tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post4237718376123274798..comments2024-03-28T02:21:17.452-07:00Comments on Seattle Schools Community Forum: Proposed Policy 2220Melissa Westbrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-35783840827928082342012-05-24T09:13:05.779-07:002012-05-24T09:13:05.779-07:00Yes, thanks for your last sentence. When I wrote ...Yes, thanks for your last sentence. When I wrote the "equals" in quotes it was an (overly) abstruse way of getting people to think about what you came right out and said. I think your way was better.<br /><br />Bottom line though, people need to stop thinking of things in terms of "equal" <i>or</i> "equitable". Rather, the concern of <i>everyone</i> involved with schools, from the Board to staff to parents and guardians, should be to serve as many kids in the best way(s) as possible. Nothing is one-size-fits-all when it comes to education. That goes for all programs, not just APP. <br /><br />Language immersion may mean different languages in different areas of the city. Special Ed needs are different depending on the distribution of various needs around the city. Now that APP is split, the very smart people involved with that program should be digging in to make the program work as well as possible for as many families as it can, not working to make them look exactly the same. This should be blatantly obvious, but for some reason it's not to some people.dwnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-49958839718993355542012-05-24T07:24:02.839-07:002012-05-24T07:24:02.839-07:00Thank you, dw, for your comment. Following the C &...Thank you, dw, for your comment. Following the C & I meeting, Director McLaren asked me what I thought about the draft proposal. Although I was seeing it for the first time, I was able to tell her that the removal of the transparency requirement was a tragic flaw. I also said that if the policy was going to call itself "Equitable Access to Programs" then shouldn't it say something about equitable access to programs in it? When describing the policy, Ms Ferguson had said something about "putting the programs where the students live". I told Director McLaren that there is a very high concentration of APP students in the northeast, so would this policy mean that 250 seats at Bryant would be used for APP? She replied "of course not". I asked her "So what does it mean?" and let the silence hang there for a while.<br /><br />In more direct response to dw's concern, equitable does not mean equal.Charlie Mashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17173903762962067277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-70748096154320102372012-05-23T22:19:30.019-07:002012-05-23T22:19:30.019-07:00For those families in APP, any policy that begins ...For those families in APP, any policy that begins with “Equitable Access to Programs and Services” should be a big red flag.<br /><br />First, that was the district mantra leading up to the N/S split.<br /><br />Second, there are factions within the district (and even the APP advisory committee) that feel the north and south programs must be "equal", regardless of whether that means shoehorning one or the other into a model that doesn't work well for them. <br /><br />Not saying the families of either building are wrong to advocate for what works best for their own population, but they are two different buildings, with two different populations in two different parts of the city. They're not going to be "equal" no matter what anyone says or does, so let's make sure that both buildings can work as well as possible for their own cohort of kids, teachers and families.dwnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-67040317377878402372012-05-22T18:02:47.982-07:002012-05-22T18:02:47.982-07:00Watching,
That's the text of the charter scho...Watching,<br /><br />That's the text of the charter school initiative.Charlie Mashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17173903762962067277noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-5700648672027487122012-05-22T15:10:11.048-07:002012-05-22T15:10:11.048-07:00https://docs.google.com/document/d/16jh0lQYd1X9rcz...https://docs.google.com/document/d/16jh0lQYd1X9rcz7PRe5P-_D92SIN52lIfW_lTU42fnQ/edit?pli=1#<br /><br />Here is the full text.Watchingnoreply@blogger.com