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Ann Dornfeld

Reporter

About

Ann is a reporter on KUOW's Investigations team. Previously, she covered education stories for KUOW for a decade, with a focus on investigations into racial and socioeconomic inequities.

Her ongoing series exposing Seattle Public Schools’ lenient discipline of staff who abused students has won investigative reporting awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Education Writers Association. She was also lauded for her years of work covering disparities in the amount of recess and P.E. time students received in low-income schools.

Previously, Ann worked at Alaska Public Radio Network in Anchorage, and KLCC in Eugene, Oregon. Her freelance work, focusing on science and environmental issues, has appeared on national outlets including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Marketplace and The World.

Ann’s marine and underwater photography has appeared in the American Museum of Natural History and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

She lives with her husband and two children in South Seattle.

Location: Seattle

Languages Spoken: English

Pronouns: she/her

Professional Affiliations: Member, Investigative Reporters and Editors

Stories

  • Untitled

    Kids Find Path To College With Rainier Scholars

    Every summer, five dozen mostly low-income students of color from Seattle Public Schools begin an intensive academic program designed to get them ready for college. In Rainier Scholars, middle-schoolers commit to eight-hour school days in the summer and then after-school and weekend classes during the school year. Most of these students would be the first in their families to graduate from college.On one of the first days of summer, teacher Drego Little leads a small class of incoming seventh-graders. They’re sitting in a U-shape, facing each other, seminar-style."What is love? How do you know? You guys are kinda young, but you have some idea, right?" Little asks. One boy hazards a guess. "Like, when you see somebody – I think this is how it goes – like, in the movies, when you see somebody, and they have the hearts around, and they’re like 'ohhhhh!'"Little starts the lesson on "Romeo and Juliet" by asking students to write on index cards who they’ve been told never to marry. He tries to reassure them that he won’t take their answers personally. “I don’t think you believe this! This is the impression you have been given, OK? And I know and I’ll say it right now, I know before I have you write this answer, many of you have been told not to marry black people. Right? And that doesn’t bother me, because I know better than anybody that black people are awesome!”The kids hand the cards in with nervous giggles.Little reads the cards back to the class. "'Don’t marry blacks.' Black people," says Little. "When you say 'blacks' I think of little things, like, running around, OK?"Next card? "'My whole family gave an impression that I should never marry a black person.'""'Don’t marry Chinese or Mexican people.' It’s weird those two go together!""'I got the impression to not marry a white person.'""So Romeo and Juliet is not about 'back then.'" says Little. "You know, back when people told you who to marry! Mm, isn’t that kind of today? Right?"Shakespeare isn’t usually taught until high school, but the goal of Rainier Scholars is to help these middle-schoolers qualify for scholarships to local private schools, or gifted classes in public school. And later, to help them get into college.Eleven-year-old Melat Ermyas is working on her private school applications. She’s hoping to get into University Prep. "Regular school, it’s not really that much of a challenge. And they say that private school is just like Rainier Scholars. And right now I’m doing pretty well, I guess, in Rainier Scholars, so I guess I can handle private school," Ermyas says.Over her first year in Rainier Scholars, Ermyas and her 59 peers will get 300 hours of homework in addition to their regular middle school homework.Rainier Scholars selects its students based on their reading level, parental involvement and a series of interviews. Numerous studies have found that when the brightest, most motivated students are drawn away from their neighborhood public schools, it can come at a cost for the kids who stay.Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Senior Economist Mary Burke co-authored a study that found that average-achieving public school students tended to do better if they had high-achieving peers in the classroom. "And so those middling students are going to pay a price, presumably, by losing those high-quality peers," Burke says.But when those high-achievers leave, Burke says, something else happens: The lowest-achieving kids in the class do better. So do the high-achieving kids who end up in programs like Rainier Scholars. Students like Alan Lin. After taking gifted classes at Mercer Middle School and AP classes at Garfield High School, he’s now in his second year at the University of Washington."I come from a first-generation family, so my parents don’t really speak English and they aren’t really used to, I guess, American culture and stuff," Lin says. "So having this kind of support group behind me, whenever we need help with anything, we can just go to them and ask." Lin says the staff at Rainier Scholars even helped him file an insurance claim after a car accident. They’ll follow him all the way through college, making sure nothing stands in the way of graduation — from family crises to financial problems.In its first decade, Rainier Scholars has held on to about three-quarters of its students through high school graduation. Executive Director Sarah Smith says the kids that stick with the program are all but guaranteed college educations. And she says Rainier Scholars is not magic. "It is day-in, day-out hard work and perseverance on the part of everybody involved," Smith says. "It is the idea we espouse to our students that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard."Rainier Scholars will celebrate a milestone next spring. That’s when its first ever group of students will graduate from colleges across the country. 
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    Seattle Schools Settles $750,000 Employment Discrimination Case

    Seattle Public Schools is paying $750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a teacher who was fired for refusing to work in a building she says made her sick. Former teacher Denise Frisino says when she worked at Nathan Hale High School seven years ago, the mold was so bad that she had a hard time breathing and a terrible cough. "It was to the point where I could not be inside the building for long. It was not a minor thing. It was a severe reaction," she says. Frisino says the district discriminated against her disability by refusing to transfer her to another school. District spokeswoman Teresa Wippel disagrees. "We spent a significant amount of money over three years in an attempt to make building modifications that were designed to accommodate Ms. Frisino’s sensitivities. And this included a large remediation project at Nathan Hale High School, where she was working," Wippel says.But Frisino says the district’s cleaning efforts didn’t fix the problem, and that she still got sick when she went to work.Wippel says the district decided to settle with Frisino after an appeals court judge said the case could go to trial.  Frisino welcomed that news. "I’m glad it’s over with. I would not want to see this happen to anyone else," she says. "I’m hoping that they continue to improve the schools. Two of the schools I was in, Nathan Hale and Hamilton, have been remodeled, and I’m really thankful for that."Frisino says since she was fired in 2005, she’s lobbied the state Legislature and Board of Health to improve air and water quality in school buildings.Seattle Public Schools will cover a third of the $750,000 settlement out-of-pocket. The rest will be covered by insurance.

  • Seven Seattle-Area School Districts Win $40M Race To The Top Grant

    Seven Seattle-area school districts have been awarded a $40 million federal Race to the Top grant. The money is aimed at improving academic achievement in high-poverty schools in the Seattle, Kent, Federal Way, Highline, Renton, Auburn and Tukwila districts.

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    Former Seattle Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson Reported Dead At 55

    A Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman says former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson died Wednesday at age 55.Teresa Wippel says a district attorney got word of Goodloe-Johnson's death late Wednesday afternoon from an insurance company representative who had been working with Goodloe-Johnson's husband. Wippel said district employees had heard Goodloe-Johnson had been ill. Staff at WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina, spoke to family members who said Goodloe-Johnson had been sick for about a year.Goodloe-Johnson was fired from Seattle Public Schools last year after a financial scandal.In a statement issued this evening, the district credited Goodloe-Johnson’s four years of leadership with continuing student academic achievement. “We are grateful for her years of service to Seattle Public Schools and her efforts during her four-year tenure here to put our students on the path to academic success,” the statement read.Goodloe-Johnson went on to become Deputy Chancellor of Instructional Support and Educational Accountability at Michigan Education Achievement System, a new statewide school system designed to let the state take over what it considers its lowest-performing public schools.The district says Goodloe-Johnson is survived by her husband Bruce and young daughter Maya.
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    Seattle Public Schools Releases Snapshot Of Teachers' Student Growth Ratings

    Seattle Public Schools has released new aggregate student growth ratings that will be now used as part of some teachers' evaluations. The ratings reflect how students did on state and district tests from one year to the next and factor in students' poverty levels, learning disabilities and English language proficiencies.The aggregate ratings show that of the 132 teachers rated in the initial roll-out, 71.2 percent were rated as having students with typical growth on test scores, 19.7 percent received low ratings, and 9.1 percent of teachers had students that averaged high growth.Using student growth measures to evaluate teacher quality is controversial. Many researchers point to the large number of variables that can affect students' test scores, and the fact that the same teacher can be rated quite differently from one year to the next without apparent explanation.But Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Jose Banda said he believes in the district's model. "It gives the evaluator another lens from which to gauge a person's performance," Banda said. "That being said, we need to continue to refine the methods for collecting the student performance data that we use in this evaluation to assure that it is accurate and gives a fair representation of a teacher's performance in this particular area. Bear in mind that student performance data is but one piece of a teacher's overall evaluation."The ratings will only be issued for teachers of grades 4-8 reading, language arts, or math, and 9th-grade Algebra I teachers. This year's ratings included only teachers at 27 schools that showed low performance on standardized tests, plus two schools that opted in to the new evaluation system early.Overall, only about 4 percent of teachers in the district received ratings this year. Ratings will be issued district-wide next year.Teachers who receive high student growth ratings as well as high marks in other areas of their evaluations may become eligible for promotions. Teachers who receive low student growth ratings will get closer oversight by their principals.

  • Seattle Releases First Teacher Ratings Based On Student Performance

    Many teachers in Seattle Public Schools will learn today how they rank on a new scale based on student performance. They’ll be rated by how their students’ test scores changed from one year to the next. Teachers with high ratings may qualify for bonuses or promotions. Teachers with low ratings will get closer oversight.

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    Charter School Countdown: What's Next

    The charter school initiative appears to have passed. The first charter schools would likely open their doors in Washington next school year, at the earliest. Here's the countdown of what's next.3. EnthusiasmChris Korsmo is CEO of the League of Education Voters, one of the groups that backed the charter initiative. Korsmo said her organization is getting flooded with email from people who want to know how they can get started. "You know, we’ve had people come out of the woodwork," Korsmo said. "Principals of schools here in Washington who are interested in starting schools, folks who ran charter schools in other states who would like to do that work here, and Washingtonians who live elsewhere that would like to come back home to run a charter school."2. BureaucracyUnder the initiative, there are two ways to start a charter. Private non-profits can apply to start a new school. And existing public schools can also be converted to charters via the so-called trigger method. That’s where parents or teachers in the school vote to turn it into a charter.But first, the state needs to establish the commission that will authorize and oversee charters. The governor, president of the state Senate and president of the state House of Representatives each get to appoint three commission members. The state Board of Education also needs to create an application process for school boards that want to be authorizers.The deadline for those bureaucratic steps is next March. So it may be five months before would-be charter organizers can apply to start a school. In the meantime, the coalition Korsmo co-founded to put the initiative on the ballot plans to serve as an advisory council to influence how the state draws up its charter school policies. "The major goal is to ensure that we have great authorizers who are paying attention to the criteria and also watching the outcomes," Korsmo said, "so that we do what other states don’t do, which is to ensure accountability on the part of the schools, so that we don’t allow schools that are not achieving to continue to operate."1. Legal ChallengesState Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn has said he’ll try to challenge the initiative in court. He has said the state constitution requires basic education to be governed by his office. Charter schools would be governed by a separate state agency.Korsmo said charter backers always knew legal challenges were likely if the measure passed. She said she trusts any court decisions would favor the initiative.

  • Charter School Initiative Passes, Says AP

    The charter school initiative has passed by a narrow margin, according to the Associated Press. The vote stands at 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent. That's a difference of about 44,000 votes. Statewide, 269,000 ballots remain to be counted. The No on 1240 campaign Facebook page says campaign managers won't consider the race over until every vote is counted.The initiative would allow up to 40 publicly-funded, privately-run charter schools in Washington over five years. School districts across the state opposed it. Seattle Public Schools Superintendent José Banda said charters would compete with existing public schools for scant funding. But he said if charters come to Seattle, the district would work with them to make sure kids get educated.Washington would be the 42nd state to allow charter schools. This is the fourth time the state's voters considered charters, and the first time voters appear to have approved them.