Speaking as someone who would never have succeeded if she hadn't first failed on a grand scale, I enjoyed this.

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After the big box madness that has become Black Friday is the totally lovable celebration of Small Business Saturday. Saturday also acts as Indies First, a day to show your love for local booksellers and meet authors as they talk to you about books at the counter of your local bookstore. Sherman Alexie, the mastermind behind the event, will be at Elliott Bay offering book recommendations, Book Larder will be hosting a bunch of local cookbook authors (including Renee Erickson), and there will be a YA panel and sci-fi panel at University Bookstore. Don’t forget about Ravenna Third Place, Phinney Books, and Ada’s Technical Books, among others, and make this holiday one where you give the gift of books (I’m pretty excited to give my sisters an adult coloring book and Humans of New York: Stories).Big shout-out to Ada's Technical Books, one of the coolest bookstores around.
The project is the culmination of a handful of funding partners including Orca PTSA, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, King County, the Norcliffe Foundation, Windermere, Microsoft and hundreds of volunteers who helped put it all together.Good work to all those parents and community members who made this happen.
Here was a self-described progressive state with a Democratic governor and House, an electorate that last year voted to improve school funding, and many cash-flush corporations famished for qualified graduates. If a solution to gridlock couldn’t be found here, how could other states — or the other Washington, the nation’s capital — break out of their political stalemates?
As you prepare to work with a new board, more closely with the community, and continue to work with one another to strengthen the system’s ability to support students, I encourage you to read the book The Trust Imperative by Stephen Hacker. Some of you may recall that I mentioned this book to you in September 2014. It will be an excellent resource as you engage in intentional conversations about re-building trust where you believe it does not exist. The book offers insights and tools to help you understand and build trust across a spectrum of key elements including trust readiness, worthiness and willingness.I have heard that he has been handing this book out and I hope to read it soon myself. I'm glad he asking staff to work on trust issues. I'm not sure what he means/context of "worthiness."
The Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee is looking for new members to help make walking and biking to school in Seattle safer and easier. The volunteer board, which was created by the Seattle City Council in 1975 to improve traffic safety for all of Seattle’s school children, advises the Mayor and City Council with respect to school traffic safety, including adult crossing guard locations, school traffic signs and signals, school safety patrols, bicycle facilities, sidewalks and student traffic safety education.
Bellamy Pailthorp, KPLU |
The media and citizens at public forums must not let that happen again. Education is central to our future as a nation; it is also the single largest item in every state’s budget. Yet the candidates for the 2016 race in both parties are talking only about pre-kindergarten and higher education, skipping right over the important issues that face millions of children and educators in public schools today.Diane has done her part to elevate the conversation about our public schools -- now it's up to us! To get these questions asked, NPE ACTION NEEDS YOU!