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
I know that Ron English has previously denied FRL data to CCER and others.
BS
Too much blah, blah misinformation. Very sad.
-curious
Outstanding question.
Ultimately, this would be decided by the courts, and of course there would be great attorney expense along the way. Not only to decide responsibility, but to determine damages.
Our district (and many others) are occasionally found to be at-fault when bad things happen, for a variety of reasons. The difference with this situation is that data will potentially be released for tens of thousands of students all at once. If, no, when problems arise, the potential exists for damages that could conceivably be more than a public entity like SPS could handle.
There is so much wrong with this data give-away. People need to start calling and emailing OSPI directly, to register complaints. If enough people overwhelm their inboxes and better yet, phone lines, it will get their attention. If you don't call to complain now, don't expect their mindset to change!
Can someone post the best phone # and email address(es) to use?
Representative Elizabeth Scott is looking for people, parents specifically, who can talk about the student privacy bill that she has sponsored and concerns about your own student’s privacy.
If you are not familiar with it, the bill basically requires that there be an auditing of all of the policies that affect student privacy including RTTT, how RTTT is affecting our students in Seattle, concerns about how it might affect the life of a student with special needs, etc.
She asked me to ask parents to speak specifically because of my involvement with PAA but I’m sure anyone concerned with this issue should speak up also.
The hearings start at 8:00 AM next Wednesday in Olympia. The routine is that you sign up and hopefully get a chance to speak.
She also said it would be of great value for as many parents to show up as possible in support of the bill even if you don’t want to speak in front of the committee.
Here is a link to a summary of the bill, Bill 2133 , and here is a link to the actual bill, Text of Bill 2133.
Representative Scott and I agree that this bill will bring more of an awareness to what is going on in terms of the loss of privacy for our students and get more parents to become involved in protecting the rights of their children.
Please let me know if you would like to speak to the committee or attend in support.
Dora