Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Readers, sorry about the cutoff from the last post. I'm having issues with Blogger. 

  What have we got on the good side? From his weekly Superintendent's Newsletter, dated September 27th: - Yesterday, more than 60 high school students came to the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE) to spend their Saturday with me and other district leaders as part of this year's Student and Superintendent Advisory Board. I t was awesome. For an hour we discussed topics that were meaningful to our students. We talked about safety and security and the use and misuse of artificial intelligence, specifically large language models (LLMs) and generative AI. I heard students discuss their desire for more rigorous instruction, and I listened intently around the availability or lack of availability of programs and classes, as well as many other important topics. - I also want to talk about the "October Shuffle. " As many of you know and have experienced, the district has a history of moving teachers from one class to another in October to make up for enrol...

I am planning yet another post on technology, both for K-12 AND higher education. Here's a teaser headline: Columbia College Enforces First-Of-Its-Kind Technology Ban — Here's What We Know. I note this is Columbia College , not Columbia University. But wait, here's the other headline: Columbia bans devices in core classes as New York school moves to curb AI Yeah, that's  Columbia University . As laptops, phones, and artificial intelligence tools take up residence in classrooms, Columbia University is requiring students in its Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization courses to put devices away for the 2026-27 academic year. And yes, I am also going to write a separate post about the Nikole Hannah-Jones essay on how she let her daughter down by sending her to a nearly all-white school. This has ignited a firestorm of opinions about schooling and Black children.  National News Via The Guardian : As reading and math scores fall to their lowest point in the pas...

From KING-5 News last Wednesday: About 300 school bus drivers who transport Seattle Public Schools students have authorized a strike as contract negotiations with Zūm Services continue. Teamsters Local 174 , which represents the drivers, said Tuesday the dispute centers on retirement contributions and accuses Zūm of refusing to bargain in good faith.   No strike date has been announced. Zūm  is one of two companies that provide transportation services to SPS. If there is a strike, t he drivers are striking against  Zūm  but for all practical purposes, SPS students and families will feel it. The other company the district contracts with is First Student but  Zūm now covers a majority of routes. The union says the drivers are seeking retirement benefits required under Washington state law and argues that funding for those benefits is already provided through the state’s pupil transportation funding system.   House Bill 1248, which addresses pupil transportat...

Enrollment numbers are out for Washington State public schools as of September 2026. Overall, SPS has 47,196 students.  One interesting item in each chart is Male/Female/Non-Binary. I may have missed when that category was added. From SPS and here are some teased out data.  High Schools Ballard is at 1681; there's a significant drop off from freshman (452) to seniors (383). Cleveland STEM is at 889. It's still a weird thing to me that Cleveland has room and yet still has under 1,000 students. They also see a significant drop off from freshman (318) to seniors (138). And, there are many more boys (590) than girls (436). Franklin is at 902. They have an even spread from grade to grade. Garfield is at 1224. They have a fairly even spread from grade to grade. Lincoln is at a whopping 1732 (where do they fit all of them?) Their senior class is at 398 (the largest in the district) and yet the freshman class is at 494. Like Cleveland, they have more boys than girls (170 more boy...

From SPS Communications: Dear SPS Families and Staff,   Thank you to everyone who participated in the Superintendent Community Engagement Meetings during the 2025-26 school year. We are grateful to the students, families, staff, and community members who shared their experiences, perspectives, and ideas. Your thoughtful feedback helped shape important conversations across the district and continues to inform our work as we strive to better serve every student.  We’re excited to launch a new series of Community Engagement Meetings for the 2026-27 school year.   These meetings provide an opportunity for you to share feedback on the issues that matter most to our school communities.  Topics for discussion for our first meeting will include:  Academic Rigor  School Design (Neighborhood School, Option Schools, Dual Language, HC, etc.)  School Safety and Security  These topics were highlighted as priorities from last year. For each subsequent meeting, w...