Here's the agenda for tonight's Board meeting. I note that people can no longer sign up to speak at a Board meeting by phone. It is strictly by online sign-up. Not good. Public Testimony seems to cover two topics. Apparently, the Chinese program at West Seattle High School is in jeopardy and there are several speakers for that issue. The other issue is, of course, school closures. There are six people on the waitlist. Here's the latest from the Times which says that " Seattle Could Close about a quarter of its elementary schools." First, that would be a heck of a lot of schools (17) and two, only elementaries? My cynical side is that the district is throwing out a big number so they can "generously" only close 10-12. The article claims that the district is taking "$32M from its reserves" which is not true; they have no reserves. I think the reporter means capital reserves. I'll be tuning in with updates. 4:15 pm and has the 4:15
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It's not necessarily related, but there is the tragic story of the nine-year old autistic boy who was killed a couple of days ago crossing Highway 99. The sheriff is quoted in today's paper as saying they had been to the house numerous times, that the boy was evidently "hard to control"...One wonders what support there was for this child, and whether the closure of the Viewlands program helped or hindered the cause of autistic children generally. As I said, I respectfully acknowledge that I don't know the details of the recent tragedy, and respect that the family is grieving...I wouldn't want to make "political" hay over this, but only suggest that it might point an intrepid reported towards an important (for better or for worse) story about how children with these sorts of needs are supported by their schools.