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
Comments
Maria Goodloe-Johnson is gone now, but a few SPS board directors remain who approved the fiasco and allowed it to happen. They should also step down. There has to be accountability.
The closure of Cooper means we now have to find Schmitz Park a $$$$ new home. The real tragedy tough was what it did to the Cooper kids.
Based on that one move alone, I STILL smile that Sundquist lost. He did nothing for our community on capacity issues.
DistrictWatcher
PS: My friend is reminding me that perhaps there is a parent from Olympic View out there. They closed that school, threw out the wonderful autism inclusion program, had the building stripped down by vandals and now voila: we just reopened it at a cost of millions and millions of unnecessary dollars. Thank you Goodloe-Johnson!
Do the education elites (Alliance, LEV) really not GET the depth of taxpayer anger and the power of appearances?
This "ask" needs to be double squeaky clean. Maier right now is a misstep. So is the SLU school, although I am still hoping it will be dropped.
-skeptical-
Olympic View
Cooper
Lowell APP (it was the closure of TTM that resulted in the APP split, the cohousing with an attendance school, and the resulting loss of any school building at all for the SNAPP program)
NOVA
Summit K12?
Another group, slightly harder to tease out, are families aat schools that will NOT be fixed, rebuilt, etc. during BEX IV because the money they should have gotten will go to fixing the closure problem. This is real damage, to real families, but harder to quantify because while some schools pretty legitimately might have thought they would be included, there was no "firm" list-- and thus, no clear delineation of who bears the brunt of the governance/management folly that surrounded the 2009 closures.
Seattle Public Schools needs to tighten money controls
"If Seattle Public Schools wants voters to approve $1 billion for construction and operations, it must learn to keep better track of the money it has...." and it goes on to focus mainly on the Van Asselt situation.
Seattle Public Schools needs to tighten money controls
"If Seattle Public Schools wants voters to approve $1 billion for construction and operations, it must learn to keep better track of the money it has...." and it goes on to focus mainly on the Van Asselt situation.
PS mom
I don't agree with this sentence either, because
1. There was the split first and then next year they closed the TT Minor (that is how Mr King, from TT MInor, could be the principal at Lowell)
2. Lowell APP would have needed to move out from the Capitol Hill building anyway. Last year or this year the latest, looking at the enrollment numbers.
- LL
The split and closures were voted on in January (or thereabouts) and put in place the Fall of that year.
If all of APP remained at Lowell (too far away for some families), would the enrollment have increased as much as it has these past two years??
who knows
You might be thinking of Rainier view.
open ears