Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th

A very happy and safe Halloween to all! Anybody "attend" the virtual levies meeting last night ? I'd like to hear about the questions asked. Sacajawea Elementary saw a protest Wednesday and heartbroken parents and students spoke out. Fox13 reports that State Senator Javier Valdez and State Rep Gerry Pollet were in attendance. There was this claim made in the reporting: They (Seattle Schools) say they're working to build up their enrollment numbers, which would get them more money from the state. Wait, what? Since when and what exactly are they doing?  Sanislo Elementary in West Seattle is also on the closure list and they also had a protest at their school. Their board director, Gina Topp, showed up to listen. From the West Seattle Blog : The school has 145 students, according to district data, and is proposed to be merged into  Highland Park Elementary , with 276, for a combined population of 421. It was a diverse crowd – including an immigrant parent who said that

 Update Looking through the Seattle Times' article, I see a couple of things I didn't know about this case. The district’s athletic director also knew Jones was working as a coach despite not being approved to do so, the complaint stated. I'll have to look up who that athletic director was at that time and if he is still working for SPS. The settlement is the largest in the district’s history, a district spokesperson confirmed. And the SPS statement is just wan and pathetic:   “SPS remains committed to its preventative trainings and to strengthening its procedures to prevent incidents like this from occurring in the future,” the statement read. Well, I guess their "preventative trainings" need to do better. Also, they don't need to strengthen their procedures - they need to enforce them. I'd bet there were several people at Garfield who knew the one coach was NOT supposed to be there. And yet, he was allowed access to students.  Just shameful. end of updat

 From the Seattle Times: A teenage boy died after a shooting in Seattle’s Central District on Monday night, according to Seattle police. Officers arrived at the intersection of 27th Avenue and East Spring Street shortly after 7:40 p.m. and found a male victim with gunshot wounds,  the Seattle Police Department said in an online blotter post . Police provided aid until Seattle Fire Department medics arrived, but the teenager died.  Police said it was not clear what led to the shooting, and they were unable to find a suspect. Police found   more than a dozen shell casings in the street , according to KIRO. The station also reported those in the area told police they heard a car speeding off.   Police ask anyone with information about the shooting to call the violent crimes tip line at 206-233-5000. Spring Street is just a couple of blocks north of Garfield.

 I just slogged through nearly three hours of a presentation around the next goals for Seattle Schools. The meeting was held on October 23rd.  I am very interested in parents' feedback on some of what was said. Agenda here. The featured speaker was the Executive Director of the Council of Great City Schools, Dr. Ray Hart. He and his staff went through very deep data on how different groups of students are doing in SPS. There were a couple of comparisons to other districts slides that included the entire state of Washington, Portland and San Francisco. While I kind of get why those were chosen, I would have liked to see a state that has great funding for K-12 and how they are doing vis a vis Seattle.  Topline Takeaways - I always feel that Superintendent Brent Jones truly cares about outcomes for all students. I also get that vibe from most of the senior staff. However, year after year, President Liza Rankin continues to want to drill down to support a certain group of students. I c

Update: I forgot to put in what I hadn't heard about the rebuild for Rainier Beach High School . It will not be finished in 2025; problems have pushed that date out to 2026. If they are working a whole other year on the project, I would expect costs to go higher and higher. end of update A public education advocate friend had told me that the minutes from all of BEX/BTA Capital Programs Oversight Committee meetings for 2024 were not available. Today I checked and happily, they are now there.  Committee meetings are held on the second Friday of the month from 8:30 am-10:30 am and their next meeting is November 8th at JSCEE. Members of the public may attend but not participate in the meeting.  Also happily, these are not the sadly underwritten minutes of the Board meetings. I miss actual detail in public minutes. I will say that there are places here where the words are few and that's usually like this: " The committee and staff discussed the challenges faced in each project