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BEX Work Session Today.
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Off to the BEX Work Session. Here's the presentation. Will Tweet if anything urgently good comes up.
At least the section about the new downtown school (presumably the one in S. Lake Union) is a bit more pessimistic. From slide 17:
Downtown School • Construct new 500 seat K-5 • City and District forecasts of school population growth in the area are not fully validated at the present time • Potential constraints: Site is not identified; development constraints unknown
Anonymous said…
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Anonymous said…
Unofficial playground feedback from a couple of NE parents with kids affected by current crowding: Not voting for levy (yes, fully aware of cutting off nose to spite face, if you will) if South Lake Union school remains on proposal in lieu of other necessary fixes. They said they are generally peeved with the district's money management, even if BEX will positively help their own kids.
I find this unexpected and perhaps a small subset of total Seattle voters. But a perspective to be considered.
EdVoter
Anonymous said…
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Sherry and Kay pushed back heavily on downtown school. I believe it is weakening. More on this later.
The Advanced Learning Taskforce has not come out with its recommendation (probably end of month) so no news there.
I think anyone can take any principled stand on why they do or do not vote for a school levy or bond. But a good time to take that stand is early and loudly so the district and Board positions the BEX for the best possible outcome at the ballot box
This is no shoo-in and they would be wise to consider that.
I hear that there will be 16 riffed counselors. Ridiculous to say the least. Again attacking the least of these that need help in our student population.
Rif Harman and company. No one would miss their lazy book keeping ways.
Anonymous said…
Oops, you deleted my comment. My sign off was "I vote no"
I vote no
Anonymous said…
Yeah, but you fail to mention Kay's assertion that "build a condo international school downtown and those downtown workers will bring their kids. We'll claw them back."
Where is the data to support this assertion? Was it another business owner or two who said, yeah sounds okay.
There are oftentimes handouts at the meetings that are not posted on the SPS website. You may need to make www.scribd.com a trusted site in your web browser to allow downloads. If you have better luck with google docs, I can do that and post a link...
Anonymous said…
Thanks for posting the timeline. I find it frustrating that the presentation is available online, but not the spreadsheet with the timeline.
I believe the timeline is embedded in the presentation.
Anonymous said…
Melissa - I looked through the presentation. The timeline spreadsheet is not one of the presentation slides. Are you saying there is a link to the spreadsheet somewhere in the presentation?
I don't know about you but NONE of my comments are reflected here. It would appear that everyone in West Seattle and online are hunky-dory with a South Lake Union school. Who is perverting this process and misleading the board?
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Why You Should Care Mr. Crabill has found quite the acolyte in Director Chandra Hampson. In the course of discussions over SOFG, she says his name over and over, "A.J .says we...." Now that's not too surprising given the direction the district is heading and that it is Mr. Crabill's work with the Council of Great City Schools is how we got here. But it appears that Mr. Crabill is working very closely with Hampson and we know she wields some amount of power over the majority of the Board. Mr. Crabill is going to continue to work with the Board as SOFG is instituted in SPS. In fact, his role may become more public as it did at one SPS Board meeting in the spring where he was on the phone during the meeting and suggested the Board stop the meeting to "self-reflect." I also noticed that in a district in South Carolina, when things weren't going to plan, he blamed the Board for not following SOFG to the letter. Look for that to happen here if Board members w
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
Downtown School
• Construct new 500 seat K-5
• City and District forecasts of school population growth in the area are not fully validated at the present time
• Potential constraints: Site is not identified; development constraints unknown
I find this unexpected and perhaps a small subset of total Seattle voters. But a perspective to be considered.
EdVoter
Sherry and Kay pushed back heavily on downtown school. I believe it is weakening. More on this later.
The Advanced Learning Taskforce has not come out with its recommendation (probably end of month) so no news there.
I think anyone can take any principled stand on why they do or do not vote for a school levy or bond. But a good time to take that stand is early and loudly so the district and Board positions the BEX for the best possible outcome at the ballot box
This is no shoo-in and they would be wise to consider that.
Rif Harman and company. No one would miss their lazy book keeping ways.
I vote no
Where is the data to support this assertion? Was it another business owner or two who said, yeah sounds okay.
Dizzy
I VOTE NO
Thanks.
I find it frustrating that the presentation is available online, but not the spreadsheet with the timeline.
North End Mom
I looked through the presentation. The timeline spreadsheet is not one of the presentation slides. Are you saying there is a link to the spreadsheet somewhere in the presentation?
-North End Mom
I don't know about you but NONE of my comments are reflected here. It would appear that everyone in West Seattle and online are hunky-dory with a South Lake Union school. Who is perverting this process and misleading the board?