Program Placement Season is Open

The new Program Placement Proposal Form is ready and available online.

Any Program Placement Proposals must be submitted by October 31, 2008. So if you want to move a program, create a program, close a program, you have about five weeks to write up your proposal and submit it. This year's form includes a new question:
"Please describe the proposal/request and how it aligns with the District's Strategic Plan "Excellence for All," and with the recently completed reviews (e.g. Bilingual Review, Curriculum Audit, Special Education Review)."

Also, on this form, the academic achievement gap has been re-titled as the "education gap". I wonder if this is suppose to reflect a shift in the responsibility from the students to the teachers.

Comments

Denise Gonzalez-Walker said…
Thanks for posting this! Charlie, you have more experience with this than me--can you clarify the following:

Can anyone make a program placement proposal, or do you have to be tied directly to that program via your kid or role in the school?

Is this our best mechanism for pushing for change in the face of capacity issues in N/NE Seattle, since the community meetings felt oddly non-binding? The form says:

This process is to be used for requests that have an impact on one or more of the following: school
or District enrollment/capacity; the change in use or modification of a facility; the assignment plan;
transportation; labor relations; technology; or other issues that may have a District-wide impact.

Soo... and I'm being the devil's advocate here... could someone make a program placement request to co-house a new program at Summit? Could someone request that JSIS be changed to a multi-cluster draw? Do you even need these schools' support?--it says to consult with stakeholders, but that's about it.
9/26/08, 8:28 AM
Charlie Mas said…
Anyone can make a program placement proposal. Anyone.

You do not need to have any sort of direct connection with the program.

You could use it to propose the relocation of Summit K-12 or the colocation of a traditional program within the Jane Addams building.

You could use it to propose a change in the assignment policy for JSIS - or even to re-characterize it as an alternative school. Or to recharacterize TOPS as a neighborhood reference program.

Yes, the form asks how you have consulted with stakeholders, but it's not as if the District works to gain support from Special Education students, families, and teachers before moving those programs around, so stakeholder support must not be a necessary factor.
9/26/08, 7:36 PM
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