Tuesday Open Thread
I went to the Work Session on the budget for next year. More to come but spoiler alert: the majority of the Board went along with everything staff wanted.
From Senator Jamie Pedersen's newsletter:
What's on your mind?
From Senator Jamie Pedersen's newsletter:
One of the bright spots this year has been the bipartisan agreement on the capital budget, which funds a variety of building and maintenance projects throughout the state. I was very pleased to see a large number of projects that I advocated for funded in the proposal. In particular, the capital request for Seattle Public Schools that I led for our Seattle delegation was approved in its entirety!Over in Bellevue, their schools' foundation raised over $700,000 at their annual luncheon.
Seattle Public Schools - $22M (including expansion of West Woodland Elementary)
Ardmore Elementary School Principal Chas Miller told guests that in his 11 years as a principal in other states, he’s never seen anything like the community support for education that is a cultural norm in Bellevue.The Times reports that $800,000 has been raised to cover testing costs for low-income students who are taking AP or IB tests this year.
“It’s not as if I came from a place that didn’t care about the schools, but the sheer coordination and the sheer will of so many people at the same time saying, ‘We’re going to support public education,’ was something I had never experienced in my career,” Miller said.
For the district’s youngest learners, particularly in the Title I Ardmore student population, the benefits are striking.
“In Kindergarten last year the number of students scoring ‘far below proficient’ dropped from 74% in September to 10% in June—a 64% change,” he said.
What's on your mind?
Comments
More Math Nonsense masquerading as thoughtful research
--SameOld
That's troubling. The job of the Board is to make final decisions and provide strong oversight of the district - not to roll over quietly when staff presents something, especially something so important as the budget for next year. I await your writeup. It'll be important to see which board members stood with the students, teachers, and parents - and which stood with the senior staff.
S parent
-SParent2
Maybe.
Yeez
-Seattle Parent
Donations to PTSA's would plummet if you pool the donations across the district. When parents lose control of what they are getting for their donations, they will stop donating. Who would decide how the money is divided among the schools and how it is used at each school? You would give more money to the SPS bureaucracy that no one trusts.
It may be "equitable" (whatever that means), but it wouldn't help anybody.
Fed Up
Another ST / Hertzog hit piece
Budget Realities
We have a good board. In terms of oversight, some may not have been around during the Sundquist, Maier, Carr, DeBell and Martin Morris days when public assets were at risk, audits had 12 findings and there was a scandal. Let's not hand this board by their toenails.
Selfish Seattle
Yeez
I paid property taxes, donated money and volunteered 3-4 days each week in my children's public school for 6 years. It did not make any difference at all, much less a huge one, which is why we left for private school.
~Been There
From our school beats newsletter:
"Prioritizing classrooms means central office will continue to take the most significant cuts. The central reductions will equal an estimated $3.5 million and will require a combination of closing vacant positions and reducing positions and/or discretionary funding.
Throughout the process, we have heard from stakeholders that preserving central services and positions that directly support students and families is the expectation of the community. We did our best, but with a remaining $50 million shortfall, every area of the district is impacted. The reductions will require a central office reorganization in order to preserve critical functions, and in some cases, work will not continue. "
-NW Mom
People in Seattle tend to only become progessive when they are directy impacted negatively by something or someone. There's usually lots of ego/s involved and impunity is guaranteed.
FAKE NEWS
On the last day of my term as PTSA president, the principal used an interview in the Seattle times to announce that he was eliminating all of the 9th grade honors classes in LA/SS - without consulting families, without any process, without any plan - because there were too many white kids in the honors classes. After that, the principal refused to meet with parents, didn't attend curriculum night etc.
The problem isn't that Seattle people are selfish, the problem is that SPS sucks. It has driven out all of the people who could give $4K to a public school. As a result, the private school system has 28% of the kids but about the same amount of total funding.
Perhaps SPS should think differently about the whole problem and better harness the resources here in Seattle. Tom's shoe company provides a free pair to someone in need when you buy a pair. Perhaps Seattle might think about more enrichment and APP programs on a Tom's-like model.
It is so broken as is, might as well try something innovative.
About SBAC until recently the Feds were out to punish any district or school that tested less than 95% of its students. New law prohibits that.
About SBAC and graduation. I am not sure. There was some legislation introduced to junk SBAC passage as a graduation requirement; but I don't know what happened to it. I believe that SPI Chris Reykdahl is for junking SBAC as a graduation requirement.
Hopefully someone knows more than I about this.
-- Dan Dempsey
PEEU
Sure, money can buy you quality, but Seattle has money but people here would rather spend $8,000 to $30,000 on private elementary, than give $4,000 to their local PTA. Heck! Even if those private school folks gave $1,000 to their PTA and volunteered one day per month, they would make a HUGE positive difference in our schools.
Years of giving money and volunteering in the classroom and on fieldtrips and in afterschool programs and on labor-intensive PTSA boards and attending SPS advisory committee meetings and such has done little good, at least for my own children. Did my contributions help other students? Maybe, and that's why I did them. But whatever those theoretical benefits are, they sure didn't trickle up, down or around to my own kids, who had pretty poor experiences in SPS. We tried, and tried, and tried again...then ultimately didn't leave. There were a lot of little things that teachers and principals could have easily done to improve things, but they wouldn't. As Cap hill said, the problem is that SPS sucks. As a system, SPS simply lacks a culture of putting kids first.
When you see your child falling through the cracks, you don't throw a bunch of money down into the abyss with them--you throw them a rope so you can pull them the hell out of this district.
GoneBabyGone
How do you think we have superior jazz bands? Parents.
McDonald parents and JSIS parents raise over $250K per year for IAs (apparently, this is going down as the district seems to be worried over the parents' ability to keep it up and rightly so).
Many, many parents volunteer and many more wish they did have work schedules to be able to do so. (That said, every parent could volunteer a couple a times a year.)
And SPS loves this and takes advantage of it. You certainly don't hear them thanking all the parents and PTAs for funding all the FTE that they do. If tomorrow PTAs said no more, the budget crisis would be much worse.
"On the last day of my term as PTSA president, the principal used an interview in the Seattle times to announce that he was eliminating all of the 9th grade honors classes in LA/SS - without consulting families, without any process, without any plan - because there were too many white kids in the honors classes. After that, the principal refused to meet with parents, didn't attend curriculum night etc.
The problem isn't that Seattle people are selfish, the problem is that SPS sucks."
Fine example of Petty Little Dictators Syndrome.
The challenge as an educator is to provide each child with the opportunity to maximize their potential. That is what I mean by "equity". This principal cares nothing about maximizing each student's potential. The principal is apparently all about politically correct optics which has zero to do with education. The selection of materials and instructional strategies pushed by SPS contribute to large achievement gaps. --- Yet SPS changes nothing of substance and decides the elimination of honors classes is a solution. YUP SPS Sucks.
The unintended consequence of PLDS actors behavior, is to create a larger group in favor of charters, vouchers, and private education. ... The administration has been incredibly defective since I began watching carefully in 2006.
The SPS has an incredible resource in parents and yet it can not be bothered with parental thoughts and opinions. New definition of Insanity.
-- Dan Dempsey
Selfish Seattle
You've got to hand it to the people who no matter how bad it gets can keep smiling and moving forward.
Seriously, I don't know how they do it. Is it summer vacation yet?
--Regrets
@PEEU- My concerns about the SBAC do not center around whether my kids can pass the tests. That's the least of it. If you want to learn more about the reasons for opting out of these high-stakes, expensive, inequitable and time-consuming standardized tests, there are many articles and resources online.
Thanks,
-Seattle Parent
In contrast, the administrators, for the most part, seem to be interested only in career advancement. Why are we enabling these little career fiefdoms? They come up with low impact but expensive pet projects instead of supporting the teachers who are keeping it all together. It is truly time to clean house.
-SParent
To use Melissa's frequent quip, where's the courage of your convictions?
Publius
Giving time and money to a school's main programs or tutoring helps all kids including your own as the academic and/or social environment is improved, so parents who can give, should do so. But expecting your wish list to be enacted or even considered because you helped out, even if it's 20,000 dollars, is crazy.
William
A Northgate teacher is kvetching about "white flight" because people leave their geozone schools to go to Cascadia. But the kids I know who "fled" Northgate aren't white. And a couple of them still have siblings at Northgate. So, it's not white flight if you're not white and it's not fleeing if you leave one or more of your kids at the school you're "fleeing." Right?
Then someone at Wedgwood is blaming my white kid for being served in a self-contained HCC school instead of attending our "integrated neighborhood school," blaming me for not insisting that my neighborhood school meet my child's needs. Oh, Wedgwood parent, if only you had any idea how hard we tried (and for how many years) to get our neighborhood school to care a flying fig about our child's education. Years of meetings and emails and discussions and lobbying and suggestions and pleading. They wouldn't even allow walk-to math. The principal didn't believe in it. We tried so hard.
And somehow it's our fault that our kid is in school B instead of school A. Well, I have news for you. My kid would be white no matter which school she goes to. And she gets to go somewhere. She has a right to a basic education. And basic education includes hiCap education. It is her right. The challenge is not to carp about which of SPS's schools my child attends or what the color of her skin is. The issue is to make sure all the kids at all the schools are getting a great education. And they're not. Eyes on the real challenge: educating all 53,000 kids. Not just mine. Forget the one apple tree. We've got a whole orchard here. And some of the trees aren't getting enough sun. Some are root-bound. Some are planted too close together. Some need to be watered. Pay attention to all of them. Not just mine.
http://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/editorials/public-needs-to-know-how-legislators-are-fixing-education/article_dbb2b402-18c3-11e7-b0b7-a32b81643f16.html
"Years of meetings and emails and discussions and lobbying and suggestions and pleading. They wouldn't even allow walk-to math. The principal didn't believe in it. We tried so hard."
SPS sucks... because Petty Little Dictators dictate based only on personal preference unsupported by relevant data and no one holds these dictators accountable for their harmful actions. In nixing walk-to-math, this PLD demonstrates no interest in presenting a child with the opportunity to maximize learning and talents.
Apparently the bottom line for this administrator is convenient scheduling ease. Pretty easy to figure out why this principal didn't believe in walk to math.
Safety improvement? Red lights and crosswalks can not prevent distracted drivers from hitting children. This has to be one of the poorest decisions ever, SAFETY ...WTF.
Parents we need to stop this from happening! We had a 12 year old boy hit and nearly killed when SDOT changed the crosswalk just up the road on 15th.
This stinks!
-WMSP
Seattle's newest sanctioned homeless camp opened on Aurora Avenue North on Wednesday.
The site features 22 tiny houses with access to showers, electricity, and furniture.
For the first time, campers will also be allowed to bring something inside their houses that's never been allowed in a sanctioned homeless camp before: drugs and alcohol.
Are they kidding? RESMS will be very close to a drug camp? Please tell me this is not so.
RESMS Parent
Exasperated
I wonder if that big project on Holman which is close to being done is the one requesting the overpass removal. It might be unsightly for the 3rd floor dwellers?
walker
I called JAMS and they said tomorrow is the last day of the quarter. I care about that too... Last year I contacted SPS and they added in a quarter end date. It really sucks when there is homework missing etc.
JAMS mom
Doesn't it scare you that our administrators at the central and school levels could care less about a major school date? It shows about the level of academic commitment I've come to expect from SPS, I am sad to say. My child will make it through middle school but it is going to be because of care and support from home. Not the public school system.
Exasperated
Yes it really bugs me. When we get busy I forget to check on missing homework. And then there is a strict deadline with no late work allowed (after a point). Obviously, teachers have rules so students will learn to do things on time, and also it is hard to grade a bunch of different stuff at once. I want my kid to do things even if I discover it is late. However my kid won't turn it in if the teacher won't accept it. So, it is a process... The date should be on the calendar for middle school and high school families. Both first quarter and third quarter.
JAMS mom
In regards to Aurora Little Houses encampment being close to the school and the dangers involved. It's actually worse than you think. Because of the type of encampment it is, folks will be admitted without id. That means no one will know who is actually living at the encampment until they get id. Sexual offenders, serious criminals can all live there until they get an id. Once the get an id, they will be asked to leave if they fall into certain categories. People at the encampment are supposed to help folks get id. I'm not seeing that that will be a quick process.
Concerned
Concerned
~FHS85