Tuesday Open Thread
The bus strike continues. What are you seeing/hearing at your school? From the district:
The much-needed Equity for HiCap bill (SHB 2927) is in trouble.
Our best chance is making PHONE CALLS to the following two people (script below):
Please call before 10am this morning if possible, but still call even if it's later in the day.
Rep. Timm Ormsby, Chair of Appropriations committee, (360) 786-7946
Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, Chair of Education committee, (360) 786-7944
Script (speak politely but with passion, feel free to edit or just read it as is):
What's om your mind?
As the bus strike continues, we want to acknowledge the burden on Seattle families. More than 12,000 of our 54,000 students ride a First Student bus. The strike hits these families hard. We hear your frustration.The district is looking for volunteers for their Family Engagement Task Force.
We have been asked what the district can do.
Student safety comes first. The best way forward is for the union and First Student to quickly settle their dispute. Until they do so, the safest transportation option remains with what families and their communities of support can provide.
Some First Student drivers have decided not to strike. As they report to work, we are asking First Student to prioritize bus routes that serve students in special education and those in underserved communities (e.g. Title I schools). As of Monday, Feb. 5, about 70 of the 395 regular First Student drivers had completed approximately 260 daily routes (including both bell tiers).
For now, the best course of action is urging both sides to find middle ground. We will use the website and social media Facebook and Twitter pages to provide regular updates. Thank you for your continued patience.
Seattle Public Schools is seeking members for the Family Engagement Task Force, which will convene from February until May 2018. The application deadline is Feb. 19, 2018.From Washington's Paramount Duty Facebook page:
The Family Engagement Task Force was formed to bring the district's family engagement work into alignment and identify areas for additional support.
More information about the task force and application is available online and can be translated with the dropdown menu on the top right corner of the website. If you have questions, please email familypartnerships@seattleschools.org.
The much-needed Equity for HiCap bill (SHB 2927) is in trouble.
Our best chance is making PHONE CALLS to the following two people (script below):
Please call before 10am this morning if possible, but still call even if it's later in the day.
Rep. Timm Ormsby, Chair of Appropriations committee, (360) 786-7946
Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, Chair of Education committee, (360) 786-7944
Script (speak politely but with passion, feel free to edit or just read it as is):
I am calling in support of SHB 2927, Equity for HiCap, and ask that it be heard in appropriations today. This bill is essential to pass this session, it is a social justice issue. Without this bill, districts can continue to discriminate against low-income students, english language learners, homeless and migrant students, students of color, and students with disabilities - who are more than twice as likely to NOT be identified for highly capable programs, even if they have the SAME level of achievement. This bill mandates equitable practices for districts - and they really work. Please pass SHB 2927 through appropriations before the deadline. Thank you.Please drop what you are doing, and make a quick call right now.
What's om your mind?
Comments
Be ashamed
"Providing access to a good education for all students" requires acknowledging that not all students need the same thing.
But yes, the proposed bill would be expensive, and it's vague enough that it might not accomplish the intended goal anyway. If it doesn't pass, perhaps they can focus on strengthening the cheaper components, such as requiring local norms based on specific criteria (rather than the current vagueness).
Not ashamed
I won't hold my breath, though.
Francis
wondering
First the connection is fairly weak. At the end of the unit, the kids are going to discuss how being transgender and black is less privileged. And let's leave alone why of all the issues being picked this was the only one: not general LBGTQ awareness or bullying or discussing any other ethnic group in the district.
But more troubling to me is there going to show a video about a family that transitioned there very young child. And this is where I get super uncomfortable. I am very troubled by the decision to use hormones and surgery on young non gender conforming children.
I just finish reading this essay by one such girl that I found persuasive:
https://4thwavenow.com/2018/01/18/i-hated-her-guts-at-the-time-a-trans-desister-and-her-mom-tell-their-story/
In essence, are we rushing to tell our non gender conforming children they must alter their bodies to be accepted?
This is very much to me a morally ambiguous and murky area that I don't appreciate the school entering into.
-Troubled
outta control
This doesn't mean you are against anything - it means you want to know what your child is being told in school by educators especially on a sensitive subject. I think that is a right every parent has.
That this seems to not be happening is indeed troubling.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/03/17/digital-shorts-parenting-transgender-child-orig.cnn/video/playlists/digital-short-films-t1-for-specials-page/
Was the video above the one you watched and the one to be shown, @Troubled? It seems like something to be watched by parents and teachers, as a means of opening the conversation about gender, but somehow not geared to elementary students (13 minutes loooong, with lots of parent talk). The child is very young, so surgery and hormones are not really part of the conversation, but they briefly discuss suicide and that's where I think it pushes the boundaries in terms of being appropriate to student sensitivities at that age. It's like it puts an idea into a young child's head - suicide as an out to adversity - that maybe didn't even cross their minds previously. And more importantly...it's BLM week and the video is profiling a white family's experiences with gender identity. Just odd as a part of BLM week.
mixed messaging
Time 2 Plan
Not kidding
SWBAT compare the impact of droughts to immigrants and farm workers in contrast to
privileged, white workers.
Important terms to know beforehand:
● Affluence - wealthy.
● Entitlement - access to privilege and/or deserving of privilege.
● Immigrant farm workers- hired farm workers coming from Mexico, and are usually
undocumented.
Students, in their groups, using their findings from the readings, video clips, and discussions will create a list - “Environmental Manifesto of Action” - of practices, beliefs and values that exhibit ways of counteracting “environmental racism” in the midst of climate/environmental catastrophe impacting people of color/low-income communities.
mixed messaging
On both issues, she was ignored and overruled by her superiors.
Seattle Mom
Did SPS Directors or administrators vet the instructional goals and materials before approving districtwide participation? What was the process and who voted for what? Or did they just blindly accept that the hatever it was would be good and appropriate? Where's the accountability here? Activist teachers can easily cross the line if left unchecked.
Oversight Please
"Explain that gender isn’t always so easy to identify. If our doctor and our parents assign us a gender and it matches what we feel inside, then we can say we are cisgender. However, we
may look like what society says a girl or boy should look like, but inside, we feel something
different than just boy or just girl, we are somewhere in between, we can say that we are
gender-expansive or transgender."
Seattle Mom
I think it is very unlikely that there will be more waitlist movement in 2019.
The decision to open Lincoln with only grades 9 and 10 means that the most crowded schools are only going to see very minimal capacity relief in 2019. It is possible that some of the extra portables could be removed at Ballard, Garfield and Roosevelt. That is not likely to trigger a significant number of choice seats.
Choice seats at those schools will be largely dependent upon Ingraham and Lincoln. Both Ingraham and Lincoln will have extra space. 2019 Choice seats will most likely be proportionate to students who opt to leave Roosevelt, Ballard or Garfield for Ingraham or Lincoln.
Students are to watch short videos - one a grainy clip of Bill Clinton at a recent NAACP convention, another of a senator apologizing for signing the bill, and the third, a trailer for the Central Park Five. Students are to make a speech to persuade the Senate for or against the 1984 bill (can you guess which perspective most students will take?). They have not read the language, been given alternative viewpoints, or been provided with much in the way of statistics. Is the topic worthy of discussion? Absolutely. Are students being given balanced info, or simply being told how to think? That, perhaps, is the bigger question.
review needed
Garfield Parent
The SEE and Soup for Teachers groups don't seem realize they are creating "enemies" who were previously like-minded. It's a shame that this has become a game of whoever can be the furthest left, most progressive is somehow better than everyone else. I see it eventually backfiring badly, unfortunately.
Once again, we are fairly like-minded around here. People would rise to the occasion if asked, but instead this crap is forced on parents and our kids. It's not well-thought out. No one is trained. It's how Trump ended-up getting elected. Instead of uniting, dividing is the rule.
But yes, this division among progressives is really sad and yes, it helped to elect Trump.
My middle schooler, by contrast, had to write a biography, in French, on an influential African American historical figure of his choosing for French class this week. THAT is an appropriate way to integrate a particular topic focus into classroom teaching objectives.
Garfield (and Meany) Parent
Time 2 Plan