Debate the issues facing Seattle Public Schools, share your opinions, read the latest news. Organize and work for high quality public schools that educate all students to become passionate, lifelong learners.
Defense of the AAA in the Times
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
The Times today (1/28/09) ran a guest column by Gayle Johnson in defense of the African-American Academy.
Ok I'll bite there must be some reason why enrollment has dropped, why students are transferring out ( including my neighbors) for middle school & why adults outside of the district- may think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but families in the district want to send their kids elsewhere.
My neighbors complained about low expectations, both behaviorally and academic. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ html/localnews/ 2003855108_aaa22m.html
I'm surprised that there hasn't been any organized effort by SPS or MG-J to spin the closure of AAA or to offer tradeoffs to the friends of AAA in the community.
Both that group and the usually influential supporters of APP seem to be pretty much frozen out of the process this time.
If The New School moved into the AAA building instead of Van Asselt, there would be room for all of the AAA scholars to stay in the building and enroll in a higher performing K-8. It wouldn't have the Afro-centric curriculum, but it would be culturally competent.
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read). end of update Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board. To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up. But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting. In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance. - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Comments
there must be some reason why enrollment has dropped, why students are transferring out ( including my neighbors) for middle school & why adults outside of the district- may think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but families in the district want to send their kids elsewhere.
My neighbors complained about low expectations, both behaviorally and academic.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
html/localnews/
2003855108_aaa22m.html
Both that group and the usually influential supporters of APP seem to be pretty much frozen out of the process this time.