Friday Open Thread
The next meeting about the reopening of Lincoln High School is scheduled for Monday, November 13th, location TBD.
Saturday director community meetings:
Pinkham - Northgate Library from 3:30-5:00 pm
Harris - Delridge Branch Library from 3:00-5:00 pm
Free cardiac screenings are coming to Ballard High School on November 1st from 9 am to 3 pm for students between 14-24 years old, regardless of where they attend school, from the Nick of Time Foundation.
The goals of the NoTF ECG Youth Heart Screenings:
The Times has a hand-wringing editorial about Betsy DeVos and what the protestors who went to her Bellevue event should be doing. What if those protestors just took the time to write to legislators or call or even go down to Olympia to advocate for our schools?
This self-serving narrative doesn't bother to acknowledge the many educators and parents that are working hard to communicate their views to the Legislature. It does not bother to acknowledge the work - no less existence of Washington's Paramount Duty - which has, in a very short period of time, made their group a force to be reckoned with. Most of all, the writer chose to use quotes from one protester and one person in the dinner but both on the side of choice. (It is unclear to me from the editorial if the protester was from the right or the left.)
Someone else not for DeVos? The Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Ralph Northam. Interestingly, former President Obama just gave a speech in favor of his election.
Saturday director community meetings:
Pinkham - Northgate Library from 3:30-5:00 pm
Harris - Delridge Branch Library from 3:00-5:00 pm
Free cardiac screenings are coming to Ballard High School on November 1st from 9 am to 3 pm for students between 14-24 years old, regardless of where they attend school, from the Nick of Time Foundation.
The goals of the NoTF ECG Youth Heart Screenings:
- To detect hidden heart conditions with the potential for sudden death in the young.
- To reduce sudden cardiac death through early detection and appropriate medical interventions, activity modification.
- To raise awareness and educate schools and communities about sudden cardiac arrest, warning symptoms, and the value of heart screening.
- Integrated screening programs utilizing ECG offer the only model proven to reliably identify children at risk for SCD
The Times has a hand-wringing editorial about Betsy DeVos and what the protestors who went to her Bellevue event should be doing. What if those protestors just took the time to write to legislators or call or even go down to Olympia to advocate for our schools?
This self-serving narrative doesn't bother to acknowledge the many educators and parents that are working hard to communicate their views to the Legislature. It does not bother to acknowledge the work - no less existence of Washington's Paramount Duty - which has, in a very short period of time, made their group a force to be reckoned with. Most of all, the writer chose to use quotes from one protester and one person in the dinner but both on the side of choice. (It is unclear to me from the editorial if the protester was from the right or the left.)
Someone else not for DeVos? The Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Ralph Northam. Interestingly, former President Obama just gave a speech in favor of his election.
One subject the pair likely won’t discuss, however, is their differences on K-12 education, the issue one recent poll found is most important to voters in the race. Northam represents a distinct departure from Obama’s emphasis on charter schools, support for high-stakes standardized tests, and tense relations with teachers unions. In fact, the lieutenant governor has explicitly deemphasized charters and critiqued the testing regime, while unions have sung his praises. His campaign is at once the first big battle against the privatization agenda of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—whose family gave more than $100,000 to his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie—and a kind of prototype for left-wing critics of Obama’s education agenda who hope Democrats will chart a new course on public schools.Oh snap! A Mississippi magnet school named for Jefferson Davis is to be renamed for former President Obama. The school, Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary, is one of the top performing elementaries in the state.
Davis Magnet IB PTA President Janelle Jefferson announced at the Jackson School Board meeting Tuesday evening that school stakeholders voted on Oct. 5 to rename the school Barack Obama Magnet IB.
“Jefferson Davis, although infamous in his own right, would probably not be too happy about a diverse school promoting the education of the very individuals he fought to keep enslaved being named after him,” she told the board.What's on your mind?
Comments
Highly Capable Services Advisory Committee meeting
Tuesday, Nov 7, 6:30-8:00, JSCEE auditorium
(note meetings used to be held at various HC sites, but most of this year's meetings will be at JSCEE)
-fyi
SPS Proposal for HCC
Spoiler alert: they're still being very cagey with their answers, but it continues to sound like they want to get rid of pathways.
HP
no guarantees
Goose/Gander
In the case of HCC, advanced learning kids are also protected by the WAC state law and need adequate access to advanced classes in their pathway as a right to a basic education.
As far as kids taking classes they want to take outside their pathway as a choice, that is in a different category. It will be painful for kids to geosplit from schools, but the district has done this over and over.
Yes the pain actually should be shared. But believe me, it is not! The pain has not been shared....HCC kids have been moved around like widgets over and over and over. It is part of the reason the parents are so active on this blog.
- T
http://thehill.com/opinion/education/356104-amazons-headquarters-search-is-a-wake-up-call-for-poor-computer-science
Amazon's not the only one looking for this. It's one thing to say that not every kid needs to be all STEM-ed up to the gills. Sure we need musicians and writers and explorers, too. But it's another thing to say that it's OK to for STEM-y kids to attend schools that are STEM deserts, schools where you can't even take 4 years of math in high school if you want to. Prohibiting kids from getting a strong STEM education is different from allowing students who don't want one to not access one.
-Parent
unclear
Marmauset
Just doing something doesn't mean you got anything done.
2014 - Whitman families scheduled to be moved to Eagle Staff are upset at the lack of planning at the Wilson Pacific campus. A promise is made by Flip Herndon and posted publicly on the SPS website that all Whitman families will be permitted to remain at Whitman if desired.
2016 - Ooops. Never mind. You can’t stay because Whitman is full.
2017 - Whitman dramatically under enrolled.
- recent history.
Curious
Sue
Curious
http://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/Enrollment%20Planning/Student%20Assignment%20Plan/SAP%20revisions%202018-19/STUDENT_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSITION_PLAN_2018-19_OperationsTrackedChanges_ada.pdf
N by NW
Seattle Public Schools > Departments > Enrollment Planning > Student Assignment Plan
N by NW
K-12 students with a choice assignment may transfer to their attendance area school for the next school year during Open Enrollment through May 31, as long as the student’s services needs can be met at that school and space is available.4.
>>>Students with a choice assignment can only switch back to their neighborhood school if SPACE IS AVAILABLE. That is a significant shift.
4 For attendance area schools, space avaiality depends on the seats available given the staffing cacpity at the school. To determine the total number of seats available at a grade level in a school, the district will multiply the target class sizes across each classroom given the number of teachers at each grade based on the staffing allocated by the Budget Office. For Option Schools, space availability is not limited to staffing capacity in the event that that there is still additional physical cacpity in the building. If demand increases and there is space available for consistent cohort sizes, more seats may be available.
(spelling mistakes part of draft document)
...off to read more.
-parent
Titanic
NE Parent
"Students with a choice assignment can only switch back to their neighborhood school if SPACE IS AVAILABLE."
How would this work then? They can't force a student to stay in language immersion if that really isn't working for them. Would they be assigned to another attendance area school with space? And what if all the attendance area schools were at capacity?
GLP
One way or another downtown is going to remove all choice. They changed capacity to this mysterious "staffing capacity." Which basically means someone in enrollment planning is going to decide how many teachers are assigned to a school and that is the end of the story.
If there is physical space for 100 students and there are 100 students on the wait list but .... the budget folks did not forecast this, then there is no requirement for enrollment planning to respond to parent demand. What happened at Whitman and Steven's last year is now going to be applied to every school.
It used to be that schools got an initial allocation in Feb. Then post open enrollment that allocation was adjusted based on choices and demand. This is a way for staff to say ... we are going to do what we plan to do. If you don't like, leave the district. Based on this year's less that expected enrollment, it is reasonable to say that parents are doing exactly that.
Your siblings are now at two schools? You moved but thought since there is plenty of space of your old school, you could stay? Doesn't matter. You don't have any choice. You will be assigned.
- sad parent
I suspect your thoughts are true. I suspect the lower than predicted enrollment is exactly because of the lack of choice. Parents are trying to choose a school that is a best fit for their child and if that opportunity is not available - if they can - they go elsewhere. It is not like you get to repeat childhood for your son/daughter if you make a mistake. If based on your experience and knowledge of your child you can pursue a path that you perceive is better for them you will. No need to screw your child on comply with an unwilling and unresponsive bureaucracy.
For the past few years choice has been artificially limited. The wait lists may move, but most often don't. The scenarios I can think of...There is not an understanding in Enrollment Planning of how the waitlist swirl works, and as such they don't move any lists because they don't understand how moving one list can move multiple lists. Or, they simply don't have the skill in house to understand the wait list swirl so they don't move the lists because it is beyond their understanding. Or, they don't care at all and they don't move the list because it is less work for them to just ignore a couple of months of anxious parents and then keep doing what they're doing - maintain employment as the number one priority. Middle finger up to the families and students.
It really is not a way to run a school district.
-Pfft
With such wealth, I suspect Seattle's opportunity gap will continue to grow. White students, with wealthy parents, will continue to excel years beyond grade level expectation and the gap will continue to widen. If we were in a district where white students did not excel two years above their peers- the gap would not be as large. It would be interesting to compare test scores of students from middle income families to those in high income bracket.
Yup and that's a point that needs to be said, over and over. SPS is doing really well with white kids (but yes, would be good to see a breakout by FRL and/or address). That ability to serve white kids makes the gap with black kids look huge. To SPS' credit, the needle is moving for African-American students, albeit slowly.
NE Parent
just sad