Seattle Schools This Week

Monday, March 24th
Seattle Special Education PTSA Meeting, at 7 pm, Rm 2700, JSCEE

Topic is Secondary Transition and plans in SPS to to bring the District into compliance with IDEA on secondary transition. 


Wednesday, March 26th
Oversight Work Session on Athletics/Transportation from 4-6 p.m.  I'm assuming from the length of it that these are two sessions in one.  Agenda.

Athletic (sic) Presentation
- among the "strengths" - It is interesting to try to read between the lines.  It almost sounds like this department wants to run more effectively and smoothly but needs help with technology and a clear direction on how to proceed from the top
- among the "weaknesses" - transportation, difficulties in communications and "inability to attract, recruit and maintain quality athletic coaches."  
- "threats/risks" (an unfortunate column name) - "increasing responsibilities for administration of the Unified Special Olympics program within SPS."  They also note that the SPS Unified Sports progra has received national recognition from the Special Olympics program.

And, there was this that I didn't know about: "During recent State Audits there were questions in regards to the Seattle Children's Athletic Trainer Contract.  There is a need for a dedicated staff member to manage this $330K personal services contract for the safety of our student athletes." 

There was also this:

Middle School feeder pattern programs have been receiving a lot of focus from the WIAA recently. This is an area that the district will have to focus on in the near future. 

Transportation Presentation 

One thing I see on page 4 is their list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats/risks. What I don't see is that parents are unhappy. That seems odd to me given the refrain I hear from many corners of the district.

Looking at benchmarking on page 11, I have to wonder about one of these columns and I think the directors should as well. It's "number of FTE" and it ranges wildly from 2.7 in Spokane to 32 in SPS to 126 in Anchorage. I'm having a hard time believing this is an apples to apples comparison.


Work Session on Families & Education Levy Update from 6-7 p.m.  Wondering if there will talk of how important "data" is to all this work.

Thursday, March 27th
Another of the Strategic Plan Community meetings, this one is at Ballard High School from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 29th
Community Meeting with Director Peters from 10-11:30 am at the Ballard Library.

Community Meeting with Director Patu from 10 am to noon at Cafe Vita.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Seattle Special Education PTSA Meeting, Monday, March 24 at 7 pm, Rm 2700, JSCEE

Topic is Secondary Transition and plans in SPS to to bring the District into compliance with IDEA on secondary transition.
3/23/14, 10:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

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.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more