Seattle Schools Updates

I am trying to get an update on the Cleveland students involved in that two-car crash yesterday on I-5S.  The Times is reporting that two of the six are in critical condition and the other four are in satisfactory condition.

Director Betty Patu has a Community meeting tomorrow from 10 am to 11:30 am at Cafe Vita.

From SPS Technology:

Seattle Public Schools will begin changing to a new website at 10 p.m., Sunday, May 31. The new site will look slightly different. Thank you for your patience during the transition. Should you experience any concerns, please email webmaster@seattleschools.org. More information can be found here: webinfo.www.seattleschools.org.

 Please note that it can take several hours for the changes to take place so you may still see the old site depending on your location. If you receive errors in attempting to navigate to seattleschools.org or MySPS, please refresh your browser.

School and district online calendars will not be migrated. To help assure your families have access to information on events during the rest of school, each school website administrator should email webmaster@seattleschools.org with a list of events you’d like listed on your new website. We will post the list as the top story on your school’s website. Once your website administrators have had the opportunity to complete SharpSchool training, they will be able to populate school calendars.

What information will not be moved to the new website?
Here is a list of content that will not be moved to the new website:
  • Calendars
  • News items before school year 2014-2015
  • Teacher class pages
I am a student. How can I turn in homework to my teacher for the last 2 weeks of school?
Several alternatives exist to help students turn in homework, including:
  • Email completed assignments directly to the teacher’s SPS email account
  • Use a USB storage device (i.e. thumb drive)
  • Submit paper assignments
  • Use turnitin.com (for schools that have a license)
Starting next school year, Schoology will be replacing teacher class pages. Schoology offers powerful new technology at all grade levels to organize content, engage students, and connect to families. Instructional Technology will be offering three hours of paid Schoology workshops over the summer to certificated teaching staff. Teachers who attend these workshops will also have the added benefit of early access to Schoology. 

The class pages being replaced by Schoology, will be available at the start of the 2015-2016 school year. 

Comments

Jon said…
It's obviously hugely disrupting and a serious mistake for the district administration to be shutting this down May 31, before the school year ends. But every communication I've seen from administration is of the "mistakes were made" variety, like the administrators are helpless victims to cruel fate.

What I'd like to know is: Who was responsible for getting this right? What error did that person make that caused this to happen? What is being done to prevent it from happening in the future?

This is the opposite of administration helping the schools, teachers, and students. It is getting in the way of learning. It is the opposite of what good administration is supposed to do.

I don't want a witch hunt, but can we at least have an acknowledgement that this was a huge mistake, is damaging to the teachers and students, someone screwed up, and that the superintendent expects it to never happen again? Without that, how can administration improve?
5/29/15, 12:52 PM
Anonymous said…
"This is the opposite of administration helping the schools, teachers, and students. It is getting in the way of learning. It is the opposite of what good administration is supposed to do."

Well stated Jon!

-Parent
5/29/15, 1:06 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
That would be Carmen Rahm, the head of Technology for the district, for one.

I cannot say for sure who made the original vendor so unhappy that they would not even see their product thru to the end of SPS' school year. There was evidence that there were issues between the original vendor and SPS for awhile and I believe this is the result.
5/29/15, 1:22 PM
TheGoodFight said…
Why do some board members refuse to hold regular community meetings. It seems disrespectful.
5/29/15, 2:28 PM
mirmac1 said…
I'm happy to see the board intro to rename WP to Robert Eaglestaff Middle School! : )
5/30/15, 11:52 AM
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