Board Retreat Agenda Has Huge Issues
As I previously reported, the Board has one of its retreats tomorrow. The agenda is chockful of interesting items.
12:00-1:30pm Student Assignment Plan
1:30-2:00pm Board – Superintendent and Public Communications: Exploration of Alternatives
2:00-2:10pm Break
2:10-2:40pm Board Code of Conduct
I hope to attend at least part of this event.
10:00-10:15am
Agenda
Welcome and Icebreakers
10:15-11:15am Board Professional Development: Serving LGBTQ Students
11:15-11:30am 2017-18 Major Initiatives Preview
11:30am-12:00pm Lunch
10:15-11:15am Board Professional Development: Serving LGBTQ Students
11:15-11:30am 2017-18 Major Initiatives Preview
11:30am-12:00pm Lunch
12:00-1:30pm Student Assignment Plan
1:30-2:00pm Board – Superintendent and Public Communications: Exploration of Alternatives
2:00-2:10pm Break
2:10-2:40pm Board Code of Conduct
2:40-3:00pm Board Community Engagement Goal Reports
3:00pm
Adjourn I hope to attend at least part of this event.
Comments
This year's freshmen are the first class burdened with state graduation regulations that SPS is not planned, staffed, budgeted to handle. It's a disaster. It falls on my child and thousands of others in our city. Where the -- is the urgency to address it?
North of 85th
RS Parent
Big Decisions
messy
Get Creative
Ballard 175
Sealth 22
Franklin 88
Garfield 149
Ingraham 66
Hale 79
Rainier Beach 38
Roosevelt 199
West Seattle 74
The district can't seriously believe that Sealth, Rainier Beach, Ingraham, West Seattle, Hale and Franklin are going to have advanced enough course offerings for HCC kids. If you have 10 HCC juniors at a high school, that's not even enough to fill one class. What if some of them are sciency and some of them a mathy and some of them are Englishy and one of them is the next Mozart who doesn't really care about the academic subjects but just aces the tests effortlessly?
My personal opinion is that they have to offer north of the cut kids an HCC option that 1) they can get into and 2) will offer enough hard, advanced classes. I don't really care where they put it. But you can't be sending kids assigned to Hale to Roosevelt if there's no room for them there. You can't even be sending HCC kids who would be assigned to Roosevelt to Roosevelt if there's no room for them there.
For those enrolled (2016-17):
97% of HCC students enrolled at IHS (331 total) are from BHS/RHS/NHHS/IHS.
35% of HCC students enrolled at GHS (559 total) are from BHS/RHS/NHHS/IHS.
more numbers
One could argue nobody has equitable access now given how over capacity the schools are. We can only improve!
North HCwhere
And glad to see that they had done the math in the board agenda info and said, "33% of adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender are people of color." It can be really extra hard on students to be members of more than one minority group simultaneously.
Not many studies have been done on gifted students who are also LGBTQ, but Sanford Cohn did:
Cohn, Sanford J. (2002) 'Gifted students who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual,' in M. Neihart, S.M. Reis, N.M. Robinson and S.M. Moon (eds) The social and emotional development of gifted children. Washington, DC: Prufrock Press, pp. 145-153.
These young people belong to a minority within a minority; their numbers are not large. In a group of 3,000 students one might find fewer than 10 who are both gay and moderately gifted. "The likelihood of such individuals finding one another or even feeling safe seeking others like themselves is minuscule" (p. 146) For GLBTQ students who are exceptionally or profoundly gifted, an even smaller population, it is more difficult still.
A recent study (Peterson, J. and Rischar, H. (2000) "Gifted and gay: a study of the adolescent experience." Gifted Child Quarterly, 44: 231-246.) that focussed on the high school experience of GLB students identified three themes:
1) being "twice different" increased the likelihood of depression and social isolation and students seemed to attempt to shed one aspect of their "difference" by denying either their ability or their sexual orientation.
2) many were subjected in school to psychological or physical harassment and sought to avoid this by over-involvement in extracurricular activities, dropping out of school or running away.
3) none of the participants reported turning to adults for assistance
I hope the board will this type of intersectionality into account.
What does an Honors class mean for one high school? It means that advanced learners are not permitted to take a test twice. Classes are comprised of multi grade students.
"Board Special Meeting: Work Session: High School Re-visioning from 5:15-6:15 pm."
For us parents with middle school kids who will likely take honors classes, can you please be specific as to which high school(s) you are referring? It would be helpful as we learn more about Seattle high schools.
-Middle school parent
Electives are generally composed of multi grade students, arent they?
As far as having enough kids for a focused class, students who did not participate in advanced learning in middle school, may do very well in the IB program or in an AP course in high school.
I know quite a few students who took both AP and regular or remedial coursework, and went on to graduate with honors and do well in college.
It is now commonplace in "standards based grading" to allow students to take tests more than once. My middle schooler was expected to spend her lunch period retaking the math test as many times as she wanted if she wanted to get a better grade. It was a pretty maddening process as the teacher did not expect students to do well the first time and designed the test so that multiple retakes was the norm.
I suspect the HCC parent is referring to Nathan Hale. Hale is pretty famous for allowing students to re-test and/or re-schedule a test for when they feel prepared. I don't have a student there but I have a friend who teaches there and that teacher finds the amount of time she needs to spend accommodating testing ... maddening. She would rather spend that time teaching but the school culture regarding testing is very different from other schools.
I suspect that the "mentoring" class at Garfield this year was modeled on Hale. Hale's principal has been very active in the Core 24 committee and the new high school boundary committee. Hale is the high school that currently requires 24 credits so I suspect that rather that finding increased rigor at the other schools to meet Core 24, we will be to find Hale's strategies to achieve 24 credits to become more widespread.
- bulldog.
HP
Its one thing if you become ill.
( For example my daughter vomited before a big test. We thought it was perhaps nerves, bit the next day she had a full blown case of chicken pox. She did not retake the test btw)
But if most kids dont seem to understand the material, that sounds like the test is not well designed, &/or the teacher does not have a good handle on their grasp of the material.
Now, I have heard about teachers who have students do over assignments, for instance a comprehensive research paper, until they master it.
That sounds like a better use of time, or course it doesnt fit into the state testing fetish.
While I (sort of) understand the intent behind retakes and corrections--give kids another chance to learn the material and demonstrate that knowledge--at times it feels like it's just another form of grade inflation. Take as many tries as you like until you get a good score! Re: corrections, you don't really even have to know the material, since you can get help from someone else.
I'm curious to know whether HC students are treated differently than other students when it comes to test retakes and corrections. The impression I had from the earlier poster was that first scores "stuck" for HC students, but everyone else was offered retakes to improve their score? Does that extend to things like final exams, too? Does it happen in AP classes--when it does NOT on AP exams?
take2
HP