Open Thread
Any burning issues?
I just heard yesterday that the district has told schools they need to schedule another tour after Mid-Winter break (either the last week of Feb or the first week of March). Check with any schools that you are considering but haven't made it to yet.
I just heard yesterday that the district has told schools they need to schedule another tour after Mid-Winter break (either the last week of Feb or the first week of March). Check with any schools that you are considering but haven't made it to yet.
Comments
It's a whole school event and our classrooms will be open, you can talk with parents, teachers and staff and you can even make like a mountain goat on our climbing wall in the gym.... we think the queue for a turn will be long!
We'll be serving food and drinks, which we do at most of our meetings and community events...
www.as1web/com
As of now the only thing we know for sure is who the principal's will be. And we know that it will offer some type of advanced learning (Spectrum or ALO or ?), some type of foreign language (??), and art (??).
We know nothing else.
We don't know how large the school will be. We don't know if it will be a mushroom or a chimney k-8. We don't know if it will start out as a k-2 or k-5 and grow, or if it will start out as a k-8. We don't know what, if any, electives it will offer. What sports it will offer. What type of Advanced learning or languages it will offer. We don't know if it will offer 3 years of science like Eckstein or 2 like Salmon Bay. We don't know if it will offer advanced math up to int III like Eckstein or advanced math up to INT I like Salmon Bay. We don't know if it will have a strong band program. We don't know if it will offer drama. We don't know what type of art focus it will have.
We know nothing about this school, and yet open enrollment beings in two weeks. Is the district really expecting families to choose this school blindly? Do they think families will leave Bryant and Wedgewood and View Ridge and Laurelhurst and Eckstein for an unknown question mark of a school? Does the district even care? Maybe they don't. Maybe they are just planning for the k-8 to be the over flow school...a dumping ground or sorts?
I am thoroughly dissapointed in how this has all been handled. I was excited, and would have definately considered giving this new school a try (we live two blocks away), but I can't. How could I? How could I choose a school that I know nothing about? How could I send my child to a school I can't tour? A school whose principal I haven't met? A school whose teachers have not even been hired yet? Whose programs and offerings have not been set?
The sad part about all of this is the District had an opportunity to add a fantastic school to the north end. One that would be highly sought after and popular. One that would relieve some of the over crowding. I fear that this will not happen now. Of course, I hope I am wrong.............
Adhoc
Especially at the high school level, this proposed change to neighborhood schools is going to impact A LOT of people, yet I have not heard anything concrete. Anyone have information on that?
I assumed since Jane Addams k-8 is not an alternative school it would be a neighborhood reference school thus allowing mandatory assignment, but I have heard Harium say it will be an all cluster draw with all cluster tranportation, so I am not sure, and am a bit confused?
Broadview Thompson has a reference area (for the elementary at least) and kids can be assigned there.
My understanding from the board resolution is that the new K-8 will be a reference area school for the entire NE clusters. Anyone can be assigned there and they have already said that it will be the default assignment for Summit kids in those clusters. That was one of their arguments for making it a traditional school since you cannot give students mandatory assignment to an alternative school.
Basically they are saying we can and will send you there whether you like or not.
I think the mandatory assignment that might catch people by surprise in the NE is Olympic Hills.
A small number of k-5 and 6-8 grade students will be assigned to the Jane Addams building initially. In addition, students with autism currently attending Summit at the Jane Addams building will remain in the building and become and become part of the new Jane Addams school. This provides a future opportunity for creating a continuum of services for students with autism in this part of the district.
Additional students will be assigned to Jane Addams through the normal student assignment process, which will begin on March 2, 2009. The program will be a K-8 cluster draw.
Yes, Open Enrollment begins in two weeks, but it doesn't close until six weeks from now. So there is really five or six weeks to get those questions answered.
As to the decisions, I guess the options were
A) take time for the representative Design Team and the community to discuss and consider the choices and make them in mid-March
or
B) have these decisions dictated this week from some nameless, faceless, unaccountable person or persons within the District bureaucracy without the benefit of discussion by the Design Team and the community.
All things considered, I'll take A.
"Autism Continuum" is directly in opposition to "Integrated Service Delivery". So, which is it?
At 3:30 PM on Wed 2-11-2009
I find on the SPS website for agenda.....
Chief Academic Officer's Update
math Update - presentation
bilingual update - presentation
Except when I click on the links for presentation I get:
NO presentation - Thank You placeholder ...
C.O.O update has actual presentations available.
Thanks D. Kennedy
As for the C.A.O. again a big No Thanks for No Presentation.
If one planned to give a thoughtful response to the presentation, it is pretty difficult when the presentation is not there.
Is this a website problem or a C.A.O. problem?
I mean NO math that is hardly unusual but this time it is NO bilingual either.
Elementary: 9:30 AM start
Middle and High School: 8:15 AM start.
That had better be a mistake.
What time is the release then - 3:40?
Option C - Open the new K-8 in the fall of 2010/11.
This would give Summit time to move out.
It would allow the design team to carefully plan the school instead of rushing through it hastily.
It would allow time for community input.
It would allow families to tour the school before they had to sign up. They could get all of their questions answered (electives, sports, advanced math, etc)
It would give families an opportunity to meet the teachers and the principal.
It woluld allow the district ample time to market the new school, have a booth in the SPS school fair, get the info in the enrollment guide, and garner some buy in.
I know their is a capacity crisis, and I don't know if plan C is actually feasable. But plan A and B both stink, although Charlie is right, A stinks a bit less.
Option C - Open the new K-8 in the fall of 2010/11.
This would give Summit time to move out.
It would allow the design team to carefully plan the school instead of rushing through it hastily.
It would allow time for community input.
It would allow families to tour the school before they had to sign up. They could get all of their questions answered (electives, sports, advanced math, etc)
It would give families an opportunity to meet the teachers and the principal.
It woluld allow the district ample time to market the new school, have a booth in the SPS school fair, get the info in the enrollment guide, and garner some buy in.
I know their is a capacity crisis, and I don't know if plan C is actually feasable. But plan A and B both stink, although Charlie is right, plan A stinks a bit less.
And, there might even be an option D!
Option D - The new school could open this fall as a K/1 since this is where the major capacity crunch is in the NE. K/1 grades do not require as much planning (no electives, or language, or sports, or advanced math, to work out) Then, the school could grow to a k/8 the following year after the design teams had adequate time to do proper planning, community engagement, get teachers hired, etc.
Just a few thoughts. I hate to complain without offering what I think would be a better solution. So there's my 2 cents.
The Summit conversion for the 09/10 school year was so that the district didn't need to spend the millions of dollars on extra portables. So that is why this can't wait a year. If they wait a year, they have to buy the portables.
Now, the real question is that since they knew all of this back in Sept and then they voted on repurposing Jane Addams in October, why did they wait until Feb to make a design team.
Also, none of this excuses Summit's eviction. Moving them to save the cost of the portables, I can understand. Closing them when there is so much excess capacity all over the district was just inexcusable.
There might even be an option D!
Option D - The new school could open this fall as a K/1 or K/2since this is where the major capacity crunch is in the NE. K/1/2 grades do not require as much planning (no electives, or language, or sports, or advanced math, to work out) Then, the school could grow to a k/8 the following year after the design teams had adequate time to do proper planning, community engagement, get teachers hired, etc.
Just a few thoughts. I hate to complain without offering what I think would be a better solution. So there's my 2 cents.
Charlie points out that the Design Team will have some sort of plan in place before the close of open enrollment, but there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, and one would have to have a ludicrously optimistic view of human nature to expect the "design" to match up with the "school" which emerges in September.
I agree with adhoc: this is an important process. Rushing to put something, anything, in place, is foolish, because it nearly guarantees failure, or at least, half-assedness. I find the idea of starting up with K-1 classrooms only (and the existing resident autism classrooms) an intelligent idea.
The Basic Education Funding Task Force completed its work in December and two bills based on the work -- 1410 in the House and 5444 in the Senate were introduced.
The bills are great. If they get out of committee and pass both houses, it will mean a complete re-definition of "basic" education. The state will finally have to live up to it's obligation to fund REAL basic education. The bills include six periods for high school, preschool for low income kids, improved teacher compensation and a re-vamped, simplified school finance model. Needless to say -- this is BIG.
But the teacher's union (WEA) has come out against the bills since they include performance and skill-based teacher pay. The WEA wouldn't say this though -- instead they're comparing the bills to NCLB, complaining that the bills will turn public education into "charter schools", etc.
Compare what's said about the bills on the WEA to the League of Education Voters website. Then you'll know you should write your Legislator and tell him/her to support 1410/5444 (quick! If the bills don't get out of committee by Feb 25 they'll die this year).
The Legislators are scared witless about opposing the WEA, so we need LOTS of parents showing support for the bills.
I forgot about Olympic Hills, and don't have the numbers, but that would be another source of some capacity.
I am wondering if the plan for the new K-8 is to create a new alt school or for it to become Summit re-invented?
Debbie Nelson, though not officially an alt school principal is a very progressive minded principal and would be a great match as an elementary principal in an alt school. Hmmmm.
Chris Carter is leaving his post at an alt school (AAA) to become the MS principal at Addams.
The only two parent advisors on the design team are parents from two alt schools (TC and Summit)
The school will have an art focus, just like Summit did.
I don't necessarily have a problem with an alt school housed at Addams (other than the fact that Summit couldn't fill their building) but I think the district should be candid about their plans. If the plan is to re-invent Summit or house a new type of alt school then they should communicate that clearly to the community. So far all of the signs point in an alt direction.
I'm not at all sure that any problems are being solved here.
The only real advantage to SPS seems to be that students can now receive a mandatory assignment to Jane Addams. That might be convenient for SPS, but wielding that authority any more than is absolutely necessary is a recipe for continued disaster.
This seems like small potatoes. In some ways, it is. The program serves around a dozen kids each year, and in a district of over 40,000 kids, that's not a lot. As small as it is, though (and as rough as it can be for general ed parents and some of the general ed kids), it's impossible not to be amazed by the progress the kids make, whether or not they're ready for general ed at the end of the year.
I am concerned about 2 things. 1) the disbanding of what appears to be a very successful program, despite the fact it does not serve very many kids and 2) that there may be many other special education program changes being quietly made.
The TC rep that I spoke with is also a member of the NE Coalition. The NE Coalition was a group that formed to represent all NE cluster schools, including Laurelhurst, View Ridge, Bryant and Wedgewood. They voted unanimously to have her represent them on the Jane Adamms design team.
I know her personally and know that she has a broad perspective, and will be an excellent community representative for all schools.
The design team has their first meeting tonight.
My impression is that despite the blended K program being discontinued, the idea behind it...making room for both special needs and general ed students in the same classroom (vs. separating out special ed kids for most of the day) is what the district is trying to achieve...and not just in K anymore, but all grades.
I don't know about McGilvra, but in many schools, after an initial blended K class, special needs kids were reassigned to other schools for the next grades. Now (theoretically, because I'll believe it when I see it in practice) those same special needs kids can continue to rise up at the same school where they start. That's an improvement for the special needs population.
I'm sure some blog reader with a special needs child can add more details or corrections to my understanding.
I wonder what people's experiences have been with the process so far? At Washington Middle School, they've announced that the principal won't change and they've anounced the design team members, but that's about it. The cloud of fear, uncertainty and doubt lingers.
"Message from the School District:
The high school math adoption is nearing a conclusion. The Math Adoption Team is encouraging parent/child review of the proposed textbooks for high school that will be adopted for next year. The books are very different and will have a big impact on students' education as they reach high school.
The proposed new text books are available for viewing from 8:00AM to 7:00PM Monday through Friday at the second floor library of the Stanford Center until the 27th
of this month. Please stop by and have a look. Your input will be read and is an important part of the process."
and Fred Row, Interim Special Education Director/Consultant
Seattle Public Schools invites parents of children receiving special education services to attend a continuation of small group gatherings with Carla Santorno, Chief Academic Officer, and Fred Row, Interim Special Education Director/Consultant. The topic of the meetings will center around special education services for the 2009-2010 school year.
The meetings will be held at the John Stanford Center, 2445 Third Avenue South on the following dates and times:
February 24th 7:00 – 8:30 pm room 2010
February 25th 7:00 – 8:30 pm room 2750
March 10th 7:00 – 8:30 pm room 2010
March 11th 10:00 – 11:30 am room 2700
The meetings will be limited to 15 participants. Please RSVP to Pam Klopfer at 252-0054 or paklopfer@seattleschools.org.
Just some clarifications about Special Ed, the district has actually been very straightforward about disbanding the blended k programs.
Although the long term goal is to have integrated services for all grades and all schools, for the upcoming year they are focusing on risers (kindergarteners, current blended k children rising to 1st grade, as well as kids rising to middle and high school). They will be focusing on several schools in each cluster for this new integrated model.
Self contained "programs" are not going to change for those kids that truly need this model. The district is allowing blended k kids at McGilvra and Bryant to stay at their schools if they choose and transportation is provided by the parent if its out of cluster for the family. The kids at the Experimental Education Unit, which is another blended k in the district, will be transferring into their home cluster schools (since there is not a 1st grade offered at the EEU). I sure hope there is space at the "over capacity" schools for these kids that have been historically forced to go far and wide (often out of cluster) to be in an appropriate program.
Hopefully this clarifies some of the "program changes" being made in Special Ed. Also, there are some written communication pieces coming out to parents, principals, teachers, etc. There was a pretty comprehensive information sheet handed out this past Friday. More to come...
Transportation overview presented to School Board, February 11, 2009.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/08-09agendas/021109agenda/transportationpresentation.pdf
From page 8: Assumptions:
• All programs with middle school or older students will be considered as first tier programs when feasible.
• Due to school closures, some elementary programs such as APP may be moved to first tier bell time for maximum efficiency.
• Programs that draw from a large geographical area will have cluster-stop routing resulting in shorter ride times and fewer buses needed.
• Bell time differential is currently proposed at one hour-fifteen minutes with additional work needed to verify if a one hour or shorter
differential could be attained after cluster-stops and paired school splitting is accomplished.
• Proposed bell times are 8:00 and 9:15
• Bell time differential shorter than one hour-fifteen minutes will be considered for school year 2010-2011 after consensus has been gained that a shorter time is deemed appropriate.
From page 9: Schools to change to a proposed 8:00 bell time:
Aki Kurose, AS#1, Ballard, Broadview-Thomson, Cleveland, Denny, Eckstein, Franklin,
Garfield , Hamilton, Ingraham, Jane Addams K-8, Lowell, Madison, Madrona,
McClure, Mercer, Nathan Hale, Pathfinder, Rainier Beach, Roosevelt, Salmon Bay, Sealth @ Boren , Secondary BOC,
Thurgood Marshall, Washington, West Seattle HS, Whitman
It'll be late slips everyday... and all the letters the district wants to write me...
Ridiculous...
Are they completely mad? What an absurd idea.
Kindergarten kids at bus stops in the dark: How many little kids are left at bus stops without adult supervision? I don't think very many, but I could be wrong. Would Josh or Sahila leave their kindergartner at a bus stop alone at 8 AM?
Elementary school kids are supposed to get stops that do not require crossing an arterial, which leads to some serpentine routing. When my son was at Lowell, we could wave at the other group of kids 600 yards away, across the arterial waiting for the same bus. So walking to the bus in the dark - with an adult - should not be any more dangerous or onerous than it is now at 8AM.
Efficiency in traffic. My son got picked up at about 8:15AM and the bus was almost never late for school. However, I often volunteered at school starting at 9AM. If I left my house just ten minutes after the bus left, I invariably got caught in the Montlake Cut mess and was late. So given a choice of starting Lowell (where many kids would be crossing the cut on either I5 or Montlake) at 8AM or 9:15, it might make a lot more sense to start at 8AM.
The disappointment here is for the K8s, because many people tell me that a big advantage for them of the K8 is it avoids the middle schooler having to start school at 7:45AM. As noted in other threads, adolescents almost always have a biological clock that works against this. For some people I have talked to, this is one of their biggest reasons to choose a K8.
The kids would be waiting for their bus in the dark part of the year. It seems extremely dangerous to me.
He goes to bed at a reasonable hour for his age but has had sleep apnoeia for most of his 5.5 years and doesnt wake until around 8am, sometimes later... he sleeps late because he needs it, not because he's lazy or we cant get it together...
Nevertheless, all things being equal, I wouldn't stand in the dark with him at 7am on a winter's morning, waiting for the bus... I wouldn't do that on a summer morning either... and I wouldnt ask any child short of their teenage years to do this... and I have already written on several occasions about the biological fact that teenagers' brains dont really begin to function coherently/intellectually until around 11am, so its a waste of time and money to expect them to be at school and to learn anything effectively before that time...
This all is just for the convenience of the system and is a hangover from the agrarian-to-industrial society transformation, which surely is no longer relevant - we aren't out in the fields any longer, sowing, tending and reaping from dawn till dusk; we arent working in the cities and having to go home in summer to help with the harvest...
Such unenlightened thinking, making kids carry the burden of cost cutting measures... but what else is new?
If you are looking at academic outcomes for older students, 15 extra minutes isn't going to help (I didn't even hear about this K-8 eight am start - good luck with that.) I wrote to the Board about it and heard from Peter Maier about the Transportation department's presentation, can't go later, blah, blah.
So they aren't looking for the academic/safety outcomes from a later start for older students, it's just a money saver for 15 minutes for those students.
And our kids are currently on a 7:45 bus for Salmon Bay - I can't see my aspie ready for the bus by 7:00, I just can't!
Personally it would make more sense to me to have nieghborhood reference elementary schools start earlier, at say 8A. These kids generally walk to school or have a short bus ride, and wouldn't have to get up that early to make it to school by 8A.
The multi cluster and all city draw schools (elementary and k-8's) should start 9 or 915, as those students have longer bus rides and longer commutes. When my son went to Salmon Bay the start time was 915 but the bus picked him up at 815, so if the start time becomes 8A as the district is proposing the bus would pick up at 7A, and that is unreasonable.
For middle school and high school I would like to see a start time of 9 or 915A. This is when kids stay up later, and need a bit more sleep in the morning.
I wonder if Nathan Hale will be allowed to continue on the 830A late start time? I think HS's should be able to set their own start times as they mainly use Metro, so transportation costs really aren't a big factor.
I totally understand the sleep issue though - I've always wished I had a schedule that allowed me to let my kids sleep in until 8am. Kindergarten was brutal because they didn't have naps anymore to offset the early wake-up. I wonder if the new start times will bring back nap time for the little ones.
It will probably mean more kids needing school breakfast in the morning and a shift in lunch time to accommodate the earlier hours.
After-school care costs would also go up if kids are done at 2pm instead of 3pm. And many after-school programs rely on high school students.
I sure hope the district is taking all of this into account.
And, if it isnt already plain to people who have read any of my previous comments, my perspective comes from a space where people (children in this instance) come first and the system is designed to accommodate each individual's needs - physical, intellectual, social, cultural, spiritual, sexual etc...
I view the current model of 'civilisation' (including the education system) as being highly dysfunctional and toxic, where all living things are no more than units of economic production in service to a monolithic, power and profit-driven structure which is controlled by (comparatively) few individuals/groups...
The pyramid power and economic structure that operates virtually across the globe is inherently exploitative and ultimately unsustainable...
Those at the top (capstone) rely on, control and benefit from the efforts at the middle and the bottom... fear and insecurity force the middle to be forever striving towards reaching the top (which the top wont allow to happen) and the base has no hope of achieving any aspirations not directly related to survival...
And this structure is unstable because it relies on exploiting limited resources - one needs to co-erce, co-opt or convince/manipulate to ensure participation, which resources eventually run out or rebel.
The image/mataphor of the Egyptian pyramids and the pharaohs and the slaves who built those edifices is just as applicable and real today in the 21st Century as it was three thousand + years ago... which leads directly to the frightening realisation that we havent progressed/evolved very far as a species...
And I want more for my children than this sick model of life...and as our children begin to be socialised into that model in the school system, then logically change needs to happen in education...