Tuesday Open Thread
Off the next Charter Commission meeting on Thursday - looks like they still don't have an Executive Director. Maybe they'll have more info on the charter lawsuit (as it pertains to their work).
FYI, there are a couple of open seats coming up on the State Board of Education. Mary Jean Ryan's (Position 6 - our area) will be expiring in January 2014 as does Judy Jennings( private school rep), Phyllis Bunker Frank (Eastern Washington), Isabel Munoz-Colon (Position 3) and Peter Maier (our area). If you are interested, details here.
FYI, there are a couple of open seats coming up on the State Board of Education. Mary Jean Ryan's (Position 6 - our area) will be expiring in January 2014 as does Judy Jennings( private school rep), Phyllis Bunker Frank (Eastern Washington), Isabel Munoz-Colon (Position 3) and Peter Maier (our area). If you are interested, details here.
Comments
It is about class size.
http://ourschoolscoalition.org/
I know you don't want to help them, and I understand, but it's such a stupid idea for the district to raise class size that I want these pieces to be seen.
-west seattle
--- interested
They anticipate spending $400,000 per grade served - for RBHS's 448 students that's about $3,600 per student.
I'd like to know why the superintendent has pulled the MOU from the agenda.
Lynn
Probably because members of the board were adamant that the source of funding for this MOU be transparent, not:
SEI North has received indications of interests and is presently in funding discussions with U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, The Ballmer Family Foundation and Microsoft. The remaining funds will come from individual and corporate donors that have made contributions to The Danna K. Johnston Foundation over the past five years.
Likewise, I expect Mr. Banda pulled the STR MOU because the budget for this new initiative (yet another) has not been prepared for the board's review. That is asking the board to approve something with no knowledge of what it will cost!
I commend Mr. Banda for responding to the board's concerns.
Montlake Parent
https://www.sigby.com/
PSP
Now think about the McCleary ruling, the legislature's plans for increasing funding to expand full day kindergarten offerings, and then also prior, unfunded commitments to reduce class sizes in the early grades.
If funding comes through ever the decrease in student:teacher ratios results in a net increase in required classrooms.
If we have three classes of 28 students per class in a school with three classes in the grade now (84 students ) now, and we reduce the number of students per homeroom to 24, we end up with an extra 12 students in need of an additional homeroom.
How is the District preparing for the increase in classroom space? Or will reduced class sizes never happen in Seattle? It seems like their plans are all around today's needs without any planning for the future.
CHM
The state is thinking about the issue. The link below should take you to the WA State OSPI website and a report titled "Educational System Capacity to Accommodate Increased Resources."
http://www.k12.wa.us/LegisGov/2013documents/CapacityforIncreasedResources.pdf
Lynn
Anchorage School District New Math Curriculum
-Math Geek
If your child is falling behind in math, then it's your responsibility as a parent to step in. I didn't like the "problem solving" focus of Everyday Math, so I spent time with my daughter at home teaching her straight-up math and letting her make her own connections for solving problems in real life.
As a result, she has excelled through hard work on both of our parts.
That's our story as well. In our case, we didn't like the "multiple methods" that obfuscated the standard pencil and paper methods for doing arithmetic. We taught adding/subtracting the old fashioned way, scoffed at the lattice method, and made sure long division was taught the traditional way.
SeattleParent