Final Board Vote on School Closure Plan

Today is the final Board vote on the school closure plan. Open questions in my mind include:

- Will any Board members propose amendments to the plan? Or will they just vote on the plan as it currently exists?

- If any amendments are proposed, will Sally propose to drop the Viewlands/Greenwood merger? The Viewlands community has been continuing strong advocacy work, with some solid facts about the effectiveness of that school in serving low-income and special needs students.

- Will any details finally be provided about what is happening to the programs at the John Marshall building? I don't see how the Board can vote to approve the plan without more details on that aspect.

- Will any more information about Mary Bass's alternative plan come out?

- Will the Board have a united or divided front at tonights meeting?

I probably won't be able to make the meeting tonight. If you attend, please post comments and let me know what happens.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The Superintendent has a full explanation for the absence of any specific suggestions about the relocation of the programs now at John Marshall.

You can read it here:
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/06consolidation/johnmarshallproposal.pdf

If the link isn't working, the document can be read from a link on the page with the Superintendent's proposal. The link is titled "John Marshall Proposal". They will make a full review of all the programs and propose their new locations in a prelimanary report on November 15 and in a final report on December 15.
7/26/06, 2:36 PM
Beth Bakeman said…
I understand the explanation, but it still seems problematic for me to have the Board vote on closing the John Marshall building with the hope that affected students will know where they will be reassigned by the end of the year.

And tonight at the Board meeting, Carla Santorno was even more vague about. She said they are trying to contract with the University of Washington and the University of Oregon (and then she said, "I think it is Oregon") to do the program evaluations necessary to decide where those programs should be placed. She said she hopes that review can be done by December, but clearly, if they haven't even established a program evaluation contract yet, that deadline is not firm.
7/26/06, 11:03 PM
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