriate for early April) feel we have “hit a home run” with Christopher.  He is really looking forward to working with us and with all of you.  As you get a chance to interact with Christopher, please welcome him to our state and to our work.

 Joe Willhoft, PhD

~As of this week, OSPI plans on holding only one Summer Institute (as opposed to the usual three). It is tenatively scheduled to occur in July in the Tacoma area. ~Terry is interviewing candidates for the “Special Assistant” position this week. ~The Dana Center contract was amended for an additional $20K (I think OSPI is trying to keep this on the down low). ~Everyone hates the marker lady. ~Our Director of Network Operations has been sending out daily emails  apologizing for the technical malfunctions we have been experiencing. Nothing like having to reboot
3x a day!

Terry was actually in the building this week! The most shocking part of it all was that she even addressed us.  The half-hour hall meeting was intended to provide an overview of the recent legislative session.  Her “speech” was mostly feel-good fluff, but the page full of financial funding measures did include a blurb referring to the WASL…… Apparently, OFM is going to be overseeing the agency’s WASL expenditures via an Interagency Agreement (I promise to dig the propaganda out of my recycle bin sometime soon and provide the specific text).  As Terry has no knowledge of the agency’s financial, fiscal, budget, accounting, and legal affairs, her ignorance started to irritate and I began correcting her in my head -just for fun.  But, I completely zoned out as soon as she began droning on about her love of Uri Treisman and the Dana Center.