Report on May 22 Strategic Plan Community Meeting at Aki Kurose

Last night I attended the Superintendent's third meeting on her Strategic Plan. I arrived at 7pm and most people were done eating and the Supt. had just arrived. I didn't count the number of people who were there, but I would estimate that there were at least 200-250 people there. This was the third time I'd heard the Supt's presentation.

After her powerpoint we broke out into groups by language group. By far the largest group was the English Only group. There was a big turnout from the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center--community and staff.

Since the Latino turnout was so large and well-staffed (Bernardo Ruiz is amazing) I went to the classroom with the Filipinos. It was interesting for me to sit in and listen to them speak about their frustrations in increasing the number of teachers who are Filipino. I was also astounded to learn that compared to other US Cities, the Filipino's in Seattle are doing the poorest academically. Filipino academic achievement in Seattle is at the bottom, nationally! Filipinos are the largest group of Asians in Seattle. You may be surprised to learn this, I was.

Brad (SPS) sat in on the sesssion. I didn't get his last name. He took notes and did his best to answer questions. I regret that the Supt didn't visit this group and that I didn't ask one of the board members to sit with them. Clearly, they needed more than 20 minutes to capture all their frustrations. The meeting was over by 9pm.

Now that the meetings are over I want to know the HOW. How are we going to achieve the goals of the Plan? And, what will community engagement look like?

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