tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post463839123999422230..comments2024-03-28T02:21:17.452-07:00Comments on Seattle Schools Community Forum: Work Session - Live BloggingMelissa Westbrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-42910842859597927002017-11-02T16:36:45.668-07:002017-11-02T16:36:45.668-07:00@observer, said DisAPP, you're wrong. If the d...@observer, said <i>DisAPP, you're wrong. If the district for the first time assigns high school HCC services based on home address, which it has never done before, for obvious equity reasons it will have to ensure that those geographic assignments (in effect neighborhood HCC pathways) are all essentially equivalent.</i><br /><br />HaHaHaha...sigh. @observer, I appreciate your boundless idealism, but where have you been these last few years? There is no consistency among HC schools now, or even among supposedly equivalent classes within a school. And this will suddenly change? Lawsuit? Hahaha...oh, just too much. <br /><br />"Honors" classes for 9th and 10th, then Running Start for 11th and 12th? Yeah, the reality is that's possible, especially the more they fracture the cohort.<br /><br />old timerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-46506481823982423962017-11-02T16:19:14.092-07:002017-11-02T16:19:14.092-07:00"Does the district have to provide services? ..."Does the district have to provide services? Yes. Does it have to be via a pathway or linked school? Absolutely not. They could eliminate all the pathways, have everyone go to their neighborhood schools, and tell each school they have to offer at least one honors class at each grade level. They could sprinkle in a few AP classes, and keep the IB programs as options."<br /><br />DisAPP, you're wrong. If the district for the first time assigns high school HCC services based on home address, which it has never done before, for obvious equity reasons it will have to ensure that those geographic assignments (in effect neighborhood HCC pathways) are all essentially equivalent. They can't just offer an few extra honors classes at Nathan Hale and tell an eligible neighborhood HCC student assigned there that they enjoy HCC services equivalent to students currently assigned to Garfield, or for that matter Roosevelt or Ballard, both of which schools already have dozens of AP sections. For many eligible HCC students, the resulting inequity would also be exacerbated by comparing their available HCC services with school and neighborhood demographics.<br /><br />The only way your statement might hold water is if you are assuming that every eligible HCC student would also have a new guaranteed option to attend some IB program, which we know is another OSPI acceptable method of providing HCC services. The Seattle high schools offering an IB program are Ingraham (already a non-guaranteed HCC option), as well as Rainier Beach and Chief Sealth International. But for transportation and capacity reasons, those schools may not work for all eligible HCC students, and only one of them currently offers the HCC IBX option.<br /><br />Because it is considered a HCC service available to Seattle 11th and 12th graders, you and others do raise an interesting question whether the availability of Running Start for all could fully satisfy OSPI HC requirements? Perhaps not, for the equity reasons just stated? In any event, for every 9th and 10th grader, the district will still need to establish a new HCC pathway for each student excluded by their home address from Garfield HCC after 2019.<br /><br />Maybe you don't mean to, but you seem to be advocating the unacceptable idea that under state law SPS can get away with just making up fake HCC high school pathways based on the student's particular home address. Not true. I'm with Melissa on this -- whatever OSPI HCC services SPS promises it must then actually deliver, or else it will face a successful lawsuit under state law and maybe also under federal law depending upon obvious equity disparities.<br /><br />By the way, you were right on the money with your "working undercover" theory, but I am not employed by SPS. I am in fact a Russian web operative -- we were instructed to stay low on national electoral politics for a while, so I was reassigned to sow havoc in Seattle school board politics. And no, I will not "please refrain from stating" home truths. Now that the HCC Advisory Committee has announced its call for only one (1) new north end HCC high school pathway (in addition to Garfield and Ingraham IBX option), and (as I anticipated) the district staff have just published their plan for five (5) regional new HCC high school pathways, the Seattle School Board will have to decide between those visions. What is your own proposal?observernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-65478914314327252212017-10-31T13:26:38.546-07:002017-10-31T13:26:38.546-07:00@ yil, they would need to do a comprehensive evalu...@ yil, they would need to do a comprehensive evaluation to answer those questions, but they don't seem to be at all interested. <br /><br />For us, we stayed at the local schools for elementary because (1) it offered something we couldn't get elsewhere (language immersion), and we could easily manage supplementation in other subjects in those early grades; and (2) HCC wasn't going to provide enough of a challenge for one kid anyway--if we were going to need to supplement regardless, why bother moving? <br /><br />Regardless, the neighborhood school did not completely meets our children's academic needs--and in the end we regretted not moving over to HCC sooner. Not that HCC middle school went particularly well for either school, but the cohort became a little more important at that point. They tended to self-select other HCC-eligible kids as friends even in elementary school. Like minds and all that...<br /><br />gone girlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-9248691689094128572017-10-31T13:18:33.823-07:002017-10-31T13:18:33.823-07:00@ about time, equating tolley and mgj amounts to d...@ about time, equating tolley and mgj amounts to dog whistles and racism?<br /><br />how so<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-73454716562489650372017-10-31T11:44:13.595-07:002017-10-31T11:44:13.595-07:00The HCC Advisory has put out their recommendation ...The HCC Advisory has put out their recommendation on pathways see http://discussapp.blogspot.com/<br />NWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-42737469788869782222017-10-31T11:32:17.838-07:002017-10-31T11:32:17.838-07:00Yil, that's a good point but that's the di...Yil, that's a good point but that's the district's ability to tell you the answer. I wish they would survey those parents and look at which schools. I have a few readers who have said their child is HCC but stayed local. Mostly, it's being close to home and with kids from their neighborhood. <br /><br />Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-68453845742980113102017-10-31T10:36:00.875-07:002017-10-31T10:36:00.875-07:00"He learned from MGJ that hate keeps your pla..."He learned from MGJ that hate keeps your place. He now hates as well as she did...Tolley is driving this lazy misinformed policy and do you blame him? We keep paying him now SEVERAL million dollars. And he has done nothing. Emboldened racial strife."<br /><br />Hey, you don't need to like the guy. But the dog whistles and racism in this post<br />need to be called out.<br /><br />Not acceptable.<br /><br />About TimeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-72620265131375421572017-10-31T09:54:05.973-07:002017-10-31T09:54:05.973-07:00There of course is something wrong with segregatin...There of course is something wrong with segregating 20% of an assignment area's students into a cohorted self-contained service.<br /><br />It's about how to provide for HC students with as little segregation as possible, same as SpEd, ELL, medically fragile, etc.<br /><br />1000 HC students are NOT in the cohort so why does not the district let us know how those students navigate gened and how they are doing in their classes.<br /><br />Are they different types of students? Are their reference schools different in some fundamental way?<br /><br />Why did parents opt to stay local?<br /><br />We know, if we have read this blog, why parents choose the cohort, but what about the parents who chose to opt out of it.<br /><br />yilAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-14074194134437075482017-10-31T08:11:47.108-07:002017-10-31T08:11:47.108-07:00Tolley is the current problem - but the superinten...Tolley is the current problem - but the superintendent of teaching & learning before him didn't like advance learning, either. <br /><br />You could replace HCC with SpEd or ELL or even gen ed. I think the problem is that there are district administrators who see educating ANY group of students as unfair or inequitable or just somehow not really part of their job. It's a public system. None of the kids educated enrolled in our public schools should be neglected.Meghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12795753563127975720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-27073380972170164652017-10-31T02:46:43.988-07:002017-10-31T02:46:43.988-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-26183925908834506552017-10-30T22:06:21.421-07:002017-10-30T22:06:21.421-07:00I agree with Melissa. There's nothing stopping...I agree with Melissa. There's nothing stopping SPS from asserting that Honors for All and Running Start meet the bar set by the RCW.<br /><br />When WA state only gave money to districts that could demonstrate they had accelerated programs for highly capable students, SPS had incentive to provide HC students with an accelerated program, however poorly defined. SPS supplemented overall transportation costs with some of the money the state gave them for transportation of HC students. It's why they sent letters to HCC families reminding them to put their students on the bus during count periods; there was financial benefit for more than just HCC.<br /><br />The change in the RCW stating that for "highly capable students, access to accelerated learning and enhanced instruction" means all districts get money. The RCW does not define what constitutes “access” to accelerated learning or enhanced instruction.<br /><br />Michael Tolley has long said he believes students are best served closest to their home address, classroom differentiation can meet all student learning needs, and that programs for highly capable students are inequitable. <br /><br />Tolley is the administrator in charge of teaching. He's been vocal about his opposition to HCC for a long time. SPS has a highly compensated administrator who has made it clear he's opposed to adequately educating a group of students (and I'm not talking about "making sure the precious snowflakes get into Harvard" - I'm saying HCC students, and all SPS students, should get to learn at school, every day, in a way that generally follows state policy). Tolley knows it doesn't cost more. He still wants to put a stop to it. And there is no longer a threat of lost revenue to stop him from slowly taking HCC apart.<br />Meghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12795753563127975720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-28166187889214019882017-10-30T15:23:38.421-07:002017-10-30T15:23:38.421-07:00I heard it said elsewhere but I'll say it here...I heard it said elsewhere but I'll say it here - you might want to check that (gleeful) sanctimony. Again, you don't sign your name so I'm not sure you are entitled to that level of "I'm right and you're wrong." <br />Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-6660303062072286332017-10-30T15:18:46.531-07:002017-10-30T15:18:46.531-07:00@About Time-- Curious...do you also have animosity...@About Time-- Curious...do you also have animosity issues toward advanced learning programs such as IBX in Bellevue, as well as everywhere else in the country? Is it only targeted toward certain children in Seattle? <br />-OTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-45370618941838988012017-10-30T14:16:35.587-07:002017-10-30T14:16:35.587-07:00"But I think that if it skirted to close to a..."But I think that if it skirted to close to a lawsuit, the district would worry because yes, these are parents that would sue."<br /><br />Bring it on! That would open the district up for scrutiny of the actual HC laws that they are already breaking. <br /><br />Use your money and privilege to help everyone else, too! Yeah!<br /><br />About TimeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-37454506883298642552017-10-30T08:25:33.691-07:002017-10-30T08:25:33.691-07:00NP, I think the district could just do Honors for ...NP, I think the district could just do Honors for All and Running Start and call it a day. I'd have to reread the language of the law. But I think that if it skirted to close to a lawsuit, the district would worry because yes, these are parents that would sue. <br /><br />"APP outgrew Lowell.." Kinda but they sent some kids to Lincoln and some to Thurgood Marshall. They should have created Cascadia but left kids at Lowell where the program worked very well, the kids interacted with their medically fragile population regularly and with good outcomes and the school itself was stable. It is not now.<br /><br />"History might not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes: don't ever (ever ever) assume that district administration has fully considered the implications of ANY plan. And usually, the programs that pay for those mistakes are the programs that can be sliced and moved: the two most likely candidates are usually HCC or SpEd."<br /><br />Absolutely and I will be advocating to the Board that when the SAP does start its evolution that parent focus groups be set up. Allow parents to ask question and help vet the SAP so that it will have good outcomes for all in the fairest manner. Staff should have to come and answer questions, "Where is this? Okay, what happens here?" so that the plan is vetted by people on the ground. If principals want in, that would be great.<br /><br />As to that last statement on the programs that get hit the most - HCC and Sped are a moveable feast for staff.Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-13110939583994712852017-10-29T21:35:17.319-07:002017-10-29T21:35:17.319-07:00Observer, you keep saying that, but you're fla...Observer, you keep saying that, but you're flat out wrong that "state law then requires SPS to provide each eligible student with another pathway/linked school that WILL provide him or her with equivalent HCC services." Completely not true. Does the district have to provide services? Yes. Does it have to be via a pathway or linked school? Absolutely not. They could eliminate all the pathways, have everyone go to their neighborhood schools, and tell each school they have to offer at least one honors class at each grade level. They could sprinkle in a few AP classes, and keep the IB programs as options. Then they'd be able to check the honors box for each grade level, the IB box for 10/11/12 (if they keep IBX for some), AP for each level (assuming there's an AP class somewhere for a 9th grader), and Running Start. Voila, looks just like what we have now in terms of boxes checked for OSPI.<br /><br />Parents would see through it and more of our strongest students would leave, but SPS likely wouldn't care. <br /><br />DisAPPAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-10036199880005620422017-10-29T15:13:05.213-07:002017-10-29T15:13:05.213-07:00*Sigh* Once again we circle back to the fact that ...*Sigh* Once again we circle back to the fact that the district has not, within the past 30 years at least, attempted to state clearly what HCC is for, whom it is intended to serve, what services ought to be included (for example, a curriculum?), any sort of measure of putative success, or how anyone can possibly tell whether it is succeeding in whatever it has not said that it is trying to accomplish.<br /><br />When IPP was created, back in the 1970s, the goal was clear: accelerate students so that they would complete the equivalent of high school by the end of 8th grade, so that they could enter university instead of ninth grade. That goal has long since been left far behind, and there has never been a coherent purpose stated since then.<br /><br />Some parents like what it provides for their students, and that's great, but many students cannot find what they need there, and the district, in my experience, just suggests to those parents that they homeschool or go private, because the district is unwilling and/or unable to provide anything else.<br /><br />I have heard staff say on many occasions that there is no way that the district can afford to provide any appropriate services to students who are 3 standard deviations away from the mean, simply because it is so unlikely that you could collect 30 such students in one grade at one school, and that is the only model they can afford to provide. I think that speaks to a lack of creative thinking and commitment to serve every student.<br /><br />I have met such students who had the scholarly maturity to craft for themselves an excellent education out of the bits and pieces the district offered them. But it doesn't seem like that constitutes an actual program for educating students in general.<br /><br />Irene<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-145260391229189342017-10-29T14:41:24.804-07:002017-10-29T14:41:24.804-07:00The whole HCC service is flawed.
!. Too many kid...The whole HCC service is flawed. <br /><br />!. Too many kids<br />It's not even close to best practice to pull such a high percentage of a district into a self-contained program.<br /><br />2. Where are the poor, ELL, SpEd, black, hispanic, Hmong, Vietnamese, Somali, Ethiopian and other recent immigrants?<br />These kids are incredibly underrepresented.<br /><br />3. Unlimited private tests allowed to gain entry.<br />Come on. Everyone knows this is horribly wrong. One free private test for poor kids doesn't equal UNLIMITED private tests for the affluent.<br /><br />$. True outliers are sent off to the Robinson Center at UW or left to their own devices in a cohort that doesn't serve the needs of 3 standard deviation students.<br /><br />super g<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-19437251990421563312017-10-29T13:28:35.564-07:002017-10-29T13:28:35.564-07:00"Observer, that's not how it works. SPS d..."Observer, that's not how it works. SPS doesn't commit to providing every 'program option' they checked on the form to every HC student. If that were the case, IBX would be a guaranteed placement, because the box is checked for 10th grade."<br /><br />good fit, Exactly! Which only proves my claim that state law then requires SPS to provide each eligible student with another pathway/linked school that WILL provide him or her with equivalent HCC services. In other words, the only reason that SPS enrollment was able to cap Ingraham IBX (or IB?) HCC option students is because those students also have a guaranteed pathway to Garfield HCC.<br /><br />Another Parent expressed this simple idea better than me:<br /><br />"if there is an HCC high school pathway for some students, then there must be an HCC high school pathway for all students. I just can't imagine SPS not needing to provide a pathway for HCC students that live in the attendance areas of certain low performing high schools. Seems to me that would really cause equity problems."<br /><br />good fit, thanks for that very helpful link to the OSPI form listing what services those HCC pathways might include.observernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-43361469585280556342017-10-29T12:15:52.816-07:002017-10-29T12:15:52.816-07:00THE reason WMS's APP program was split was tha...THE reason WMS's APP program was split was that staff literally forgot to account for the increase of students at WMS from the closure of Meany. <br /><br />History might not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes: don't ever (ever ever) assume that district administration has fully considered the implications of ANY plan. And usually, the programs that pay for those mistakes are the programs that can be sliced and moved: the two most likely candidates are usually HCC or SpEd <br /><br />-wayway backAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-59594713124876821482017-10-29T06:04:48.947-07:002017-10-29T06:04:48.947-07:00Those who were around for the first wave of splits...Those who were around for the first wave of splits will remember the 2 elementary sites originally suggested for APP - Thurgood Marshall for the north end (north being just north of I90) and Hawthorne for the south end. They were really proposing north end students be bused even further south than Lowell. The two sites ended up being Lowell and TM, and it was not long after (just 2 years?) that APP outgrew Lowell and moved to Lincoln as an interim site (which stretched to 6+ years?). For the second wave of splits, Eckstein was considered for a middle school pathway, but there was an incredible amount of pushback, even though most of the displaced HIMS students were from what is now the Eckstein draw area. Given that history, it's somehow difficult to be hopeful about plans for high school. <br /><br />It's interesting to go back to comments from 2009, related to high school APP:<br /><br />http://discussapp.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-there-support-from-cao-for-high.html<br /><br />wayback machineAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-86420784568824636212017-10-28T20:22:16.751-07:002017-10-28T20:22:16.751-07:00"observer" makes an interesting point: i..."observer" makes an interesting point: if there is an HCC high school pathway for some students, then there must be an HCC high school pathway for all students. <br /><br />I just can't imagine SPS not needing to provide a pathway for HCC students that live in the attendance areas of certain low performing high schools. Seems to me that would really cause equity problems.<br /><br />But that doesn't stop SPS from making say 3 or 4 high schools in the north end HCC pathways; in essence the neighborhood high school is the HCC pathway high school in much of the north end. For example, why not make Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Ingram all HCC Pathway schools? Also, leave Garfield a pathway school and add a pathway school in West Seattle. <br /><br />I would assume every student could then have a choice of their attendance area High School or a single HCC pathway HS. So, those that live in say the Roosevelt or Lincon areas effectively have no choice, but if you live in the Hale area, you would have a single alternative.<br /><br />Seems like something like this would work.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Another Parentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-61494495873830770202017-10-28T18:53:18.174-07:002017-10-28T18:53:18.174-07:00@ observer, they could very easily end the Garfiel...@ observer, they could very easily end the Garfield HCC pathway for all. According to the notes you posted above, they specifically mentioned Garfield might only be for those in the school boundary. Sure, they could make other north and south (and west) pathways, or not. If a future Garfield pathway was only for Garfield area students, that's not much of a pathway. Would all other schools feed to other shared pathways, with GHS the only one getting a solo pathway? Odd.<br /><br />Others are correct that hat SPS does not have to provide what you think they do. For example, this past year they said they were eliminating honors LA and SS for 9th graders so everyone could be on the same track. When pointed out that they were required to provide advanced offerings at all grade levels, suddenly the 9th grade classes were called "honors for all." It's just window dressing, but OSPI is only window shopping. <br /><br />DisAPPAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-73308458276917258722017-10-28T18:36:55.222-07:002017-10-28T18:36:55.222-07:00SPS usually just commits to providing some sort of...SPS usually just commits to providing some sort of HCC option, which parents may or may not feel is sufficient. What's to prevent SPS from saying Honors for All in 9th and 10th grade and then Running Start in 11th and 12th and calling it good?<br />-NPAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-55473349312332426582017-10-28T16:42:47.618-07:002017-10-28T16:42:47.618-07:00Observer, that's not how it works. SPS doesn&#...Observer, that's not how it works. SPS doesn't commit to providing every "program option" they checked on the form to every HC student. If that were the case, IBX would be a guaranteed placement, because the box is checked for 10th grade.<br /><br />Here's the form to OSPI from 2015:<br />http://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/15-16agendas/081915agenda/20150819_HighlyCapab_Annual%20Plan.pdf<br /><br />good fitAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com