Seattle Schools Updates

Roosevelt and Garfield jazz bands both made it into the Essentially Ellington competition in NYC...again.  Congrats to both programs.

And because I love high school newspapers - news from the Rainier Beach student newspaper, Viking Shield.

I received a press release today from the district announcing that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Sanislo Elementary's 3^rd-5^thgraders tomorrow.   From the press release:


Abdul-Jabbar’s new book “Stealing the Game” recently released, and his book, “What Color is my World?”, a story about African American inventors, is being read as part of the Seattle Public Schools’ Third-Grade Global Reading Challenge.

Of course this is great news because whenever kids can meet the author of a book, that's a good experience.  (That he's also an NBA great is frosting on that cupcake.)  

But I recalled, via a tweet from the West Seattle blog, that Sanislo had Caroline Kennedy just two years ago.  It seems to me that I don't always see the most even distribution of these kinds of events throughout the district.  It would seem fair to make sure that every school - especially elementaries because there are so many of them - get their turn as well.

Loyal Heights has a Change.org petition to try to save their playground space from portables.

So more to the eye than it might appear for a bill, SB 6030 in the Legislature to pull back on Common Core.  There's a group - the Coalition to Protect our Public Schools -  whose story on the bill indicates that the bill has bi-partisan support from at least two Dems.

Also along those lines, the 37th Dems voted against the bill sponsored by Rep. Eric Pettigrew to give the Mayor two votes on the School Board.  I was at the House Ed committee meeting when this bill came up and Pettigrew assured the Committee that he had heard from many constituents in support of the bill.  Hmm.

The district is looking for members for the Social Studies Adoption committee for grades 6-8.

The district seeks a diverse group of volunteers to serve on our adoption committee, comprising teachers, parents and community members. The committee's work will begin in March 2015. The timeline below provides information about key, pivotal steps in the adoption process as well as more information on the committee's work. If approved by the Seattle School Board, the new textbooks will be put into use during the 2015-2016 school year. 

►Click HERE to download the parent/community application.
►Click HERE to download the teacher application.

Applications are due by 9 a.m. Feb. 25, 2015. See below for more information.