School Board Notes for September 20, 2017

I watched about half the Board meeting last night and it was worth it because of the interesting comments made, particularly by the Superintendent.

I will highlight topics but there was some information on enrollment numbers as well as high schools that you might want to look for and read.


Highlights
- For the third year in a row, Hawthorne Elementary has been recognized with a 2017 Partnership School Award from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University. 

Hawthorne was recognized for making excellent progress in strengthening and sustaining a comprehensive program of school, family, and community partnerships.       

Superintendent Nyland had principal Sandra Scott come to the meeting to apprise the Board on the progress this school near Columbia City has made.

Principal Scott explained that she had come alone as her teachers and staff were doing coffee chats with families (this probably explains why her school has made such stellar progress - families come first).  She explained how, several years back, her school barely had 200 students but is now up over 400 students.  The PTA had about 8 parents and now has about 80.

Frankly, none of what she said was particularly innovative. What is really is about is tenacity and making connections.  She said that once some parents were in the fold, they brought others along.  Those parents then told non-Hawthorne parents about how welcoming the school was and those new parents came in.  They had potlucks.  They found computer classes for parents at local libraries and provided childcare.

I think that Principal Scott looks like one of many "gem" principals this district has.  Congrats to that school community.

- The district also recognized its long-term partnership with El Centro de la Raza, which has been 30+ years.  An irony to me is that about 15 years ago, the district was, once again, not being supportive of a program - Proyecto Saber - which is a program for Hispanic students to keep them in school.  Ballard and Chief Sealth were desperate to keep their programs and the district kept saying there was not money for the program.  I'm glad the program prevailed.

A diverse district has to stand by its partnerships with groups affiliated with the populations it serves. 

- The Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments on the final fulfillment of the McCleary case on October 24th.  I hope to be in the audience to listen.

- Directors Patu, Peters and Burke met with City Council members Juarez and Bagshaw about the Seattle Center agreement that the district and City signed.  The big news seems to be a change in plans.  The stadium would be rebuilt (maybe with City help) and the City would help find an adjacent location for a new high school.  Hmm.

- The City's Families & Education levy is up for renewal in November 2018.  The Superintendent, as he does sometimes in his comments, diverted to mention the Pre-K levy and then laughed.  I wish he could make his comments shorter and more succinct.   He did stated that it would be important to sit down with the next mayor to talk about "how we partner." 

Again, to note, if the new mayor decides to include charter schools in levy funding as they are "public" schools, I suspect that levy might have some problems.

- He talked about the Student Assignment Plan and its discussion at the last Board retreat a couple of weeks ago.  He said there needs to be "a lot" of community engagement, clarifying language on "school choice," SPED, capacity and designated pathways for high school HCC.  Oh, and boundaries.

- He stated that SPS had grown by 8,000 students over the last 10 years.  (Editor's note:This is a lot of growth especially for a mid-urban district.)  He said, "Now it has slowed" and "looks steady."  He said the current enrollment is "about what it was last year" and is "considerably" below projections.  He said the Board had allocated $4M for mitigation; $2M for fall enrollment and $2M for "race and equity mitigation."  I'll have to ask how those spending choices will be determined. 

He said there are about a dozen teaching positions affected and stated that no one would be let go but those staff would have  to change schools. 

- He said the district had dedicated funding to earthquake safety and that the repairs have been done "on all schools."  I don't think that can be so because all of BEX IV and BTA IV dollars have not been spent on their projects, some that include earthquake shoring up.

Board Comments

- Director Geary's son, Henry, gave remarks on the dais as the Roosevelt representative.  He stated that students have concerns around parking at RHS because the one parking lot has portables in it and is restricted to staff.  He said that the surrounding neighborhood is zoned and that students can't park there more than two hours without getting a ticket.  He also said that there are 100 (!) girls on the swim team and there is not enough room/time for practice.  He also noted that the later start time means less time after school for activities.

I miss that the high schools seem to have lost their Student Senate, perhaps to complicated schedules.  But if ever there were a time for high school students to speak in one voice, it's now.

- Director Geary said that that she would be trying to have her community meetings at Solid Ground, the housing development where SPS parent, Charleena Lyles, killed by police earlier this year. 

- Director Burke, in what I would consider a kindness, said about the enrollment shortfall that staff shouldn't beat themselves up but look for what data might have been missed and get better from each experience.

- Director Blanford, in an odd turn of phrase, thank Henry Geary for his mother's time and said "we'll give her back to you soon."  Does he know something we don't?

Part Two will be speakers' voices which were fairly evenly split over two issues - HCC and the use of the land at Fort Lawton.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Parking is always a problem, but I would say that staff should get priority over students. Maybe they can walk or carpool? Yes, the later start time means less time for after school activities, but it worth it for healthier students. I hope they realize that. Finally, BHS still has student senate. -TeacherMom
Geesh! said…
As the district works with the city of Seattle, the prestigious Lakeside school will be opening a less expensive school near the Space Needle. For $17K, your child can take online classes!!! No opportunity for sports.


http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/lakeside-opening-second-cheaper-school-in-shadow-of-space-needle/
Stu said…
<>

Ah, the bashing begins. There's no need to tear something down to build yourself up.

According to the article, and online information, the students at the new school "will take courses in five areas: English, history and social sciences, math and computational thinking, science and Spanish. They’ll complete two electives through the Global Online Academy, a consortium of independent schools of which Lakeside is a founding member." The Online Academy is an incredibly rigorous program developed by Lakeside with a number of other international private schools. Our son got to take two of those courses a couple of years ago and they were excellent. It's just another method of learning and another way to offer classes that a small school might not be able to offer all the time.

While I question a high school education that doesn't offer the arts or athletics, my main question with the new Lakeside school is why they chose Spanish over Chinese.

stu
Anonymous said…
Regarding Teacher Mom post - I think the issue at RHS that I heard is not about teachers getting priority for parking in the lot, but I heard that the lot had a lot of empty spots during the day, so that maybe there were more spots available that could possibly be given to students (by seniority and lottery?). Regarding lack of parking outside of school, this is a huge problem and how it relates to the swim team....there are 100 swimmers trying to get from Evans pool at Greenlake to RHS in the morning. There is not enough time between practice and bell time to walk or take a bus so kids have to drive. They do find carpools and I believe some parents are helping, but when they get to school, there is no parking. It is also really frustrating about the lack of pool space/time for high school swimmers, but I believe this is a PNW issue beyond Seattle Public Schools. Good for him for speaking up about these issues at the school board meeting.

NE Mom of 3
Cap hill said…
Kudos to the the Hawthorne Principal and +1 on your comment that when families come first, schools tend to make more progress (in my humble experience). A great example of a school that despite the so called funding issues, is able to excel and receive national recognition.

Which really begs the question of why this approach is not required and systematized throughout SPS. The district provides a pretty good proxy for school engagement of families through the annual climate survey. Hawthorne is right about at the district average. My kids have attended schools where the engagement numbers are 20pts lower than the district average, and less than half of families say that the school effectively partners with or communicates to families. And this is the case year after year. It's a glaring example of a massive organizational culture problem.

My own personal view is that while SPS is incredibly proactive about funding issues and growing its budget, it is less determined to make sure that every school engages their family community effectively. How much more could we get done if we had better leadership in many of these buildings, working with and building up family support organizations?

Cap Hill
Is a 100 a lot for a swim team? I ask that honestly; I don't know. Maybe parents could organize a bus.

Cap hill, yes, interesting that Hawthorne gets this award for a third time and so why isn't the district rolling out their pattern everywhere.

Anonymous said…
Melissa - Yes, 100 is a huge size for a 3A High School girls swim team. If you break it down, the pool at Evans has 6 lanes. If 100 people showed up at practice, that would be 16 - 17 kids per lane for a 90 minute or so practice. I can't even imagine how they do it. I'm pretty sure 100 is a record by far for RHS. I think the coach has had to be very creative. On top of that, Evans pool is shutting down for maintenance right as they start training for post-season meets (Metro/District/State).

A bus is a great idea. I don't have a kid on the team/my daughter who is a competitive swimmer is younger. I am not totally in the know of what they have all discussed, but if I had a child on the team, I would definitely be interested in exploring that option.

NE Mom of 3
Anonymous said…
We had over 100 swimmers on our swim team, our coach rotated kids in and out of the pool. Some girls did dryland training and then got in the water, and then switched around. I thought it was a good solution but some girls did end up quitting. I think that was kind of the point. I'm glad the team has 100 girls that's really great for swimming!

Teacherswimmer
Geesh said…
Bashing, Stu? Looks like the only person bashing is you.

Online learning is not for everyone. There are many learning styles.
Geesh said…
As an aside, Lakeside had a terrific Chinese language teacher. The individual quit because Lakeside did not want the individual to work more than 20 hours a week. Lakeside did not want to pay for benefits.



Jet City mom said…
My daughter was swim team at Garfield, and their practices were after school as I am pretty sure Ballards are as well.
Of course they dont have the transportation issue Roosevelt does, but meets are after school, so it makes sense practices are too.

What are they going to do when Evans closes? That will be for a whole month, I hear.

100 seems an enormous size for a school team unless you have JV and Varsity who practice on different days.
School teams are about participation more than eliteness, so competitions/ games are designed for everyone to participate and learn.

At least that has been our experience with the non tryout sports.
Anonymous said…
Jet City Mom - RHS practiced after school until the bell times moved later. Now after school pool time competes with community center swim lessons and club swim teams. Again, I don't have a child on the girls swim team, but from what I heard, RHS is using the shallow end section of the pool at Helene Madison after school when Evans closes. I believe they do have a JV and Varsity but I'm not aware how they are running practices. Love no cut sports and 2 of my 3 kids are competitive swimmers year round so I love swimming, but the Pacific Northwest is really short on pools for the population and many of the pools they have are on life support due to their age.

NE Mom of 3
Jet City mom said…
ITA with you on pools.
I dont think we have added any new public pools for 50 years and our population has grown a tad since then.
Swimmng is an important life skill, especially for those living in an area like this, surrounded by rivers and lakes and bays.

We can sure get pretty invested in professional sport arenas however.

But really, we should take advantage of where we are.
Id build more pools, its a wonderful lifelong sport, plus knowing how to swimh could save someones life someday.
Anonymous said…
McMinnomins Anderson School pool in Bothell and the surrounding facility of family-friendly indoor and outdoor dining plus a movie theater would be a fabulous addition to Magnuson Park.

McMinnomin 4Mayor
Anonymous said…
Magnolia Pool was new in the mid 1990s.

Of course, they went cheap and built it as an "outdoor pool" the wisdom of which I questioned at the time.

northwesterner
Jet City mom said…
The outdoor pools cant serve a school. Mounger, can barely serve the Magnolia community with its short season.
Its too bad they couldnt have expanded the schedule this year, the demand is certainly there.
Pool Robin Hood said…
Doesn't the city have eminent domain? We could take over the private pool clubs and make them public. The numbers are on our side for sure.
Anonymous said…
I'm trying to understand who would take a gamble on the Lakeside lite school - it seems too bare bones for the money, and the size clearly indicates "experiment."

tough sell
Anonymous said…
I believe Hale practices before school at Meadowbrook Pool but you can walk between the two. We could definitely use another pool near Roosevelt. Roosevelt has one of the better public school swim teams.

HP
Anonymous said…
For many years the RHS women's swim team practiced before school. That was with the old start times, so practice started at 5am. It only changed to after school for one or two years before going back to before school. The team was smaller when practice was that early.

-HS Parent
A pool at the reservoir plus playfields - this city needs more ways for everyone to be active. Maple Leaf's covered reservoir is getting used a lot.

HS Parent, I sense some irony there in your comment.
Anonymous said…
The city is limited as to what it can build on top of the reservoir. Playfields would be okay but a pool would be too heavy most likely. What about moving Roosevelt's field to the top of the reservoir and putting the pool where Roosevelt's field is?

HP
Eric B said…
HP, I'd put the pool floor on the reservoir floor and the field above, sort of like Medgar Evers down by Garfield. The reservoir floor can definitely take the pool weight, so you'd just have to build some walls. Or just fill the entire reservoir and have the largest pool in the city. :)
Eric B said…
PS I'm thinking of the reservoir at 15th and 75th NE, assuming SPU doesn't need it as a reservoir anymore. I think that's the direction they were going since it's been drained for months.
Anonymous said…
Ballard swim teams practice in the morning - 6:30am-8:30am - have done so for the past two years. But their start times didn't change this year so no issue there. It's great to have kiddo home by 4pm with plenty of time for homework, dinner with family, and in bed by 9pm.

I wish all sports practiced in the a.m. like that with the new start times..

QA Parent

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