Seattle Schools Community Forum

 In what feels like somewhat toned-down endorsements, the Seattle Times has endorsed Laura Marie Rivera for the District 4 seat and Michelle Sarju for the District 5 seat.

As you may have heard, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down an opinion this week that a cheerleader’s rant on SnapChat after she did not make the varsity squad was speech protected by the First Amendment.

After Barrack Obama became president, there was this after-glow as if “now we’re in a post-racial time in America.” But that wasn’t true, was it?  Things changed in 2016 when Former Guy came into office. He  took the lid off of what was already a simmering pot of injustice, spit into the pot and then watched it boil over. The discussion around Critical Race Theory comes from this confluence of two things. The so-called woke movement and the very real white nationalist movement via the Former Guy.  The white nationalist movement which desperately wants a continuation of the codification of the white gaze of U.S. History and knows that the way to keep that going is thru public education. And that means kids. I may have used this paraphrased quote before - from Hitler, no less - “ If I have the children, I don’t need their parents.”

 Hello from sunny Arizona (it’s now down under 100 degrees so bearable but I see Seattle is heating up)!

Time for a discussion.  I had decided to research CRT (in this case, Critical Race Theory, but there is also Culturally Relevant Teaching) because of the tsunami of arguing, bill writing, etc. in the news.  I am hoping to do this as a series of posts because there is a lot to cover. This first post - for those who would like to learn more - is made up of links to provide information, both pro and con. I do want to note that back in 2013-2014, SPS  had an issue with a teacher at The Center School, Jon Greenberg, who had been teaching about race and equity for a long time before one family objected. The SEA stood with Greenberg.  What it seems to have come down to then, as in now, is teaching versus preaching. 

  Vaccination progress as of Friday, 6/18:

It is great that SCPTSA has been lending a hand to directors in organizing community meetings. If you have joined one of these meetings, you can see there can be 50,75,100 participants (one meeting had 300 people!) This, of course, is far more any regular in-person meeting. However, I also see that SCPTSA tends to call on people we hear from all the time. And SCPTSA knows who these people are.  And note to directors, it is YOUR job to make sure that multiple outlets know when you have a meeting. There is nothing about this at the SPS website. That’s on Director Dury.   Via SCPTSA Facebook page: Dear Community, The school year is almost over! Seattle Council PTSA is working with school board directors to set up community meetings to facilitate engagement with their constituents over the summer. Last year we hosted a Student Town Hall with over 300 participants. We are working on a similar event - stay tuned! We will be hosing a community meeting with Erin Dury, School Board Director for

 I see this week is the end of SPS’ school year and that means graduation. Congrats to ALL the graduates and their families. What a long and difficult year for all so kudos for all the hard work. Best wishes for all the grads! On a less happy but no less serious note, the district has announced that remote learning for next year will ONLY be a pilot program. (Bold mine) While we are taking all the necessary steps to ensure in-person learning is safe and welcoming for all students, we will also pilot virtual options for a small population of K-12 students. A virtual option for preschool students will not be offered. Starting with a small virtual option pilot will best promote the district's goals for racial equity and will provide important data and feedback should the district decide to develop larger scale future virtual learning options.     For Fall 2021, there will be a limited number of students in grades K-12 who can participate in this virtual learning option. SPS will first

 Superintendent Brent Jones is certainly getting busy in a big way. From SPS Communications , an announcement of the newly-formed Office of Strategy Deployment and Responsiveness (SDR). This office will report directly to Deputy Superintendent Rob Gannon. The Office of Strategy Deployment and Responsiveness will work to bring strategic alignment and coherence to district initiatives in support of student outcomes. Providing cross-departmental and district-wide project management and coordination including timelines, deliverables, reporting channels, and ownership. Monitoring deployment of strategies and providing system accountability to students, families, schools, and staff. Developing and supporting a clear escalation path and resolution structure for key issues and decisions. Ensuring alignment and a consistent, coordinated cadence of internal and external communications; and Supporting district-wide knowledge management. The first task of the new office is to support a successful

 There is a group called “ We Heart Seattle” , led by Andrea Suarez, who have been very good at working with the homeless.  Andrea reports on their Facebook page that a man named Nicholas Bjarnson overdosed at the encampment next to Broadview-Thomson K-8 on May 28th. He was 35 years old.  In her posts, Ms. Suarez seems unhappy with “turf wars” and said, “Keeping people, especially addicts, comfortable in parks, on schoolyards or anywhere until they are ready is nothing short of assisted suicide. Please wake up Seattle.” We Heart Seattle’s mission statement:

 Earlier this week, I put up the link and info about Enrollment/Budget per the Work Session this week on that topic. Here’s the link and what I had seen in the documentation at that time. I listened into the Enrollment portion of the Work Session yesterday. (I will say that the budget looks pretty bad and they are going to use ESSER money to mitigate.)

There are a couple of Work Sessions this week. Luckily, with Work Sessions, staff does attach the documentation (which they do not for Board committee meetings). The first one is Monday, June 6th. Capital Programs Semi-Annual Report; Student Assignment Transition Plan and Boundaries Agenda and documentation here. I confess I have not yet read the documentation on this one yet - it’s 95 pages.  SPS HAS opened up in-person meetings but you need to register in advance. Details on the agenda. The next one is Wednesday , Annual Enrollment Report and Capacity Evaluation; Budget.

One interesting development over this year is not just the churn of employees in senior leadership leaving but the addition of new positions. For example, Dr. Concie Pedroza, who was head of Student Services, has now been made associate superintendent. So SPS has both a deputy superintendent (Rob Gannon) AND an associate superintendent? I do hope to find out their salaries because it’s rare at SPS to either be in a new position and not be well-paid OR bumped up and not get a raise.

 It appears the volume is going higher on the situation at Broadview-Thomson K-8 over the homeless encampment on district property next to the school. Here comes this article from the Urbanist where most of the candidates for mayor weigh in. Bruce Harrell, who did spend a lot of time on the Seattle City Council and knew about homeless issues then, weighs in:

Who is going to blink first - Mayor Jenny Durkin or Board President Chandra Hampson?  I ask because the homeless situation in Seattle seems to be escalating so what of the homeless encampment at Broadview-Thomson K-8?