Seattle Schools This Week
Tuesday, April 10th
Director McLaren Community meeting at Delridge Library from 1:15-3:15 p.m.
Audit&Finance Committee Meeting (audit) from 4-6 p.m. Agenda includes
Eckstein's meeting seem to focus more on capacity issues especially Lowell at Lincoln. Denny's meeting seemed to focus on issues around Arbor Heights/Roxhill. I was a little surprised as I didn't see as many parents from Alki, Lafayette or Schmitz Park as I thought might come out. It will be interesting to see the focus from the communities in the Mercer area.
Wednesday, April 11th
Executive Committee meeting from 8-11 am. This is a three-hour(!) meeting so clearly, there's alot to cover. Agenda includes:
Board Work Session on the Budget from 4-6:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 12th
Audit&Finance Committee Meeting (finance) from 4-6 p.m. Agenda:
The Board will be busy all day going over superintendent finalists' resumes with HYA, the consulting firm hired to manage this effort.
Opening of the Naramore 2012 Middle and High School Art Show
Seattle Art Museum from 6-7 p.m.
The exhibition of more than 200 artworks will be on display April 13 to May 27 at the downtown art museum. About 150 students from Seattle Public Schools will participate in this year’s Naramore exhibition. Various media and techniques – including ceramics, pencil, oil and acrylic painting, collage, and photography – will be on display.
The evening’s opening night ceremony will feature SAM’s Teen Night Out which will include live music, art tours, open mic, free admission and a showing of Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise. For more info, Kyle Minaglia, 252-0050 or kfminaglia@seattleschools.org
Director McLaren Community meeting at Delridge Library from 1:15-3:15 p.m.
Audit&Finance Committee Meeting (audit) from 4-6 p.m. Agenda includes
- MLK FAME covenant compliance update where we find out if FAME is honoring its agreement with SPS,
- a 2010-2011 Financial, Federal and Accountability audit update (not sure what this is),
- ALE policy update
- a "special attention" item from Director Carr called "A&F operating rhythm."
Eckstein's meeting seem to focus more on capacity issues especially Lowell at Lincoln. Denny's meeting seemed to focus on issues around Arbor Heights/Roxhill. I was a little surprised as I didn't see as many parents from Alki, Lafayette or Schmitz Park as I thought might come out. It will be interesting to see the focus from the communities in the Mercer area.
Wednesday, April 11th
Executive Committee meeting from 8-11 am. This is a three-hour(!) meeting so clearly, there's alot to cover. Agenda includes:
- review of agendas for pending Board meetings,
- BEX IV community engagement,
- discussion of the MOUs with Seattle University and Alliance for Education,
- start times for Board meetings,
- international education work session discussion,
- superintendent search update including the community focus group and school tours for the finalists.
Board Work Session on the Budget from 4-6:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 12th
Audit&Finance Committee Meeting (finance) from 4-6 p.m. Agenda:
- legislative update,
- preliminary general fund projected ending balance,
- potential RIFs
- "annual fixed asset report." Definition of a Fixed Asset:
It retains original shape and appearance with use.
It has a life expectancy of over two years.
It most often represents an investment of $2-5k or more. This includes land, buildings,building improvements, and furniture, fixtures and equipment. - There is also a follow-up item on International education funding which I have been meaning to write a thread about since it has been under discussion. This might be the week to do it.
The Board will be busy all day going over superintendent finalists' resumes with HYA, the consulting firm hired to manage this effort.
Opening of the Naramore 2012 Middle and High School Art Show
Seattle Art Museum from 6-7 p.m.
The exhibition of more than 200 artworks will be on display April 13 to May 27 at the downtown art museum. About 150 students from Seattle Public Schools will participate in this year’s Naramore exhibition. Various media and techniques – including ceramics, pencil, oil and acrylic painting, collage, and photography – will be on display.
The evening’s opening night ceremony will feature SAM’s Teen Night Out which will include live music, art tours, open mic, free admission and a showing of Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise. For more info, Kyle Minaglia, 252-0050 or kfminaglia@seattleschools.org
Comments
My worry is they will take it off the list and then magically, after they get the levy passed, it will appear again. It's possible but they would have to be willing to abandon some other school's project.
And really, has anyone really seen a single piece of evidence pointing to the big rich business interests - supposedly "driving" this? Anybody can blame things on "the rich boogey men", but proving it seems a lot harder.
Besides, the city planners have been steering Seattle into high density neighborhood planning for a long time and encouraging people to move downtown. There's lots of good reasons for it. But, if that happens, schools need to be available in the places where they live.
-parent
parent - there are a huge number of school buildings in our district right now in serious need of maintenance, and we have overcrowding everywhere. It is the worst in the north and west parts of town. No one doubts that Hays may have its problems, but there are a lot of other schools ahead of it in line.
- wish we had a real school board leader, sigh
Parent, I have gone through months' worth of Planning Commission and DPD info. There is no evidence of a sudden baby boom in the neo-Seattle Commons. Frankly, how many +3-bedroom units do you think they're planning to build?
District officials HAVE said they have a BFF relationship (not so many words, but you get the meaning) with "city planners...Mayors Office...developers in the South Lake Union area. Last I checked there were no mom and pop developers there (they were mowed down by the Vulcan warship).
While it's true that John Hay is overcrowded, the new Queen Anne Elementary is not. Nor is Lowell in Capitol Hill. And then there's TT Minor, which the district still owns. Any of these could serve downtown or SLU kids.
Meanwhile there are nearly 500 actual (not hypothetical) elementary kids in limbo in Lincoln High School with no permanent building allocated to them.
And there are many other existing schools in the district where $32 million could be better spent.
Hard to believe that only 3 short years ago, such visionaries as Goodloe-Johnson and her willing rubber-stampers DeBell, Carr, Chow, Sundquist and Maier voted to close schools.
Seattle Public Schools hosts meeting to discuss environmental impact of potential Building Excellence IV (BEX IV) projects
Seattle Public Schools will hold a public meeting on Wednesday, April 11, to discuss the Environmental Impact Statement process now being conducted for the Building Excellence Program, Phase IV.
Date: Wednesday, April 11
Time: 7-8 p.m.
Place: John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence, 2445 3rd Ave. S., Seattle 98124.
Seems like short notice.
- North End Mom
Hindsight is 20-20. Same conclusion to close schools was drawn by the esteemed "committee for excellence in education spending"... or whatever that big committee was... and by Raj Manhas, and plenty of others. No need to blame it all on the last one holding the bag. Even, if they were wrong in the end.
observer
Hundreds of us in the community saw very clearly then and there in 2008, right when Goodloe-Johnson proposed her damaging and expensive "Capacity Management Plan," that closing and splitting apart schools was a costly, avoidable mistake.
In fact, those of us in ESP Vision created a petition opposing the closures which garnered over 1,750 signatures district-wide.
We marched and rallied in protest, leading the TV news that night.
We protested at the school board meeting on Jan. 29, 2009 when our hapless board majority voted to close the schools anyway.
Then, just eight months later, in the fall of 2009, Supt. Goodloe-Johnson and co. announced they would need to re-open schools after all, at a cost of $48 million or so.
Hundreds of ordinary parents had the foresight to know that the proposed closures were a bad idea.
Our school board did not, and they chose to ignore us. Their judgment was seriously flawed in 2009, and if the same characters are supporting more costly schemes like the SLU school, then we all have a legitimate claim to skepticism.