Yesterday's School Board Meeting

Sounds like the speakers at last night's School Board meeting raised many of the same issues around school closures and the proposed TAF placement at Rainier Beach High School.

See the PI article, School Board continues to draw fire for details. The video of last night's meeting has not yet been posted to the Seattle Channel page.

I heard that Carla Santorno talked some about the TAF proposal at the meeting, and would love to hear from those of you who were at the meeting more about what she said, how she presented the information, and how it was received.

I assume the proposed student assignment plan agenda items were passed as described, since I haven't heard otherwise. Any interesting tidbits of information anyone gleaned during the discussion of student assignment?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I attended the board meeting and was there for Carla's CAO report which included an update on TAF at Rainier Beach.

She was very clear that this is still in the exploration phase and that Raj has signed a letter of intent, but it was expressly to explore the idea and not a memorandum of understanding, which would be the next step if things were to proceed.

She also said that the current proposal from TAF is significantly different from the one rejected by the school's BLT last ? spring? - but didn't elaborate.

Cheryl Chow said she was talking with all concerned and would continue to do so - and said a student asked if perhaps a TAF technology course/class could be the first step.

There was other board commentary about the need for community engagement.

Of course, none of the people who'd testified against it stayed for the business part of the meeting (nor did more than a few of the Phase I protestors) - so they didn't get to hear it.

I don't have any knowledge from either side of this so not much right to an opinion, except that it seems at least worth exploring.

And a somewhat cynical observation/question that will probably not go over well with readers: Has any change proposed for any Seattle school ever met with any community reaction other than fear and loathing?

Not a reason not to do good community engagement, but still...
11/3/06, 7:06 AM
Anonymous said…
Has any change proposed for any Seattle school ever met with any community reaction other than fear and loathing?

As an area resident for almost 50 years- I admit many closures don't get much press.
While the frustration of Magnolia and Queen Anne families re lack of a high school within a reasonable distance that they can expect their child to be assigned , has been noted in the papers and discussed at board meetings, as far as I can tell- has anything changed?

But since the perception is those neighborhoods are upper middle class and Caucasian, it isn't PC to be very sympathetic , is it?
11/3/06, 7:21 AM
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