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
Comments
HP
When the bleep will we know the actual start/end times? What impact will it have for students doing Running Start part time? It is so hard to plan when every year it's a new "plan." Another year, another disruptive effort to "improve" while not really improving anything.
grrrr
It's crazy, though, that in all of these decisions no one seems to be representing the interests of the students' families. There's the teachers' union and the school district working things out between themselves. But who's representing the families? Why isn't what we need more important than it is? We're like a distant after thought. They can't be bothered to care about what we think. And worse than that, they can't even be bothered to communicate to us what they've decided our fates should be.
What time will school start next year? What time will it get out? What day will it get out early once a week? We don't know! Ha ha!
I honestly think a dynamic parent group is needed.
S&T
3,500 principals and school staff prefer Wednesdays.
53,000 families prefer Fridays.
The SEA represents teachers and of course they should have representation in such matters. But who does SPS represent?
Re faculty meeting times - for what it's worth, our (private) school in Texas this year implemented a late start every Friday. Students can use the time to sleep in at home or arrive to school at normal time and sit in study hall for the duration. Lots of initial grumbling from parents but honestly it's been fine.
FNH
Seattle schools traditionally start the Wednesday after Labor Day. It is usually the breaks and the end date that changes.
HP
FNH