Middle College at Boren

We've been hearing some news about the District deciding to place the Middle College program, now located on the campus of South Seattle Community College, in the Boren building next year. It would be co-locating there with the new K-5 STEM program.

Before you write to the School Board about this, I would remind you that program placement decisions are made unilaterally by the superintendent. They are not board-level decisions. Moreover, the Board has made it clear that they have no interest in enforcing the program placement policy, which would require the superintendent to disclose her process and would require her to provide rationale for them. They have decided that we do not need transparency or evaluation with these decisions and consequently we get the kind of decisions that can come from under the cloak of secrecy and behind the shield of no accountability.

In other words, the Board has already determined that they not only will not get involved in this, but that they have no interest in this.

Even if they did ask the superintendent for that sort of information, she wouldn't be around to provide it. She is gone, baby, gone. Mr. Banda won't know anything about the decision nor will he find anyone else in the JSCEE who will admit to knowing anything about the decision. This is a done deal without recourse. It is the feather in the cap on Dr. Enfield's tenure with Seattle Public Schools. Don't like it? Complain to Frank Greer, Jon Bridge, Sara Morris, and Lynne Varner. They're the folks who scared the Board away from doing their job.

Comments

Angry K5STEM Mom said…
Do you know where we can get the district's policy on program placement?
mirmac1 said…
"Mr. Banda won't know anything about the decision nor will he find anyone else in the JSCEE who will admit to knowing anything about the decision."

That SOP, baby!
Tracy @ WSB said…
The one that Charlie has cited in previous references took a little google-wandering to find but is here:

http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Policies/Board/c/C56.00.pdf?sessionid=
Anonymous said…
This sh*tstorm has Aurora Lora all over it.

WS-lite
Anonymous said…
@WS-lite - too bad it's not the other way around.

Oompah
Charlie Mas said…
District policy on program placement can be found here.

You may be interested to know that the C & I committee is scheduled to discuss a revision to this policy at their meeting on the 25th of this month.

You might also be interested to know that according to this timetable, a revised version of the policy, one that has not been reviewed by the Board, will be introduced for adoption at the next board meeting on June 20th. Yes, five days BEFORE the C & I Committee reviews it. And that revised policy is scheduled for a vote on July 3rd, long before the C & I Committee members can discuss any edits that result from their June 25th meeting.

The staff is running ahead without the Board - even on the Board's work. How could the staff write a revised policy BEFORE the Board discussed how they wanted the policy changed?
Anonymous said…
Wednesday night was the "Meet and Greet" for the Boren K-5 STEM School. During that meeting the blueprints for the Boren building were displayed to the public. The new principal said nothing about another program at Boren. In fact, the blueprints showed no other programs co-located with Boren STEM. Actually, the blueprints showed that the rest of the school (not occupied by STEM) would be physically partitioned off AND empty. That was specifically stated by the principal.

Folks, this was Wednesday night!

There is a stink in the air about this whole thing. Somebody has been intentionally keeping the public and the new STEM principal, parents, and staff in the dark about this Middle College thing.

Who exactly is running this District? It's like a macabre noir mystery series.

Signed,

My 3rd grader might be intimidated by a high-schooler in the halls at Boren
Anonymous said…
A picture in forming in my mind's eye...

WS-lite
Eileen said…
Charlie asked, "How could the staff write a revised policy BEFORE the Board discussed how they wanted the policy changed?"

The most reasonable explanation is that the staff are Time Travelers!
Eileen said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said…
Charlie, that would be Middle College High School - SOUTH.
*Please note that on this blog I have asked about District plans to find a location for MCHS - South.
At the last two school board meetings there has been testimony on the subject.

The District had rent – free space at the original Middle College High School at Seattle Central Community College. It closed in 2000. Why? Relations between the District and SCCC.

The District had rent – free space at the second branch of MCHS @ South Seattle Community College for nearly twenty years.
The district provided lunch for MCHS-South students in the SSCC cafeteria until this year, thus showing some sort of financial contribution to the community college.
No more. In these hard economic times the writing was on the wall; it is understandable that the SSCC would want to use the space where MCHS-South was located for new programs that would bring in revenue.

However, the current situation could have been prevented several months ago. It is not the fault of the students at MCHS – South.

What is left of American Indian Heritage was turned into a branch of MCHS @ Wilson - Pacific. AIH has just been told this week that it has to leave WilPac. This means that AIH will no longer exist under that name after this current school year. I have also asked about this issue on this blog.

It seems that everything is being left for Banda....

--Old School Music
suep. said…
They're the folks who scared the Board away from doing their job.

Charlie, I don't think you should give that little clique that much credit. They aren't as clever or as intimidating as they may think they are. And I believe we have some pretty tenacious and intelligent people on the board.
Anonymous said…
The district has kicked the American Indian Heritage kids to the curb again? Outrageous. The district could do worse by this population but it's hard to say how. A bigger spotlight needs to be shown on this.

And the Middle College situation is ridiculous. Once again the district waits until school is out then causes untold chaos. It's Lowell II - but worse. Who will stand up for these families?

DistrictWatcher
Anonymous said…
Curious how this is happening at Boren where Sealth spent 2 years after having colocation forced down their throats. South end... would this happen in the North end? In fact, since they got away with colocation once already in West Seattle (1.5 miles south of Boren @ Sealth) is it any surprise that they would keep pushing colocations in that community since history shows they're ineffective in stopping colocations?

WSeattlite fed up w/ SSD

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