Tuesday Open Thread

The Washington Policy Center is have their "SolutionsSummit 2018" soon.  Among their discussion sections is education where they say, "How public charter schools are helping kids and saving money."  Wait, what?  I hear a LOT of whining from the right about how charters don't get as much money from states as traditional schools and now it's "we do more with less?"  Hmmm.

I attended the City Council's Select Committee on the Families and Education levy meeting yesterday.  Not great.  First, there was a pretty big crowd for 10:30 am; most people appeared to be those who work for non-profits in support of childcare, pre-K and public education sectors.  Many people signed up to speak as did I.  Usually, the public comments come first or just a little later but co-chair Rob Johnson announced that first there would be a pre-K presentation,then a K-12 presentation and THEN public comment.  He said, "Around noon."  Amazing that he thinks that all these people can sit for nearly two hours before addressing the Council.  I also note how confidently Early Learning head, Monica Aguirre, spoke about working with the district to find more pre-K space. 

Interestingly, CM Sally Bagshaw pointed out that there was not a lot of extra space anywhere in the district and Aguirre backpedaled and said they were looking for space in community centers.  The City didn't look for space in their own buildings first?  Bagshaw went on to note that School Board President Leslie Harris was in the audience.  There were only eight CMs there and six of them continued to look at their computer screens when she made that statement.  I thought that blindingly rude to not even acknowledge President Harris' presence.  Makes me wonder how those negotiations on working with the City will go.

Also on that note, I attended the Executive Committee meeting last week where it is discussed about needing to up the money for consultants who are guiding the process of the City and the district deciding on their partnership for Memorial Stadium and a possible downtown school.  This work is from April-August, 2018 with Triangle Associates.  Each side is paying $160K.  It also includes "public engagement" of three whole meetings and yet oddly, does not list "the public" or "taxpayers" as an audience for the public engagement plan.  Of course, there are very specific audiences for this work but these are two public entities that get their money to run from taxpayers.  Might be nice to include them.

To look for at tomorrow night's Board meeting:

- the long-promised presentation from the African American Male Advisory Committee
- intro and action on the contract for Denise Juneau, the superintendent-select
-guiding principles for BEX V (I have a copy of the ones for BEX IV so I look forward to comparing them)
- intro of a contract for a voice network from the Death Star named Black Box company for over $3.5M.
- intro of a BAR that would expand Native American Educational programming. 

Congrats to Cleveland and Ballard High Schools for their achievements in journalism excellence.

Members of Cleveland STEM and Ballard High School Journalism Programs attended the National High School Journalism Convention April 12-14 in San Francisco, California. Sponsored by National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), the semi-annual convention was the gathering place for over 5000 high school journalists from across the country. 

The Best of Show competition is held at all national conventions sponsored by the NSPA. Ballard High’s student newspaper, Talisman, won second place and “Vantage Point,” Cleveland High’s TV news broadcast, made the top ten in the competition. The Cleveland Publication (CPub) staff submitted an episode that examined gentrification in Seattle’s south end.

 What's on your mind?