I'm showing my age. In my day, that was a pretty strong racial slur. It is considered politically correct now?
Interestingly, you will find the entire assessment handbook here: http://leap.dpsk12.org/LEAP/media/Main/PDFs/2012-13-Handbook---09-25-12.pdf
Neither the word "Spades" nor the phrase "students appear comfortable" appears anywhere in the text. However, the Times article may be taking these words from one of several summaries which are available on the same web site.
Even without the precise language cited, the document itself is a fantastical pile of post-modern gobbledegook, an orgy of self-congratulatory nonsense, and a guide to nothing having anything to do with teaching but everything to do with indoctrination; both of teachers and students. It is interesting to note, for example, that a teacher that performs the job of teaching students subject matter would actually receive the lowest qualification under this putative "assessment," while a teacher who teachers students nothing at all but encourages the correct kind of thinking will receive the highest assessment. ["Correct" as used in the .pdf has a clearly sinister meaning which has nothing to do with the actual English word except that they are spelled with the same letters in the same order.]
Read the PDF. The document is actually FAR, FAR worse than even this article describes it to be. Keep a bucket handy, and if you pray, pray hard for the students and teachers in this commie hellhole.
In some circles, that's still a racial slur, but in this case, I'm sure it was just a transcription error. The young lefty that wrote that crap, has probably never heard the term.