Friday Open Thread
Good news from both the district and the Times,
Kasahun is the daughter of a single Ethiopian immigrant mother. She began attending 826 Seattle’s after-school programs more than 7 years ago and has been a regular at the Greenwood based nonprofit ever since.
She has served as a youth mentor at 826 Seattle and is a member of its youth advisory board. She is president of the Ballard High Black Student Union and is an active member of Teens Against Tobacco. She has been an editor at her school newspaper, the Ballard Talisman.
A BIG shout-out to 826 for their superlative work in working with youth.
Green helps teen parents get certified to work in a daycare, brought leadership opportunities to students, and more resources to her students.
What's on your mind?
- West Seattle Elementary has a brand-new library with new books, paint, carpetings and 10 iPads via a partnership between Target and the Heart of America Foundation. The projected cost was $200k. Mayor McGinn attended the ribbon-cutting. Motivational quotes are part of the new library: She pointed to new motivational quotes on the library's walls such as "Un libro es un amigo que nunca te dara la espalda" (Spanish for "A book is a friend that will never leave you") and "It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us" (from J.K. Rowling).
- Ballard High School student Meron Kasahu , along with 826 Executive Director, Teri Hein, were awarded the 2011 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from first lady Michelle Obama at the White House on November 2nd.
Kasahun is the daughter of a single Ethiopian immigrant mother. She began attending 826 Seattle’s after-school programs more than 7 years ago and has been a regular at the Greenwood based nonprofit ever since.
She has served as a youth mentor at 826 Seattle and is a member of its youth advisory board. She is president of the Ballard High Black Student Union and is an active member of Teens Against Tobacco. She has been an editor at her school newspaper, the Ballard Talisman.
A BIG shout-out to 826 for their superlative work in working with youth.
- Yet another SPS teacher has been honored with a Teacher of the Year Award. This time it is Michelle Green, a teacher at South Lake High School, who received the 2011 Nancy Johnson New Teacher of the Year award from the Washington Family and Consumer Sciences. She now goes on to compete at the state level.
Green helps teen parents get certified to work in a daycare, brought leadership opportunities to students, and more resources to her students.
What's on your mind?
Comments
Today I am pleased to announce the appointment of Bruce Rhodes as Assistant Principal at John Stanford International School.
Mr. Rhodes joins us from the Edmonds School District where he served as the English Language Learner (ELL) Coordinator. An educator for more than 20 years, Mr. Rhodes has considerable experience providing comprehensive support to students, families and staff. Mr. Rhodes brings expertise in the areas of ELL, counseling, and professional development of teachers.
Mr. Rhodes has his Masters in Counselor Education from Westminster College and his Professional Certification in Educational Leadership from Seattle Pacific University. A classroom teacher and counselor for 17 years, he has worked in a variety of school settings and he has considerable experience working with and meeting the needs of diverse student populations.
Understanding that exceptional instructional leadership provides the cornerstone for student academic achievement, I want to do everything I can to build upon the solid foundation from which our school and students can continue to grow and thrive. I believe that Mr. Rhodes will compliment this foundation very well.
Please join me in welcoming Mr. Rhodes to the John Stanford International School community. I know he will be a positive addition to our learning community!
-JSIS mama
NOW is the time to let your elected state representatives know where you stand on funding cuts and revenue to fund basic education.
But not in the way you would hope.
No more finals or mid-terms
Here's the status report Melissa discussed in a previous thread. Sharon also referred to it while campaigning against Peter.
Not sure how many are interested in reading it yourselves, but now you can. The next A&F committee meeting that might discuss this is Thursday November 10th.
I wonder if this study will change that. ( although SPS doesn't use IQ tests anyway- do they?)
Dyslexia not tied to IQ
What does the substitute teacher pool look like in the SPS? Does it have adequate numbers of substitute teachers?
The reason I ask is because of :
WAC 181-79A-231 (4) on Emergency Substitute Teachers.
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(4) Emergency Substitute Certification.
(a) If the district or approved private school has exhausted or reasonably anticipates it will exhaust its list of qualified substitutes who are willing to serve as substitutes, the superintendent of public instruction may issue emergency substitute certificates to persons not fully qualified under subsection (2) of this section for use in a particular school district or approved private school once the list of otherwise qualified substitutes has been exhausted.
(b) Such emergency substitute certificates shall be valid for three years or less, as evidenced by the expiration date which is printed on the certificate.
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So is the Seattle situation bad enough that Emergency Substitute Teachers are needed?
Susan A Enfield as of Nov. 1, 2011 had still not requested the Conditional certs for three TFA corps members authorized by the Board on (9-21) and (10-5) but she has those same three still teaching on "Emergency Substitute Certificates"....
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Note the Reason Given in section B of the ...
District Request for Emergency Substitute Certificate on the next to last page HERE. =>
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Section B
Ms. Robinette has been selected to teach in the Seattle School District and is a Teach for America candidate. Her conditional certificate will be approved by the Seattle School Board and she will receive her certificate once processed by OSPI. To ensure that she will be eligible to teach, Emergency Substitute Certificate is requested.
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Signed by Enfield on 8-12-11
Emergency Sub certificate issued 9-23-11
Board Authorized SAE to request conditional cert on 9-21-11
as of 11-1-2011 Dr. Enfield had not yet requested a conditional cert from OSPI.
Emergency Sub is limited to 30 days of consecutive service in one assignment.
Maggie, whoever is your Board rep, invite him or her to check out your route. Explain what you have done so far and your worry that this is what it will be like the entire year. Let us know if he or she says yes (or what they think can be done).
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1732b21b28ee34447047f9aa12dd08c5.b31
I've watched Asian kids being treated as invisible at McClure.
I'm curious what the district is doing about this specifically, if anything.
Anyone?
-JC.
"It was a different story when I returned to San Diego in 2010. The leadership of the district—both the school board and the superintendent—was working harmoniously with the teachers' union. All had coalesced around an approach they called "community-based school reform," where the central themes were collaboration and mutual respect. Instead of behaving as adversaries, the leaders, teachers, and parents joined to decide what should happen to improve education in every community.
Adhering to this model, the district leadership refused to apply for Race to the Top funding. It rejected the U.S. Department of Education's demands for competition and accountability, preferring to implement its own community-based, collaborative vision of school reform.
The district is now led by a dynamic school board chairman, Richard Barrera, and a low-key superintendent, Bill Kowba. Barrera has a background as a community organizer in the labor movement, and Kowba is a retired rear admiral with 30 years in the Navy and administrative experience in the San Diego public schools. Together, they are passionate and effective advocates for the San Diego public schools." (link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/11/will_san_diegos_public_schools.html)
Me again: Dynamic school board, low-key superintendent: that sounds right to me. Also interesting they decided to opt out of RttT, since as the rest of the post points out how financially strapped their district is. I don't know much about the situation in San Diego. Anybody reading here have a take on how things are going down there?
In any event, I am convinced that this community-based approach adapted to Seattle realities is the way to go if we are serious about restoring stability and good order to Seattle Schools. No solution is perfect, but top-heavy solutions are inherently unstable, and I believe that sooner or later we will go to a more bottom-up form of organization and accountability, but I fear that it will be later rather than sooner if we don't have a change in leadership starting next year. Let's hope we won't have to learn the hard way as San Diego had to.
-Brian M. Rosenthal
Education reporter, The Seattle Times
www.twitter.com/brianmrosenthal
(just FYI - they are not allowed to use internet at office for anything other than work stuff (even reading work related news is off limits), so those who were tracking blog comments on transportation issues here can't anymore.)
Not Voting Incumbent
at the Seattle Times
WV: "worse" - for real.
Voters should go with Peter Maier, Sherry Carr, Harium Martin-Morris and Steve Sundquist, incumbents with experience and professionalism.
This is the best way to ensure stable and consistent leadership rather than return to activist politics voters swept out four years ago.
Written by Sen Rosemary McAuliffe and UW Prof. Ed Lazowska.
While much of the article is OK .....
Here is an example of pure HYPE---
"Toppenish High School is a great example of this success. It is growing in popularity and improving test scores. Enrollment increased 400 percent in pre-calculus and 61 percent in trigonometry class over the past three years, both classes necessary for STEM careers."
As far as Math goes this is 100% pure nonsense.
I do not believe that placing students into courses with nice titles = learning.
There is NO Evidence of improved math test scores at Toppenish high school or in the School District for high school students.
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10 grade WASL and HSPE scores were declining:
YEAR ---------SCHOOL --- District --- STATE
2006-07 WASL -- 38.5% -- 34.8% -- 50.4%
2007-08 WASL -- 27.9% -- 25.7% -- 49.6%
2008-09 WASL -- 24.3% -- 22.1% -- 45.4%
2009-10 HSPE --- 19.0% -- 14.0% -- 41.7%
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There were a total of 171 students in the District that took algebra I and the EoC in 2010-2011
Here are the results:
level 4 - 0.0%
level 3 - 8.8%
level 2 - 25.7%
level 1 - 63.7%
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It is appalling the amount of selling that is being done .... for STEM. When results are poor why lie about them?
The testimony by Cleveland's Principal at the most recent board meeting concerning a waiver from the 150 hr/credit requirement neglected to mention test score changes from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011 the first year of Cleveland STEM.... which were unimpressive and an absolute disaster for Black students.
Is the public ever entitled to the truth?
which schools the TFA recruits have
gone to?.
The actually distressing thing one of the us drivers does, however, is leave two kindergarten students in the care of whatever parent (not theirs) is present when the bus shows up if their care provider isn't available. I am not going to leave five-year-olds to fend for themselves, obviously, but that bus driver doesn't know me or my child care provider, and neither of us know those kids.
SPS for dyslexia uses that gap between student ability (not quite an IQ test- measures more than this) and academic progress. My son was finally diagnosed in 2nd grade. At which point we had already hooked up with a private tutor who used the letter, sound, picture method. It took a year, but he learned how to read and now he no longer has an IEP for reading. I wish more elementary schools used the method because it helps students also learn how to spell.
"I think the Times should come out with a special ALL School Board incumbent Sunday Edition! That's far more efficient than the daily smattering of pro-ed reform BS they print all week long."
No kidding.
- D's mom
"The actually distressing thing one of the us drivers does, however, is leave two kindergarten students in the care of whatever parent (not theirs) is present when the bus shows up if their care provider isn't available."
Is that even legal?! People who volunteer in schools and are left alone with children without a certified teacher present are required to be background-checked. Why on earth would it be okay to leave a five-year-old with whatever adult happens to be standing around at the bus stop? This should be reported and stopped. I understand the driver's need to continue on their route, etc, and don't really blame them (hey, parents are all caring people, right: It must be okay to leave kids with them!) but this seems wrong. But what do I know,I don't know the rules and regs of this.
another mom
--where are the parents?
A child can say that they are not comfortable getting off the bus if they see that no one is there to meet them. The driver is supposed to continue on the route then return the "undeliverable" student to his original school or make another attempt to drop him at his stop after finishing the route. When this happens on a first or second tier route, it makes the bus late for subsequent routes (this has happened on our bus a few times and explains why one day last year, our bus was 2 hours late!)
I do think this policy was reasonable under the old plan where stops were only a block or two from your home. But now that some kids are assigned up to 1 mile from their home and need to cross arterials, I do wonder if it's time to reconsider allowing young children to be left at stops without someone to meet them. At least with community stops, there will usually be other adults there who would be willing to wait with a child for a parent to arrive. A parent at our stop put together a contact list, which is a great idea to help all of us look out for one another's kids.
The operative word here is usually. I guess most of the posters on this topic live in the areas of the city where the majority speaks English.
I agree that a responsible parent would make sure they were there to meet their youngster's (<8) bus, but Seattle traffic, and life in general, often undoes the best-laid plans. If the only adult at the stop is someone who does not speak the language of the child left-off without a parent, life could be very difficult for both. And really, this could happen anywhere in the city, but would be most likely in the southend (on either side of I-5).
I agree, this was a better policy when kids were dropped off very close to home—not so much now.
SolvayGirl
-parent
Not a lot of sympathy in the comments. The mom who thinks making her kid stand outside for 15min is "inhumane" isn't helping the cause...
So far, I've heard back from Nancy Coogan. <36hrs and email sent @6:36am! She's forwarding on to Tom Bishop.
I'll never forget the teacher who told my younger son and his classmates to tell their parents to quit e-mailing her about grades when the answer is right in her own computer. Use the Source and we'll stop e-mailing.
Cornel West & Chris Hedges
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5997
-parent
homeschool supporter
DeBell acknowledges need for alternative pathways for success. Maier doesn't. Maier supports one size fits all model. One more reason to vote Maier out.
-parent
However,
this rarely works. The principal has more vested in making sure all the points are covered than getting to basis of your appeal (this is my experience based on two times).
I was not allowed to take my son's final exam out of the building to take to the hospital to show my husband. Not even for 2 hours with a promise not to copy it or show it to anyone. It was pretty pathetic.
You should ask your principal about this but don't expect a lot in the way of understanding or help. (The idea is that you would have intervened sooner.)
parent