West Seattle Working On Talks With District
This article appeared in the West Seattle Herald. It details how one neighborhood was trying to set up talks with the district about long-term planning for the district's properties in the area and Denny/Sealth. It didn't work out but there's disagreement on why. The district is planning one of its own facilitated discussions.
Comments
There you will see in multiple testimonies about the Denny - Sealth merger exactly what kind of discussion facilitator the SPS has been in the past.
Many of these SPS employees should not be trusted with words. Find out why in Mr. Delfino's testimony.
A Sealth grad and Sealth teacher of 22 years. He has a clue as to what is happening. A custodian testified. Several parents and students also testified. There were around 30+ supporters present.
I know the Coho/NOMS merger, now Salmon Bay, a K-8, went fairly smoothly.
Now SPS is trying to destroy the 4 - period day at WSHS.
Perhaps that will reduce motivation to attend WSHS.
This heavy handed non-transparent district certainly does a number of faculty motivation and parent involvement.
45,000 students and falling.
Wait until the MG-J mainstreaming of more special ed students collides with the Everyday Math pacing guide.
You said:
..."Is the existence of a review a reason to rail against a group of students? or to foment resentment against them?"
Where do you see any evidence of that?
Here is what I've said in the past on this subject.
I worked at Komachin Middle School which had huge amounts of mainstreaming incredibly well done.
I am enthusiastic about what was accomplished at Komachin.
I see little if any evidence of the SPS being able to do such planning to bring about great results.
The current district mandated following of the Everyday Math pacing guide does a tremendous disservice to most children.
I see the lack of planning in this EM practice as evidence that the planning for Mainstreaming will be inadequate as so much of the planning in this district has been inadequate in the past on a large variety of diverse issues.
I find it interesting that this district hires consultants to determine what needs to be done to restructure so that learning can be improved, while still ignoring policies D43, D44, D45 which could have a huge impact on student learning.
Could you be more specific about the fear-mongering that you see.
Can you please provide me with specific examples that will make me more confident that the SPS can improve a situation rather than just change it.
You said: The district simply did a review.
MG-J made specific comments about mainstreaming in her 90 minute public TV presentation prior to the hiring decision.
The district review confirmed what she said in that 90 minute interview. [this is hardly a surprise]
Given the largely non-transparent nature of what takes place in this often autocratic oligarchy, I have difficulty with the statement "simply did a review".
Check the Seattle Education Association's opposition to the $750,000 McKinsey consultants.
This has a lot to do with denying the SPS the opportunity to stack the deck. Given the SPS track record do you blame the SEA for their opposition to deck stacking?
You said:"The district has made no mention of what it will actually do to address the review.
So with the rampant lack of transparency ..... we could be looking at a quick introductory item ... action item.. Slam Dunk
I see no evidence that I am railing against a particular group of students. I can certainly assure you that raising three sons with learning disabilities and given my teaching record there is zero evidence there to support your contention. Perhaps you read something here to indicate otherwise.
Far to often in this medium the anonymous poster- simply attacks the people who disagree with their position rather than fully discussing the position.
So what leads you to believe the SPS can improve the situation?
Do not many parents of the special education students that you find inappropriately placed have the right to request that their child be placed in a mainstream setting?
I am offended that you say I am railing against a group of students.
The District has figured out that by changing the ratio of special ed students per sped teacher, they can hire less special ed teachers. The general ed teachers are not trained to teach special education students, and the fairty tale that there will be "training" is a joke. The Districts idea of training is to have 100 - 200 people in a room and feed them statistics and data. It will be decades before general ed teachers have the needed training to have 13% of their classes with sped students. Many sped students don't just have trouble learning, they also have developed interesting behaviors because their various disabilities. It is a very complex process that is not going to get fixed by simply "mainstreaming."