Tuesday Open Thread

Some sad news on two fronts.

One item is this from Ravenna Next Door on Sunday:

My daughter and her friends were playing at Bryant this morning when they texted me with concern about glass and jewelry, and "gun powder" on the playground.

I walked over to see for myself and sure enough there were empty beer cans, stolen jewelry and a pile of white powder with a razor blade, etc. I called the police who came surprisingly quickly and confirmed the white substance was Meth. Ugh. They took it to the station for evidence but left the jewelry and glass suggesting that I call the parks to come and clean it up. A very surprising site to say the least. Still researching who to call for clean up.

The second item is about a beloved staff member at Cascadia:

Allen Greenberg, beloved recess monitor at Cascadia Elementary in Seattle, passed away unexpectedly.  Allen spent his life giving to others - always looking out for the less fortunate.  He often stopped by Solid Ground to pick up food for the homeless and volunteered his time to help those less fortunate after recess duty. He had an impact on everyone he came in contact with. 

Funds will be used to help with funeral expenses, including travel to New York for his daughter and granddaughter.  Anything you can give will be appreciated.  

A big shout-out to all the students who came out yesterday to Olympia to advocate for full funding for public education.  I especially want to call out the many students from Garfield, including the football team, who went because as one parent at the WPD Facebook page said:

Super inspiring to see these kids putting in the work for funds that most likely won't even affect them.

 I see there is a Board meeting tomorrow night.  Agenda

• Financial Reports Annual Report - JoLynn Berge
• Program Evaluation & Assessment Annual Report - Eric Anderson
• Equitable Access to Programs and Services Annual Report - Sherri Kokx

I wish I could ask some questions about the financial reports annual report - there's some interesting figures in there that I don't understand (like the ASB fund.)  On the Assessment Annual report, there were these items of interest:

In place of Amplify, SBA interims for 16-17 School Year

Convene Assessment Steering Committee for 2016-2017 School Year

2016-2017 Program Review; Two programs were selected for this year's pilot based on review of our criteria**
1. Spectrum/Advanced Learners 
2. International Schools/Dual Language Immersion

Want to know what that ** notation is?  For the 2016-2017 pilot year, the degree to which program leaders were identified as willing and collaborative partners in the review process was a key criterion considered.

Wait, what?  The district has to ask program directors to cooperate in a program review and cross their fingers that the directors will be "willing and collaborative partners?" 

So remember that the BEX IV Contingency fund is 90% used up (even though they are only thru 50% of the projects) and the Capital folks are getting a "loan" from the General Fund because of that?

Well, they are asking for at least $240,000 because that's how much Cedar Park's project is over its budget.  It's amusing to see that they did not include portables in the budget (even though they knew they would be using them) nor sidewalk improvements (I'm guessing they thought the City would pay for this) and they didn't include furniture or technology.

What's on your mind?