Friday Open Thread
The Florida legislature will be considering a bill to meet grad requirements for high school students by substituting computer science for ...PE. Yes, that makes sense with childhood obesity. The rates of childhood obesity have leveled off but this doesn't seem to make sense. I would think allowing anyone in a sport to not take PE but high school PE is a way to teach kids about the importance of regular exercise or new sports.
Want something to do with the kids as the weather gets better? This woman has walked nearly every park in Seattle (there are 425 official ones). This story from My Northwest.
Community Meeting with Director Martin-Morris tomorrow from 11 am to 12:30 pm at Montlake Branch Library.
What's on your mind?
Want something to do with the kids as the weather gets better? This woman has walked nearly every park in Seattle (there are 425 official ones). This story from My Northwest.
Community Meeting with Director Martin-Morris tomorrow from 11 am to 12:30 pm at Montlake Branch Library.
What's on your mind?
Comments
voter
--- swk
P.S. I also posted this in the teacher evaluation thread.
Starting school an hour later would be a better tool to fight obesity.
QAE parent
Of course, longer school hours with time for study hall and less homework would be great! My 9th grader said he would rather go to school year round and have no or limited homework.
Roosevelt HS warns parents of spike in drugs, alcohol
http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattle/Roosevelt-hs-principal-warns-parents-of-drug-alcohol-use-at-school-250249601.html
- News
Hale allows 2 of your PE credits to be waived by participating in school sports. 1 credit has to be a PE class. What do other high schools do?
HP
N by NW
And I don't know what school you're from, but even for the most well-funded PTOs/PTAs in Seattle, that's a huge increase. For many shcools, or course, that amount is more than several times their entire PTO budget.
I'd say "what is this world coming to," but from a school budget perspective, the answer is too depressingly clear already.
HP
The entire cost is $150k but Philanthropic Partners in Public Education. It's a bit of a mysterious group that I can't much info on except they meet 4 times a year "to discuss relevant initiatives and sometimes to join together on a specific project."
I smell a Gates connection.
The district says that if they want to continue into years 2-3 (it's a 3-year deal), they will find private funding.
What is annoying is that the district has tried to revamp HR previously. Is this a new revamping. (I note that HR gave a Work Session report this week that got pretty good reviews from the Board although we are on the higher side of FTE for that department vis a vis peer districts.)
I don't tell you this to make you mad but the district is spending all kinds of money on consultants and initiatives that may not even know about. They want to strengthen their "systems" which I get because the headquarters doesn't run well.
But they never stop to step back and ask two questions.
1) are we trying to do too much in this district? What are the REAL priorities and are they the MOST important and are there TOO many?
When you have little time and money, that's what you do - strip down.
2) How much money does the district REALLY need in reserves? The SEA is saying they keep anywhere from $20-50M (I'm waiting for their data) and it's too much especially when asking schools to make cuts.
And, the district has NO business asking/expecting PTAs to fill any of these gaps.
The aforementioned mouthpiece tangled $150K during Enfield's time to "transform HR". What resulted was a snoozefest of UW academic Meredith Honig giving lectures and holding team-building exercises.
The HR Powerpoint clearly showed how SPS brought employee investigations in-house, to the tune of around 5 FTEs, so that teachers and classified staff on principals' blacklists can get easily drummed out. I've seen the many "investigations".
This is one way our money gets wasted.
The work that counselors do is largely confidential. Counselors like myself are the ones who know just how much cutting us hurts.
peode
Our PTA will most-likely vote to support the 0,5 counselor position, for the 3rd year in a row.
I went to the Banda strategic plan meeting last night, and it is hard to take all the talk of meeting the needs of all students, equity, etc... when an essential position, like the elementary counselor is not funded at our school.
It is ridiculous that the PTA of a 40+% FRL school is seemingly expected to fund their own counselor (or go without).
- North-end Mom
Your school deserves a counselor!
To me it seems like life is getting harder and harder for kids. They are dealing with huge issues-abuse, neglect, homelessness, suicide, guns in the home, abandonment, foster homes, substance abuse in their homes, incarcerated family members, poverty. These are some of the issues I see in my middle class neighborhood school. Children spend the bulk of their waking hours at school. They deserve access to professionals who can help them with these issues. And they need this in order to learn! That is just a small part of what counselors do and it's hugely important.
I know that Seattle Schools and Washington State can find the money if they stopped catering to greedy psychopaths.
Thanks for caring NEM!
peode
This links is available off the SEA website where they discuss the budget cuts. I think the fourth slide on the following link is where they show the gap in projected and actual ending fund balance over the last four years.
http://seattlewea.org/images/static_content/BUDGET_FIGHT/BUDGET%20COMPARISON%20FOR%20WEBSITE.pdf
Also, there is a petition about the budget with a video produced by Mary Smith at Ingraham High School about the impact of the budget cuts.
-No More Cuts
This after our PTA survey showed that parents are already concerned about the sustainability of raising the amount we already do.
N by NW
My kids don't participate in organized sports either - and they loathe PE. I think schools should focus on academics and recognize that exercise, (like good eating habits and getting enough sleep) is the family's responsibility. I wasn't suggesting longer school hours - I was suggesting study hall in place of PE.
Offering PE as an elective would be fine - but I would argue that mandatory study hall/academic intervention periods would make more sense for struggling students.
HP,
There should be uniformity across the district for things like PE waivers. (Some schools will waive all PE credit whether you play sports or not.)
As far as I can tell, there are very few areas in SPS in which there's any consistency from school to school. It's a free-for-all.
HIMSmom
Yeah, it does feel like a free-for-all where it's hard to find the person accountable.
-same old
I think that's a very important question to ask of donors.
Also, if you feel comfortable, what is the income raised for your school?
thanks
fellow mom
http://ushcacademy.org/team
USHCA Team - Selected “reformy” points from bios:
Dr. Elizabeth “Betsy” Arons Chief Executive Officer
Chief Executive Officer and founder; Chief Executive Officer of Human Resources, New York City Department of Education; From 2007-2011, she worked as a Human Resources/Human Capital Consultant for The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, supporting human resources reform in…[many cities];
Darlene Merry Chief Academic Officer
recent role as a Senior Advisor to New Leaders for New Schools, Darlene was responsible for serving as a thought leader and a critical consultant in the work of turnaround school leadership, human capital management, and district leadership
Charles “Chuck” Cascio Chief Communications Officer
Vice President at Educational Testing Service (ETS) for ten years; Before joining ETS, Chuck was Vice President for Certification Standards and Teacher Development at the National Board
Danielle Pickens Senior Human Capital Advisor
Human Resources Director for the New York City Department of Education; served as a project coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools and worked at Accenture, a management consulting firm
Craig Chin Human Capital Partner
[In Boston Public Schools] played a key leadership role in a human resources reinvention initiative, as well as implementing Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and Teacher Quality; worked in management consulting with Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, and Benchmarking Partners. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering
Roberta Cole Ellis Human Capital Partner
[In Tulsa] worked closely with Betsy Arons and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to redesign the Human Capital Department
Michael Moore Human Capital Partner
Michael led the core program at New Leaders, Inc. as Chief Academic Officer. New Leaders, a national nonprofit, recruits, selects, trains, and supports principals for the most underserved schools in 12 urban areas.
Monica Santana Rosen Human Capital Partner
recently, Monica directed the Chicago Public Schools efforts to improve the quality of principals; at the end of the 2011 school year to launch her own business consulting in education on principal effectiveness and HR redesign. Early clients include Newark Public Schools, The George W. Bush Institute, and The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems.
Dr. Rosa A. Smith Human Capital Partner
Most recently, she served as the Regional Education Director for New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS; Prior to joining NLNS, Rosa was President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education
Dr. Jane Lai Woodburn Human Capital Partner
She collaborated with staff from Teach for America and The New Teacher Project to develop a Hiring for Attitude project
"New Leaders for New Schools (now 'New Leaders') was founded in 2000 by a group including Jonathan Schnur, former education policy analyst for President Bill Clinton;[3] Ben Fenton, former management consultant at McKinsey & Co.;[4] Mike Johnston, a former Teach for America corps member; Allison Gaines, a former New York City public school teacher; and Monique Burns, an education-reform advocate specializing in charter schools"
(Wikipedia)
Wheee!
PE is not an uncommon requirement.
HP
BMGF's grant funding database shows they received $4,475,911 in 2011 to be used over a period of 43 months.
Pretty clear who's behind that one.
This is the question we put in the survey. Most picked the second answer. However, the open comments that followed the question were quite telling in how parents were feeling in regards to funding staff.
Our PTA donates a huge amount to the school ... and this year the school is asking for even more.
Q) Due to concerns of sustainability, the National PTA states: "PTAs should not fund additional school staff during the school day, an occurrence that places school districts in the difficult position of trying to continue funding said staff once PTA funding ceases."
Please choose the statement you most agree with:
**I believe the PTA should NOT fund school staff positions.
** Ideally, the PTA should NOT fund school staff positions, but due to budget short-falls, I agree with providing funds to the school for staff positions.
** I fully support PTA funding school staff positions regardless of sustainability.
N by NW
-fellow mom
SPS was well-represented, with Eckstein (five separate performances!), Hamilton's chamber orchestra, and West Seattle HS performing on Friday. Other schools performing were Explorer (Mukilteo), Tyee (Bellevue), and University Prep.